[mythtv-users] SpursEngine (Cell-based video card)

[Michael T. Dean]

On 10/01/2008 04:34 PM, Marc Randolph wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 2:24 PM, David Schlenk wrote:
>   
>> down the road maybe its a solution to offloading
>> x264 to a video card.
> I think you'll have it (a lot?) sooner via Intel - my understanding is
> that they are already well on their way to doing H.264 decoding in
> their own chipsets with the Intel G45 and the Intel System Controller
> Hub ("SCH"... combined North+South bridge.

And, of course, by the time any "hardware" decoding is available for
H.264 on Linux, it will be completely unnecessary as general-purpose
processors will be able to keep up with decoding without issue.  So, the
only people who will truly see it as beneficial are those who are trying
to save a few watts of power (literally a few--perhaps 4-6, assuming the
extra power used by the extra hardware is small enough) through the
reduction of interrupts--i.e. it would be useful on a laptop running
from battery if you can get the extra hardware's power consumption to a
low enough level--commensurate with the extra power required of the
general-purpose CPU under the load of decoding the video.

Just my guesses...

Mike