Open, Proven VP8 Video Codec to be Supported on MIPS® Architecture
SUNNYVALE, Calif. – May 19, 2010 – MIPS Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: MIPS), a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital consumer, home networking, wireless, communications and business applications, today announced support for the new WebM open web media project and the open source VP8, a high performance video codec that will bring high-quality video content and experiences to web-connected devices. MIPS Technologies will work with its partners and licensees to ensure fully optimized hardware/software support for VP8. WebM and the open sourcing of VP8 were announced separately today by Google and partners.
Through the WebM project, developers can access highly-optimized, royalty-free video encoders and decoders for VP8, as well as optimized reference RTL for hardware implementations. With VP8 support on the MIPS® architecture, MIPS licensees bringing web connectivity to mobile and digital home products can quickly and easily develop SoCs integrating VP8 for fast video delivery. VP8 offers high-quality video and consumes less bandwidth than other codecs, even for HD video. SoC developers leveraging MIPS Technologies’ multi-threaded, multiprocessing technology get even further performance/power benefits when supporting web based content on their SoCs. Optimized reference RTL will also be available through WebM that will allow MIPS licensees to quickly add VP8 support in their existing hardware video encoders and decoders.
“Access to a proven, open source video compression technology will redefine the web-based video landscape,†said Art Swift, vice president of marketing, MIPS Technologies. “Our licensees are increasingly incorporating web connectivity not just in products such as netbooks and mobile handsets, but also in digital home devices such as DTVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and more. We expect to see rapid adoption of VP8 among our licensees, many of whom already use VP8 and its predecessors.â€