Abstract: A method and apparatus of seam finding includes determining an overlap area between a first image and a second image. The first image is captured by a first image capturing device and the second image is captured by a second image capturing device. A plurality of seam paths for stitching the first image with the second image is computed and a cost is computed for each seam path. A seam is selected to stitch the first image to the second image based upon the cost for the seam path for that seam being less than a cost for all other computed seam paths, that seam is maintained as the selected seam for stitching based upon a predefined criteria.

Abstract: Improvements in compute shader programs executed on parallel processing hardware are disclosed. An application or other entity defines a sequence of shader programs to execute. Each shader program defines inputs and outputs which would, if unmodified, execute as loads and stores to a general purpose memory, incurring high latency. A compiler combines the shader programs into groups that can operate in a lower-latency, but lower-capacity local data store memory. The boundaries of these combined shader programs are defined by several aspects including where memory barrier operations are to execute, whether combinations of shader programs can execute using only the local data store and not the global memory (except for initial reads and writes) and other aspects.

Abstract: Apparatus, computer readable medium, and method of allocating media resources, the method including determining a media resources allocation table based on one or more media hardware resources and predetermined benchmarks of media hardware resources for performing media operations; in response to receiving a request for media resources from a first application, comparing the requested media resources with the media resources allocation table; and if the comparison indicates that the requested media resources are available, then allocating the requested media resources to the first application in the media resources allocation table, and sending a response to the request for media resources to the first application indicating the requested media resources are allocated to the application. If the comparison indicates that the requested media resources are not available, then sending indicating to the first application that the requested media resources are not allocated to the first application.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for decoding video are presented herein. The methods and apparatus may comprise a host processor, such as a central processing unit (CPU), programmed to execute a software driver that causes the host processor to generate a motion compensation command for a plurality of cores of a massively parallel processor, such as a graphics processing unit (GPU), to provide motion compensation for encoded video. The motion compensation command for the plurality of cores of the massively parallel processor contains executable instructions for processing a plurality of motion vectors grouped by a plurality of prediction modes from a re-ordered motion vector buffer by the plurality of cores of the massively parallel processor.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for facilitating motion estimation in video processing are provided. Preferably, coordinates of a search area within a video frame are determined for each of a plurality of macroblocks (MBs) of a reference frame based upon a predicted location derived from the coordinates of the MB within the reference frame and motion estimation information. The video frame can be segmented into tiles and associated overlapping tile defined for at least some tiles. Search data is defined for each tile as pel data for each pixel within that tile and any associated tile. Macroblock searches are preferably conducted on a tile assignment basis with tile search assignments distributed among a plurality of processing elements. Each processing element preferably has a local memory it uses for the search data when performing a tile search assignment.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for graphics processing unit optimization via wavefront reforming including queuing one or more work-items of a wavefront into a plurality of queues of a compute unit. Each queue is associated with a particular processor within the compute unit. A plurality of work passes are performed. A determination is made which of the plurality of queues are below a threshold amount of work-items. Remaining one or more work-items from the queues with remaining ones of the work-items are redistributed to the below threshold queues. A subsequent work pass is performed. The, repeating of the determining, redistributing, and performing the subsequent work pass is done until all the queues are empty.

Abstract: A system and method of performing motion estimation in a video encoder is enclosed. The system and method include calculating one or more candidate motion vectors for each macroblock of a video image to form a list of candidate motion vectors, calculating a second one or more candidate motion vectors using a sub-region of at least one macroblock of the video image to include in the list of candidate motion vectors, and comparing the calculated candidate motion vectors of a first macroblock with the calculated candidate motion vectors of at least one sub-region of the first macroblock to provide the estimated contribution to the candidate motion vector of the macroblock. The calculating a second one or more candidate motion vectors using a sub-region of at least one macroblock may include using an approximation different from the calculating one or more candidate motion vectors for each macroblock.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for graphics processing unit distributed work-item queuing. One or more work-items of a wavefront are queued into a first level queue of a compute unit. When one or more additional work-items exist, a queuing of the additional work-items into a second level queue of the compute unit is performed. The queuing of the work-items into the first and second level queue is performed based on an assignment technique.

Abstract: A system and method for applying video de-shake to video content includes a classification engine configured to generate a classification of the video content based on at least one source characteristic. The system also includes a de-shake engine configured to selectively apply camera shake compensation to the video content based on the classification. The classification engine may be configured to generate a classification based on, for example, the presence of closed caption data, the presence of copy protection data, current frame rate associated with the video content, or a native frame rate associated with the video content.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus that facilitate the relatively smooth playback of video at an altered playback speed. Video frames are scored and selected for removal (or duplication) to provide faster (or slower) playback speed based when the video is displayed at a predetermined frame rate.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for video processing are disclosed. In one embodiment the work of processing of different types of video frames is allocated between a plurality of computing resources. For example, different computing resources for can be used for I, P and B frames, where an I frame is an intra-frame encoded with no other frames as a reference; a P frame is encoded with one previous I or P frame as a reference and a B frame is encoded with one previous and one future frame as references. In one example, a central processing unit (CPU) performs encoding of I frames and P frames of a video and a graphics processing unit (GPU) performs initial encoding of B frames of the video in connection with a fixed function video encoder configured to perform entropy encoding of the B frames.

