PowerVR Video

PowerVR™ visual IP technologies have been developed over more than 15 years to meet the most demanding requirements of high volume mobile and consumer applications. With their roots in arcade and digital TV, PowerVR visual technologies lead the world in delivering exceptional levels of performance while delivering low power, small silicon area and high levels of system latency tolerance when integrating with unified memory and other shared resources.

PowerVR Video

PowerVR video technology builds on the underlying architectural philosophies of PowerVR graphics: use the lowest power and memory bandwidth, while delivering the highest performance. This engineering philosophy has resulted in the PowerVR VXD decoder and VXE encoder families of video codecs supporting all the latest standards including H.264 High Profile, VC-1 and AVS. The third-generation VXD IP cores use a series of multimode hardware engines controlled by our own META MTX 32-bit embedded SoC Processor core to deliver a multi-standard video decoder capable of decoding dual HD streams in less than 150mW in a 65nm technology. This exceptional capability means that HD content can now be decoded and viewed on a mobile phone, or played from the phone directly on to a HD panel – and you'll be able to watch the entire film, not just the first 30 minutes! All VXD cores are also multi-stream as well as multi-standard, which means that a single core can decode multiple streams at the same time, depending on operating clock frequency. The header processor identifies the appropriate standard and reconfigures the hardware engines on a frame-by-frame basis, such that multiple streams can also be multiple standards. So, the ability to interactively preview and browse content from various sources is now a reality.

Our third generation VXE multi-standard video encoder family complements the VXD decoders, creating a total solution for cameras and web 2.0 platforms. VXE cores encode all key standards in HD or SD resolution – like VXD they are multi-standard. When combined with VXD cores, mobile platforms can now manage HD content as easily and with comparable power consumption to audio players today.

All VXD and VXE cores support all the major standards (range varies according to individual core) including H.264 (Base to High profile), MPEG4, MPEG2, VC-1/WMV, AVS, Sorenson and JPEG. Some VXD cores now also offer hardware rotation and scaling, delivering significant reductions in bandwidth and power consumption. When combined with SGX cores, scaling can also be done by the SGX core, making the combination of VXD, VXE and SGX extremely powerful for a wide range of multimedia applications.