Imagination delivers HD H.264 High Profile capability in latest video encoder IP cores

Imagination Technologies, the multimedia chip technologies company, announces two new IP cores in the POWERVR VXE video encoder family.

POWERVR VXE320 and VXE360, part of the third generation of Imagination’s video IP family, deliver multi-standard encode, including H.264 High Profile (HP), at SD and HD resolutions respectively.

POWERVR VXE encodes video sequences and still images to a wide range of compression standards including H.264 High, Main and Baseline Profiles, MPEG-4 and JPEG. These cores offload the entire video/still encode processing to hardware, minimising host CPU processing load, enabling lowest power solutions without compromising performance. The core is fully supported by an accompanying software stack, which includes an OpenMAX IL compliant API, under Linux.

Both VXE320 and VXE360 support H.264 High Profile encoding, offering improved video quality at lower bitrates. Features such as B-frames and CABAC encoding enable the consumer to record and transmit video at the highest possible quality, whilst maintaining the low data rates essential for storage and network transmissions. The provision of High Profile allows devices using POWERVR VXE360 to typically offer up to a 10x improvement in recording capacity of HD video compared to today’s devices which use the less efficient M-JPEG algorithm.

The cores are scalable, allowing Full HD video to be encoded, as well as offering the ability to record at extremely high frame rates, (e.g. >1200 fps at QVGA), for detailed slow motion capture – one of the “hot new features” seen at the recent CES consumer electronics show in Las Vegas.

The POWERVR VXE family of encoders is ideal for a wide 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.

A new, intelligent motion search algorithm dramatically reduces memory bandwidth requirements, whilst offering an even larger effective search range to give the best possible video quality & compression ratios. As memory access is one of the key sources of high power consumption for an SoC (System-on-Chip), this reduction in bandwidth also helps lower the overall SoC power requirements.

The VXE320 and VXE360 cores’ multi-standard support has been tested with a wide range of raw image data to ensure high compression ratios with excellent visual quality and minimal image degradation. Supported standards include: H.264 HP@L4.1; MPEG-4 SP@L5.0; H.263 P0@L50; M-JPEG Baseline Profile 4:2:2 & 4:2:0; and JPEG Baseline Profile 4:2:2 & 4:2:0.

All POWERVR VXE video encoders contain a powerful real time stream manager, based on Imagination's META MTX 32-bit embedded processor, which performs rate control as well as overall core management functions. The VXE cores’ comprehensive and flexible rate control algorithms include constant, variable, constant QP and low delay bit rate control to match the requirements of the end application. The unique architecture of POWEVR VXE enables future rate control requirements to be met using existing hardware, without the need for new silicon.

POWERVR VXE cores meet the video requirements of a range of interoperability standards such as 3GPP and 3GPP2, and provide full encoding to JFIF1.1 for use in a wide range of mobile applications.

About Imagination Technologies
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE:IMG) – a global leader in multimedia and communication silicon technologies – creates and licenses market-leading processor cores for graphics, video, multi-threaded embedded processing/DSP and multi-standard communications applications. These silicon intellectual property (IP) solutions for systems-on-chip (SoC) are complemented by strong array of software tools and drivers as well as extensive developer and middleware ecosystems. Target markets include mobile phone, handheld multimedia, home consumer entertainment, mobile and low-power computing, and in-car electronics. Its licensees include many of the leading semiconductor and consumer electronics companies. Imagination has corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom, with sales and R&D offices worldwide. See: www.imgtec.com.