Video encoder IP core has H.264 HP capability

An Imagination Technologies product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Nov 20, 2009

Imagination Technologies has announced PowerVR VXE380, the latest member of its third-generation video encoder IP family.

The company said the PowerVR VXE380 delivers multi-standard encoding of video, now including H.264 High Profile (HP), at HD resolutions.

PowerVR VXE encodes video sequences and still images to a range of compression standards including H.264 High, Main and Baseline Profiles, H.263, MPEG-4, M-JPEG and JPEG.

These cores offload the entire video/still encode processing to hardware, minimising host CPU processing load, enabling low-power solutions without compromising performance.

The core is fully supported by an accompanying software stack, which includes an Openmax IL compliant API under Linux.

The core is scalable, allowing Full HD video to be encoded, as well as offering the ability to record at high frame rates (for example, >1,200fps at QVGA) for detailed slow-motion capture.

Support for 4K resolutions is also possible.

The third-generation, intelligent motion search algorithm is said to reduce memory bandwidth requirements, while offering an even larger effective search range to give the best possible video quality and compression ratios.

As memory access is one of the key sources of high power consumption for a SoC (System-on-Chip), this reduction in bandwidth also helps lower the overall SoC power requirements.

The IP core contains a small embedded 32-bit META processor, which ensures that the rate-control algorithms are both flexible and highly capable, without burden or reliance on the host processor.

Imagination Technologies said this flexibility gives designers the ability to meet specific rate-control requirements for demanding applications.

The VXE380 IP core has been designed with ease of system integration in mind, requiring minimal external components, supporting memory interfaces optimised for all popular DRAMs including the latest DDR3 devices.

The PowerVR VXE family of encoders is said to be ideal for a range of consumer and embedded applications including mobile phones, digital cameras, Blu-Ray disc authoring, portable media players, video conferencing, surveillance, personal navigation devices, personal video recorders and hardware encode accelerators.

Imagination will be delivering a paper on PowerVR VXE technology at Embedded Technology in Yokohama from 18-20 November 2009.