HDMI to USB 3.0 Capture Card Reference Design

Abstract

Now-a-days modern high-end camera have HDMI/MHL out ports for streaming video and audio signals at higher rates. These high-end cameras are not compatible with host machines like PC, as PC also have HDMI out port. As USB is a common interface that enables communication between devices and a host controller, this project aims at developing a reference design of USB 3.0 application for bridging the gap between the HDMI/MHL sources and the host machine. EzUSB FX3 is SuperSpeed peripheral controller which is used to add USB 3.0 functionality to a device. It also provides powerful integrated and fully configurable GPIF II interface for connecting devices like ASIC, FPGA seamlessly. This USB 3.0 application is compatible with HDMI 1.4 and MHL 2.1 sources which enables streaming high data rate audio and video signals to USB host machine. HDCP protected HDMI signal is received by HDMI receiver and then modified, to achieve maximum bandwidth of GPIF II interface, to send to host through EzUSB FX3. EzUSB FX3 poses bandwidth constraints for streaming Ultra HD resolutions, this constraint is met by reducing bits per pixel which is done through YUV to NV12 color conversion by buffering the video frame using external memory. The capture card board is brought up to enumerate as a composite device and tested for video resolutions, like Ultra HD (3840 * 2160 @ 30 FPS), HD (1920 * 1080 @ 60 FPS) and VGA, using host applications like Windows 10 in-box camera.