ARM has recently introduced Mali “Egil” video processor with support for VP9 Profile 0 (8-bit) and 10-bit Profile 2decoding, as well as VP9 8-/10-bit, and HEVC Main 10 encoding, on top of the currently supported codecs in Mali V550 VPU unveiled in 2014.
The new VPU can also support displays ranging from 1080p60 up to 4K @ 120 Hz depending on the number of cores chosen in the VPU, clocked at 800 Mhz, and manufacturing using 16 nm FinFET technology.
Mali Egil also brings some other improvements such as a redesign of the motion estimation engine, and finer granularity. From a user’s perspective, that means that 4K YouTube videos should be available in premium mobile devices soon, as well as higher quality video conference thanks to H.265 encode and decode.
You can find some more information in the “Introduction to the Mali Egil Video Processor” presentation slides.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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The blog post on ARM also has some info about software support: Brand new in Egil is VP9 encode and decode capability, making it the first multi-standard video processor IP to support VP9 encode. We’ve also significantly enhanced HEVC encode and deliver an android reference software driver. Whilst currently OpenMaxIL based, this will be uprated to V4L2 as this is introduced to future versions of Android. This driver takes responsibility for setting up a particular video session, allocating memory, gating power dynamically and dramatically reduces the CPU load. The built in core scheduler manages multiple encode/decode streams and maps single… Read more »
Can you imagine this inside a new “Raspberry PI4”??!? It would be really amazing …..
unfortunatelly on android, hardward video encoding is not used outside of video recording
Actually, that’s not so. Since MediaCodec has been introduced in android 4.1, it’s perfectly possible to encode video with hardware support. Been doing that for years.
It’s just a shame that we’re unlikely to see this in a chip for at least a year and then it’ll most likely be the single or dual core version, as to not to waste precious silicon on something that’s actually useful…
Arm sure don’t choose a naming standard that helps the users recognise which graphics are faster, better.
@Gaetano
Broadcom normally uses their own VideoCore GPU, but so I guess it won’t be used in their SoC, but something similar could be a possibility.
@theguyuk
Egil is just the codename. Their previous video processor, where called Mali V500, Mali V550, so “Egil” video processors could eventually be called Mali V600 or something like that.
Because Raspberrys are well known for their strong GPU lol
The text says “The new VPU can also support displays ranging from 1080p60 up to 4K @ 120 Hz”, but the table shows 1080p80.
@alfon
I did not even notice it. 1080p80 would be an unusual refresh rat, but it still coherent with the rest of the table.
The real question IMO is whether an SOC with the 3/6 core versions will be cheap enough to push 4K HFR to a bunch of devices