Friday, October 15, 2010

Microsoft patents GPU-accelerated video encoding

In October 2004 Microsoft applied for a patent titled “Accelerated video encoding using a graphics processing unit”, which has been now granted

It outlines a concept where the GPU is used, among others, to perform motion estimation in videos, the use of the depth buffer of the GPU, to determine comprising, collocating video frames, mapping pixels to texels, frame processing using the GPU and output of data to the CPU.

The patent appears to cover all bases of GPU-accelerated video encoding, which hands Microsoft the rights to a major technology that already impacts prosumer applications and is making its way into the mainstream as we are moving into HD and beyond. 


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