Any clue with this HDMI IC Chip is = "TC9138A" (QFN package)?

[rajhlinux]

Hello, I am trying to figure out what exactly this IC chip is, who is the vendor and it's purpose.

I bought a special universal CCTV analog signal to HDMI converter box:
https://www.amazon.com/HDMI-Converter-Full-1080p-Video/dp/B07DHCN8W1/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=Z4gY8&content-id=amzn1.sym.bbb6bbd8-d236-47cb-b42f-734cb0cacc1f&pf_rd_p=bbb6bbd8-d236-47cb-b42f-734cb0cacc1f&pf_rd_r=SCS0J4S2EW0FM8F85ZSA&pd_rd_wg=3scNL&pd_rd_r=65aadb3d-9fb0-40c6-8199-f32366189b6e&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mi

Here is the picture of the internals:

IC to the very most left: Techpoint - TP2826:
Decode AHD / TVI / CVI / CVBS signal, and output internal synchronous bt656 digital signal.


IC  at the middle: ChipAV CV2880-EX (video scaler):
The digital signal decoded by TP2826 is converted into CVBS/VGA signal.
https://www.chipav.com/en/ProductShow.asp?ID=116

The CV2880 is a cost-effective and high performance sensor image signal and video signal
processor for cameras and high-end analog display application. The CV2880 provides all key IC
functions required for image capture, processing and display timing control.


IC at the very most right: TC9138A (QFN package).

My question is, what does this TC9138A IC chip do, are there an alternatives to it which has a datasheet?
Google does not show any results about this chip.
However I was able to find this chip being sold on a website called "Taobao" but has no info about it:
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.21.4d0d62dai84nMi&id=641069427372&ns=1&abbucket=20#detail

Thanks for any information and advice  .

[SiliconWizard]

It's most certainly a HDMI transmitter, but I can't find any datasheet either.

Couldn't find a datasheet for the CV2880-EX either, which could have given us a hint as to how it interfaces to the TC9138A.

My question now is: what do you want to achieve with this board?

[Mario87]

Seeing as it connects to both the video scaler and HDMI port directly it will 99% be a HDMI encoder, similar to the ADV7513 from Analog Devices.

[rajhlinux]

It's most certainly a HDMI transmitter, but I can't find any datasheet either.

Couldn't find a datasheet for the CV2880-EX either, which could have given us a hint as to how it interfaces to the TC9138A.

My question now is: what do you want to achieve with this board?

Well this USB 3.0 capture card board is really useful for a highly custom CCTV security camera system which I made using off the shelf devices.
Main reason is for cost which gives me the most benefits in terms of image quality, higher and smooth frame rates, performance, freedom of using any analog camera protocols/brands, easy replacement/repairs, able to use it on a Desktop PC running custom software to act as a DVR/NVR, able to use custom software for machine vision, able to use specific parameters for online streaming services, able to use HEVC compression done by low cost GPUs and reliability.

I realized that proper 4K IP cam tech are still new in the market and really expensive (good IP cams) and provides similar quality as to lower priced 4K analog cameras. So the price for IP cams was not worth it for me since I am saving about upfront costs close to 30%-50% using 4K analog cams with my setup.

This is the setup:

I know there are many devices used here, but for me it was better to use this setup. I have been using this setup for almost a year for 6 channels, this means I literally have 6 of each of these devices. It is super reliable and works without any issues as compared to a real DVR/NVR boxes. I get so much freedom in customization and picking any analog cameras I want. Also get better framerates.

So with all this said, now I would like to actually design a custom board to reduce the price much further, because many of these chips have more capability and can be utilized. So I started to open them up and want to select these chips or find alternative and start coming up with a design which can do at least 6 channels.

However, after doing a lot of research, I started to realize that analog camera is no good for me due to fiber optic caballing and ICs being readily available at low costs with much better performance and capabilities. Now I'm thinking to simply possibly design my own cameras or buy cameras that do not have any advanced IC components so that I can just dump RAW camera data and send it through fiber to a central video processing board (which can be interfaced to the computer by USB/PCIe/LAN or just simply act as a standalone DVR) which will do all the image processing and compression to storage.
This will provide an overall much lower cost surveillance system with not needing any components for analog processing or IP cameras to do built-in ISP processing, built-in DVR functionality, built-in AI, built-in HEVC encoding to stream since price will be much lower to have a central board with SoCs to concurrently do all the multi channel video processing than buying many powerful video processing ICs embedded to the camera itself.
Would like to mention, I believe this method is only useful for people who needs tons of cameras for surveillance with reduced price. Doesn't seem there is a market which implements this design approach concept. I'm sure soon a protocol will be implemented where CCTV IP cams will have fiber optic direct connection and customers can choose if they want built in powerful functionality or simply offload all the video processing to a powerful central board when shopping and choosing 4K IP cams at a much reduced price.

I found a hand full of SoC ICs which have hardware HEVC encoding and decoding with ISP all for $3 per IC, such as the powerful ARM 6 core dual CPU: "Mediatek - MT8176". I got few quotes from "Digipart" suppliers.

I was curious looking at the PCB board to see how I can interface to USB 3.0 from HDMI and also get a general idea how analog video processing works. Would also like to mention that although it seems fully digital is the way to go, learning analog is super interesting to me because it applies to other projects I have that requires analog processing.

[tom66]

Will those 4K cameras really work with that HDMI board - it looks to have no memory device and so no frame store.  In my experience, most 4K AHD cameras are max 12-15 fps which isn't a valid HDMI mode for 4K so support from monitors will be limited.  The lowest framerate natively supported is 24Hz.  For 1080p the cameras & HDMI support 30Hz so that should work OK.  Also be aware usually the 4K resolution is upscaled in at least the horizontal, commonly the AHD spec will be 1920x2160 pixels or something similar with very large rectangular pixels (the '1080p' mode is 960x1080 on most cameras.)

Be aware implementing a SOC to do H.265 encode is very non-trivial unless you have a pre-designed board and software package,  it can easily be a 6 month long project for one engineer.

[AngelMarc]

Not that one, but came across this one
https://datasheetspdf.com/pdf-file/1299257/ETC/CV2880/1