AMD claims cinema-real Radeon HD 4800 video

AMD's next-generation video chipset will be capable of graphics that are movie-realistic, the company claimed today. A preview of the RV770 chipset, which is used both in the FireStream 9250 and should form the heart of the Radeon HD 4870, has been labeled Cinema 2.0 for its ability to recreate near-photorealistic footage in real time. The two teraflops of performance from two RV770 chips is enough to not only accurately model many very detailed objects in one scene, drawing them at a better-than-film 25-30 frames per second, but also to add many of the effects that are produced by a real camera, such as depth-of-field or motion blur.

The video chipset maker doesn't provide exact details of the scenes, which include a robot attack in a lifelike city and a scorpion near a desert home, but cites them as thresholds that will let movie makers potentially release titles on computers or simply speed up production work. As camera angles can change in real time, a computer version of a movie could let users pick their view of a scene, while cinematographers for traditional videos can get a scene right on the first take by choosing the camera angles and actions while live, AMD argues. Games should also benefit by recreating scenes from some movies almost shot-for-shot.

No clues are given as to the release date of consumer hardware capable of supporting the level of visual effects shown in the Cinema 2.0 presentation, though AMD confirms that the chipsets will appear in ATI Radeon HD video cards. Leaks point to an initial release of the Radeon HD 4800 series using the chipset in late June.