Intel has announced that they will support Google’s WebM high definition video format if the format becomes successful in establishing itself in the smart TV domain. Google released the new format based on the open source VP8 codec and intends to use it on its Google TV format. Google gained rights to the VP8 format when it acquired the company On2 Technologies earlier this year.
Google’s attempt at blending live broadcast TV with internet Media has yet to see real life execution but the project is supposed to come to a fruition later this year with the support of Intel and Sony. Intel has developed a highly optimized version of the Atom especially for this purpose — the Atom CE4100. The CE4100 will be used within the hardware that will be used for accessing the Google TV platform on TV’s.
Sony is building a few models of its TV’s that will have support for Google TV. There will also be set top boxes and Blu-ray players with Google TV integration. However, the first generation of these devices might run into performance issues thanks to the current state of the Atom CE4100 chip, which lacks hardware acceleration support.
Intel has expressed their interest in VP8 by saying that they will integrate it into their chip just as they did for H.264 and VC1. H.264 is currently one of the most common codecs used in Internet videos but it might cause monopoly problems if it becomes too popular. That is because H.264 is a proprietary format that might later have its terms changed so that the revenues associated with producing video in that format suddenly goes up.
Google, with its open approach to most things it does, will probably push the VP8 while emphasizing on the ‘open’ license of the format. Also, Google runs YouTube — the largest video sharing website on the internet — and might use the massive website to leverage the use of VP8.
At the moment, Intel’s CE4100 chips will not have problems playing back WebM format videos. It will simply use a software decoder for the job. But hardware decoders are always faster and more efficient. So it is always more desirable to have them instead of software decoders.
Intel’s CE4100 is a pretty powerful chip otherwise. It is capable of running at clock speeds of 1.2GHz and has the ability to decode two 1080p high definition videos simultaneously. Intel has been trying very hard to sell this chip to TV makers while highlighting the faster video decoding capabilities with less consumption of power. According to Intel, the chips are currently in production and have orders amounting to over one million units.
Coming back to Google’s WebM format — their partner Intel might not be interested in supporting it at the moment but there are several other software and hardware vendors who have announced that they will support the WebM format in their products. Mozilla, Microsoft an Opera are some of the larger software vendors who have become early adopters of this new format. On the hardware front, chip-makers Brodcom have declared that their VideoCore IV smartphone processor will come with support for the WebM format. That means hardware acceleration for WebM for devices using the VideoCore IV chip from Broadcom.
Looks like Google is busy making strategic moves to live up to its hype of creating an open environment for new-age media on TV sets. Google TV uses the Google Android OS and supports access to the marketplace. It also allows developers to make apps specifically for the platform.
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