The ComDec was a companion board to the Avatar, designed to handle MJPEG compression and decompression for full audiovisual workflows. It relied on the Avatar for video input and output but added dedicated audio input/output capabilities, creating a complete AV solution.
Although intended for Amiga systems, the ComDec board was designed to plug into a standard ISA slot—used solely for power. This allowed compatibility with both Amiga and planned PC variants of the Avatar, since both platforms featured ISA slots.
Hardware Highlights
Front of board (left to right):
- Lattice ispLSI 11048 FPGA
- Empty socket (purpose unknown)
- Two 16-bit Flash ROMs
- NCR53C710 SCSI controller with 50-pin header — intended to interface with a high-speed dedicated drive directly, bypassing the Amiga for optimal data throughput
- Bank of high-speed SRAM
- CS4231 audio codec for digital audio I/O
Rear of board (left to right):
- C-Cube CL560 JPEG processor for real-time MJPEG compression and decompression
Like the Avatar, the ComDec was never commercially released but represents an advanced and highly integrated solution for multimedia capture and processing on the Amiga platform.