Khronos Releases OpenMAX IL 1.0 Specification for Standardized Integration of Codecs into Embedded Media Frameworks

--The Khronos(TM) Group is pleased to announce that it has ratified and publicly released the royalty-free OpenMAX(TM) IL 1.0 specification that defines media component interfaces to enable the rapid integration of accelerated codecs into streaming media frameworks on embedded devices. Additionally, Khronos released details today of the OpenMAX IL 1.0 Adopter's Program, including Conformance Tests to enable conformant products to use the OpenMAX IL trademark to provide reliable, cross-platform audio, video, and image codec interoperability. Additionally, a sample OpenMAX IL implementation for Linux, coded by Texas Instruments, will be freely available in the first quarter of 2006 to enable experimentation with OpenMAX IL functionality by any interested party. OpenMAX IL has been developed under the successful Khronos Working Group process, with the support of Khronos member companies including ARM, ATI Technologies, Beatnik, Broadcom, Emuzed, Fraunhofer, Freescale, Infineon, Intel, Motorola, Nokia, NVIDIA, Philips, SKY MobileMedia, Samsung, Sasken, Siemens, ST Microelectronics and Symbian, and was chaired by Texas Instruments. The OpenMAX IL 1.0 specification is free for download at http://www.khronos.org/openmax/.

The first public demonstration of a prototype of an OpenMAX IL driver will be shown at Lunch@Piero's (http://www.khronos.org/news/events/#lunch_piero), a media-only, invitation-only product showcase across the street from CES being held at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 5 & 6, 2006. At Lunch@Piero's, Khronos will feature OpenMAX IL 1.0 executing an MPEG-4 audio and video decode and display pipeline on a NVIDIA GoForce 3D GPU designed for mobile phones.

OpenMAX IL is the first of three layers of the overall OpenMAX standard that will provide comprehensive streaming media codec and application portability by enabling accelerated multimedia components to be developed, integrated and programmed across multiple operating systems and silicon platforms. The OpenMAX IL (Integration Layer) API defines a standardized media component interface to enable developers and platform providers to integrate and communicate with multimedia codecs implemented in hardware or software. OpenMAX DL (Development Layer) APIs will enable codec developers to accelerate the creation and portability of codecs with a standardized set of primitive functionality across a range of computing platforms. Ratification and public release of OpenMAX DL 1.0 are expected in the first quarter of 2006. The OpenMAX AL (Application Layer) is an application-level API that will enable streaming media applications to be portable across multiple operating systems and hardware platforms. OpenMAX AL is expected to be released during 2006.

"OpenMAX has been developed to fulfill an urgent industry need with significant industry support from silicon and software vendors and OEMs, and so we expect this important new standard to enjoy rapid and widespread adoption," said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group and vice president of embedded content at NVIDIA. "NVIDIA is fully committed to deploying OpenMAX on its range of embedded GPUs and will demonstrate a prototype OpenMAX IL driver running on its GoForce 3D handheld GPUs at CES."

"TI has been a very active participant since the inception of the OpenMAX group within Khronos. TI supports and encourages developers to adopt OpenMAX interfaces. TI will be working very closely with customers & partners in deployment of OpenMAX interfaces on OMAP & OMAP Vox class of devices," stated Avner Goren, director of cellular systems marketing at TI.

"As one of the original founding members of the Khronos group, ATI strongly believes in Open standards as an enabler to the growth of the industry. ATI is looking forward to deploying OpenMAX interfaces on its Imageon Media Processors in the near future," said Andrej Zdravkovic, senior director for software development at ATI.

"Beatnik is committed to contributing to the OpenMAX effort and will be supplying OpenMAX IL compliant implementations of our industry standard mobileBAE software audio engine," said Jeremy Copp, Beatnik's chief sales officer. "By delivering technology that fully meets the demands of the OpenMAX IL framework, we are enabling handset manufacturers to reduce integration time as they bring to market products incorporating advanced audio capabilities across a range of hardware, software and operating system platforms."

"Intel remains committed to the Khronos Group's OpenGL ES framework and plans to release our OpenMAX IL implementation for Wireless MMX and MMX2 technology early this year, with OpenMAX DL releases later in the year," said Mark Casey, general manager of Intel's Applications Processor Business Unit. "Intel's efforts enable manufacturers to enhance their multimedia offerings based on Intel XScale(R) processors via the OpenMAX standards while reducing development costs and time to market."

"SKY MobileMedia, a contributor to the OpenMAX effort, is supporting OpenMAX IL in our second generation SKY-MAP(TM) 2.0 mobile application software platform," said Tom Pollard, vice president of marketing for SKY. "When OpenMAX AL is ratified, we plan to also support this standard as part of our core strategy to maximize the portability of our software platforms across the complete range of mobile hardware, codecs, chipsets, and operating systems."

About Khronos

The Khronos Group is a member-funded industry consortium focused on the creation of open standard APIs such as COLLADA(TM), OpenGL(R) ES, OpenMAX(TM), OpenVG(TM), OpenSL ES(TM) and OpenML(TM) to enable the authoring and acceleration of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices. All Khronos members are able to contribute to the development of Khronos API specifications, are empowered to vote at various stages before public deployment, and are able to accelerate the delivery of their cutting-edge media platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts and conformance tests. Please go to www.khronos.org for more information.