The increase in digital recording by consumers has led to the fast-paced growth in digital media applications, including digital still cameras, digital camcorders and video-enabled mobile phones. The market for digital still cameras alone has been growing rapidly, reaching over 60 million units in 2004 [Source: CIPA]. The market for digital camcorders reached a solid 10 million units in 2004 [Source: IDC].

Today, consumers experience high resolution still images from their digital still camera but only mediocre video quality. Conversely, camcorder still image quality and processing speed lags far behind traditional digital still cameras. Consumers are increasingly expecting high definition video due to rapidly falling HDTV and PC prices with the standard set by still image quality. High definition camcorders offer much better video quality, but are expensive and cumbersome due to tape-based recording. Fortunately, new video compression standards provide the compression efficiency needed for high definition video recording using flash-based memory. Because of these market changes, the industry is seeing an inflexion point as enthusiasts and amateurs alike demand the kind of video quality they have come to enjoy from their digital camera—merged in one affordable combination digital still and video device. The high definition experience has become the expectation. 

Ambarella’s ambition is to provide a solution that simultaneously delivers high-quality digital still and high definition digital video capabilities at a mainstream consumer price-point. This requires the latest video processing, image processing and video compression technology--all in an integrated low power platform.