Chip maker VIA has unveiled a new low-power media system processor capable of handling 1080p video. The VX855 chipset can handle hardware decoding of H.264, MPEG-2/4, VC-1, and WMV9 video formats. The chipset has a power draw of just 2.3 watts.
The VX8555 chipset is compatible with VIA’s C7, Nano, and Eden processors. The Chrome9 graphics capabilities support 2D and 3D graphics. There’s also an HD Audio controller that supports up to eight audio channels with a sample rat eof 192kHz.
Today’s news seems to fit in nicely with VIA’s earlier announcement of a “Trinity” platform designed to bundle VIA processors, media system processors, and onboard graphics chips.Â
via Information Week and Netbook 3G
Just hope this technology doesn’t get locked out of the market. I was hoping AMD would be intel’s foil in this market but it appears Via will have to fill that position.
Doing that much processing at a 2.3 watt power point is an achievement.
The TI OMAP-3 with it built-in DSP coprocessor does video decode _and_ cpu
in under 2 watts – but no where that range of video processing.
Too bad that VIA has fallen so far behind on releasing the NDA on the tech.
details – only Bill Gates can use this device, no one else (yet).
One question, does this thing accelerate Theora decompression? I guess yes because it’s based on VC-1, but it may have some differences with that.