Sparco Media provides custom software services and develops products for mobile phones, television, and the web.
Harnessing the power of modern consumer electronics platforms
The Sparco Media team has years of experience developing software for the embedded system-on-a-chip (SoC) silicon used in modern television, mobile phone, and tablet products. We understand such devices from top to bottom—from the user interface to the silicon. In addition to creating original software, we are experienced in integrating a wide variety of existing components, including available open-source software.
Working close to the metal
Taking full advantage of embedded devices frequently requires developing device drivers or performing other sorts of low-level system programming. Our expertise in this area includes:
- Linux device driver development and kernel customizations.
- Hand-optimized assembly language coding, including x86 SSE extensions.
- Performance tuning.
- Dealing with processor cache issues.
- TCP/IP network applications and protocol implementation, including esoteric uses such as NAT traversal techniques.
Understanding multimedia
Working with graphics and multimedia requires a different skill set than typical application development.
- Understanding the relationship between graphics and video.
- Experience with OpenGL ES for rendering 3D scenes and accelerating 2D graphics.
- Packetized video and audio streaming formats, including MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.
- Working with the peculiarities of transmission protocols such as HDMI, S/PDIF and IEC 61937.
- Developing optimized software conversion routines for packed and planar video frame formats.
Technology overview
Some of the specific tools and technologies we have used with consumer electronics work include:
- C, C++ and x86 assembly languages.
- OpenGL ES, DirectFB and SDL graphics libraries.
- Android application development tools.
Customized web application development
The Sparco Media team members have been developing for the web since 1993. We employ the latest techniques for dynamic user interfaces and backend database management.
Technology overview
- Java and C# programming languages.
- Java web backend development with Spring, Hibernate, DWR and Tomcat.
- Perl, Python, Javascript, Groovy and PHP scripting languages.
- PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle databases.
- GWT and Sencha user interface toolkits.
- Comet server-push for instant client notifications.
- Customized web-based order management solutions.
- Integration of existing business systems.
- Rapid development of demos, prototypes, and proofs of concept.