Imagination's POWERVR VXD392 and VXE382 deliver H.264 MVC decode and encode functions

Latest video IP cores deliver multi-stream technology ideal for stereoscopic 3D (S3D) video and more

December 7, 2010 -- Imagination Technologies, a leading multimedia and communications technologies company, announces the latest additions to its multi-standard, multi-stream video IP core families, the POWERVR VXD392 decoder and POWERVR VXE382 encoder, including support for H.264 MVC, WebM (VP8; decode), S3D (Stereoscopic 3D) and resolutions up to UltraHD. 

POWERVR VXD392 is a low power, high performance, multi-standard and multi-stream ultra high definition hardware video decoder IP core that enables the widest supported standards of any video IP core, and now includes support for WebM (VP8) as well as key new technologies including Stereo 3D and H.264 MVC. VXD392 also enables up to 4k x 4k resolutions for UltraHD and full resolution top and bottom or side by side display configurations for stereoscopic applications.

H.264 MVC (Multiview Video Coding) enables multiple view point television, advanced S3D video imaging and immersive teleconferencing. The multi-stream VXD architecture is uniquely suited to enabling the two main MVC use cases: Stereo High Profile, which targets two-view stereoscopic 3D video; and Multiview High Profile, which supports two or more views using both inter-picture and inter-view prediction.

VXD392 delivers significant bandwidth reductions compared to previous generation technology to give industry leading performance, even in the case of artificially extreme benchmarks such as Allegro. Further enhancements in latency tolerance delivers high performance with minimised system requirements - essential for today’s application platform SoCs where there are often multiple high bandwidth demands on the unified memory subsystem.

The POWERVR VXE382 Video Encoder IP core is a multi-standard SD and HD video encoder which delivers a comprehensive portfolio of standards and tuning options, including multi-stream input and support for H.264 MVC standard profile (as used by Blu-ray 3D), which makes VXE382 ideal for stereoscopic interactive 3D applications as well as high performance video-based communications. VXE382 also includes an extensive H.264 toolset which demonstrates Imagination’s position as the highest quality encoder IP core in the market.

Using POWERVR VXE382 savings in bitrate of 2.5x are typical when compared to existing solutions in the market. This equates to faster upload & download times, reduced bandwidth costs and vastly increased storage capabilities.  By reducing the time required to transmit and receive video data, significant power savings can be made, vital for today's portable electronic devices.

By being part of Imagination’s unique and comprehensive POWERVR family of Visual IP cores, The Imagination codec technologies VXD392 and VXE382 are designed to integrate fully with other members of the family such as the POWERVR SGX graphics IP portfolio under unified software. When combined with SGX, the codec delivers a significant reduction in system bandwidth compared to alternative solutions through the use of sophisticated system integration features such as support for shared system level cache (SLC) with Imagination’s POWERVR SGX graphics cores.

Says Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination: “These latest POWERVR video decode and encode IP cores complement our industry-leading POWERVR SGX graphics perfectly to create a total visual IP solution for our partners. Imagination’s VXD family has shipped approaching 100 million units and is therefore well tested in the field. Our VXD392 decoder core requires almost no system CPU and GPU processing resource, while delivering everything needed to implement the latest in video processing including 1080P60 up to UltraHD, S3D, VP8 and H.264 MVC. The POWERVR VXE family is first and foremost designed to deliver quality encoding results and now with support for the H.264 MVC standard VXE382 brings our high quality encoding capabilities to the hot market area of stereoscopic 3D.”

Both cores are supported by an extensive set of hardware drivers including OpenMAX and libva API support, and a growing ecosystem of partners providing support for the POWERVR video decode and encode family of IP cores.

Imagination’s highly respected advanced power management techniques ensure that all POWERVR VXD and VXE cores have low power requirements enabling HD video to be consumed or created for hours at a time on power-constrained devices such as portable media players and mobile phones.

POWERVR VXD392 and VXE382 are available for licensing now.

POWERVR VXD392 in more detail

The POWERVR VXD392 video decode core is targeted at a wide range of applications including mobile devices, 3DTV, HDTV, IDTV, set top box (STB), Blu-ray and media players. It delivers significant improvements in bandwidth saving and latency tolerance compared to previous generation technologies.

 VXD392 is capable of decoding full high-definition (H.264 level 4.2) at 1080P60 and beyond up to full 4k x 4k resolution and can decode multiple streams simultaneously to fully meet Blu-ray and other multi stream decode requirements. The highly parallel architecture of all VXD cores enables a typical H.264 High profile HD stream to be decoded with a clock rate of just 70MHz.VXD392 can be configured on a time division multiplex basis to handle single, dual and multi-stream HD decoding. This allows functions such as stereoscopic 3D, picture-in picture and multi-picture menus for advanced EPG applications.

VXD392 provides full hardware acceleration support for all international broadcast standards including, MPEG-2, H.264, VC-1 and AVS as well as support for other key video standards, as required for end customers' applications, including Sorenson Spark, Real Video 8/9 and On2 VP6. VXD392 supports all MPEG-4 and H.264 profiles to enable customers to create a DivX® format compliant solution.

POWERVR VXE382 in more detail

POWERVR VXE382 encodes video from raw image data, producing a compliant bit stream at the elementary stream or NAL unit level; generates stream headers; and performs algorithmic functions such as entropy encoding, scan, transform, motion estimation and compensation, and deblocking. The core has been tested with a wide range of raw image data to ensure high compression ratios without reduced visual quality.

The VXE382 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 MVC, H.264,  MPEG-4, H.263, M-JPEG and JPEG.

The POWERVR VXE382 video encoder core is ideally suited to mobile phone, digital cameras, digital camcorders and personal navigation devices for the recording of video clips, video conferencing and video surveillance.

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE:IMG) – a global leader in multimedia and communication 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 platform level IP and services, a strong array of software tools and drivers and extensive developer and middleware ecosystems. Target markets includemobile 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