A multimedia starter kit is geared to customers, integrators and OEMs developing a broad scope of the convergent processing applications in which the Blackfin processor excels.

Answering the demand for tools that help reduce time to market for embedded systems designs, Analog Devices has announced the Blackfin Multimedia Starter Kit, which is geared to customers, integrators and OEMs developing a broad scope of the convergent processing applications in which Blackfin excels, including next-generation digital radio, mobile TV, automotive and home entertainment, and networked and streaming media applications. The Blackfin Multimedia Starter Kit is supported by the new Release 4.5 of Analog Devices' VisualDSP++ integrated software development and debugging environment for Blackfin, SHARC and TigerSHARC processors. 'It's important for us to provide easy access to standards-based multimedia software and tools for our customers because they are constantly driving to build better applications, faster, at a lower system cost', said Jerry McGuire, General Manager, Convergent Platforms and Services Group, Analog Devices.

'The Blackfin Multimedia Starter Kit is yet another way that we help developers get nearer to the capabilities of their end-products sooner'.

The Blackfin Multimedia Starter Kit provides the building blocks for a range of multimedia applications, which enables designers to focus on product differentiation by bypassing lower-level, time-consuming tasks.

It includes Blackfin EZ-Kit Lite evaluation hardware and software and EZ-Extender daughter cards in addition to the Blackfin SDK CD, which contains specifically designed multimedia software code that engineers can use to render and capture video and audio streams with various off-the-shelf multimedia devices.

Sample code, how-to documents, and a selection of encoders and decoders provide a head start on development.

Multimedia algorithms available in the starter kit include JPEG, MJPEG, Ogg Vorbis, Speex and a simple raster graphics package (SRGP).

Also included are utilities for video and image processing, as well as high-speed Blackfin and PC communication drivers and utilities.

The Multimedia Starter Kit will be immediately available for the ADSP-BF561, with support for additional processors to follow.

Licensed users who already have the ADSP-BF561 Blackfin EZ-Kit Lite and the USB-LAN EZ-Extender and Audio-Video (A-V) EZ-Extender daughter boards may download the Blackfin SDK free of charge.

In addition to supporting the new Blackfin Multimedia Starter Kit, VisualDSP++ Release 4.5 includes several new productivity-enhancing capabilities to the already robust and feature-rich integrated development and debugging environment.

VisualDSP++ Release 4.5 includes many new components including a compiler 'commentary track' that offers logical improvement suggestions to streamline code, enhancements to the manner in which users connect/disconnect from the target board for added stability, and a Linker Description File (LDF) generator wizard for fine-tuning a once complex step in the build process.

Additional new features include a scriptable flash memory programmer, added exposure and access to hardware breakpoints, and caching project dependencies to improve build times.

An upgrade to Release 4.5 is free of charge to all registered users of VisualDSP++; licensed users of the EZ-Kit Lite evaluation platform may also update their evaluation version of VisualDSP++ software at no charge.

More information and a free 90-day test drive download are available from the Analog Devices website.