PopCatcher, a Swedish developer of audio technologies and products announced the availability of its PopCatcher software, hardware module, and Ripper, an integrated FM radio with PopCatcher technology. The Ripper reference design is a complete FM radio with music capture capability. Users select a station and the Ripper automatically saves the music (only the music) as 192kb/s MP3 files to internal memory or a docked iPod or other USB connected MP3 player.
The patented PopCatcher technology allows a user to record programming from any broadcast source and automatically extract the music as a series of MP3 files, leaving out the talk and advertising. The result is a radio that plays only the music. The resulting files are compatible with all devices that support MP3 playback. PopCatcher is making this technology available to manufacturers of radios, portable music players, home entertainment centers and other consumer audio equipment in the form of software licenses, hardware modules and reference designs.
PopCatcher has selected the Blackfin processor from Analog Devices, because of the capabilities of its advanced processor architecture, combining DSP and controller capabilities. This enables a single processor to efficiently handle tasks such as filtering the broadcast stream to identify the music content, and handling the MP3 file storage interface to the supported media.
It is this powerful combination of software flexibility and scalability that has gained Blackfin widespread adoption in convergent applications such as digital home entertainment, networked and streaming media, automotive telematics and infotainment, and digital radio and mobile TV. Analog Devices' Blackfin embodies a new breed of 16/32-bit embedded processor with the industry's highest performance and power efficiency for applications where a convergence of capabilities - multi-format audio, video, voice and image processing; multi-mode baseband and packet processing; and real-time security and control processing - are critical.
"We see enormous global potential for the PopCatcher technology. With the technology available as a software module, hardware module or complete reference design, consumer electronics manufacturers have their choice of approaches to integrate this capability on a proven Blackfin solution," says Mike Haidar, General Manager, SST Product Line, Analog Devices, Inc.
Jakob Berg, CEO, PopCatcher concludes: "We are excited to bring these new music capture capabilities to the consumer electronics marketplace. We expect that automated music capture will greatly increase the attractiveness of MP3 music players for home, automobile and portable use. This expands what is already a very large global market for music players by greatly increasing ease of use and eliminating the need for a computer or internet connection to access music files."