Abstract: Embodiments of a software video encoder with GPU acceleration include a software encoder that partitions video processing tasks and assigns them to both a graphics processing unit (GPU) and a central processing unit (CPU). The partitioning and assigning is configurable for operation in different modes. The modes include a mode in which the total time for video processing (such as when transcoding a large existing file) is reduced, a mode in which less CPU cycles are consumed, thus freeing the CPU for other work, a mode in which the latency of processing (e.g., for video conferencing) is reduced, and a mode in which information from a game or other real-time activity being displayed on the screen is encoded.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention as described herein provide a solution to the problems of conventional methods as stated above. In the following description, various examples are given for illustration, but none are intended to be limiting. Embodiments are directed to a transcoding system that shares the workload of video transcoding through the use of multiple central processing unit (CPU) cores and/or one or more graphical processing units (GPU), including the use of two components within the GPU: a dedicated hardcoded or programmable video decoder for the decode step and compute shaders for scaling and encoding. The system combines usage of an industry standard Microsoft DXVA method for using the GPU to accelerate video decode with a GPU encoding scheme, along with an intermediate step of scaling the video.

Abstract: Apparatus, computer readable medium, and method of allocating media resources, the method including determining a media resources allocation table based on one or more media hardware resources and predetermined benchmarks of media hardware resources for performing media operations; in response to receiving a request for media resources from a first application, comparing the requested media resources with the media resources allocation table; and if the comparison indicates that the requested media resources are available, then allocating the requested media resources to the first application in the media resources allocation table, and sending a response to the request for media resources to the first application indicating the requested media resources are allocated to the application. If the comparison indicates that the requested media resources are not available, then sending indicating to the first application that the requested media resources are not allocated to the first application.

Abstract: Embodiments include implementing a remote display system (either wired or wireless) using a standard, non-custom codec. In this system, the decoder side can be fully implemented using an existing standard from a decode/display point of view and using a single stream type. The encoder side includes a pre-processing component that analyzes screen images comprising the video data to determine an amount of difference between consecutive frames of the screen images, divides each screen image into a plurality of regions, including no change regions, high quality regions, and low quality regions. The pre-processor characterizes each region as requiring a minimum quality level, encodes the low quality regions for compression in accordance with the H.264 encoding standard; and encodes the high quality regions using the lossless compression scheme of the H.264 standard. A no change region is encoded using a version of the H.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for graphics processing unit optimization via wavefront reforming including queuing one or more work-items of a wavefront into a plurality of queues of a compute unit. Each queue is associated with a particular processor within the compute unit. A plurality of work passes are performed. A determination is made which of the plurality of queues are below a threshold amount of work-items. Remaining one or more work-items from the queues with remaining ones of the work-items are redistributed to the below threshold queues. A subsequent work pass is performed. The, repeating of the determining, redistributing, and performing the subsequent work pass is done until all the queues are empty.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for graphics processing unit distributed work-item queuing. One or more work-items of a wavefront are queued into a first level queue of a compute unit. When one or more additional work-items exist, a queuing of the additional work-items into a second level queue of the compute unit is performed. The queuing of the work-items into the first and second level queue is performed based on an assignment technique.

Abstract: A image processing system for displaying a source image includes a memory for storing a source image having a high resolution digital format, a display screen having a low resolution digital format, and a media acceleration hardware unit adapted to increase color depth values from the source image and generate a plurality of temporally shifted images from the source image by sequentially shifting an origin point for a frame applied to the source image and scaling source image pixel values from each frame, thereby generating the plurality of shifted images having the second, relatively low resolution for display at the display screen.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus that facilitate the relatively smooth playback of video at an altered playback speed. Video frames are scored and selected for removal (or duplication) to provide faster (or slower) playback speed based when the video is displayed at a predetermined frame rate.

Abstract: A video encoding method and a video encoder are described for processing frames in a group of pictures (GOP). A difference between a bit budget of a selected frame in the GOP and an estimated number of bits consumed by the selected frame is determined. Quantization parameter (Qp) values assigned to coefficients of macroblocks (MBs) in the selected frame are adjusted if the difference does not fall within a tolerance. The Qp values may be filtered. A bit budget to the GOP may be assigned or adjusted based on a target bitrate. A bit budget may be assigned to each unprocessed frame in the GOP. Spatial activity may be calculated for each MB in the selected frame, and a bit budget and quantization may be assigned for each MB in the selected frame based on the spatial activity.