Renesas chip enables 1080p video on phones
updated 10:10 am EDT, Tue May 5, 2009
Renesas SH7370
Renesas today unveiled a mobile media processor that it says should finally allow full HD video in and out on phone-sized devices. Part of the SH-MobileHD1 family, the SH7370 will have video processing hardware fast enough to not only decode 1080p, H.264-based video at a full 30 frames per second but to encode video at the same frame rate. The feature would let phones produce and play video in the same basic format as Blu-ray, including with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround and HDMI video output at full quality.
Besides its core feature, the SH7370 can also address MPEG2-TS and MPEG-4 video and talk directly to a Wi-Fi chipset or an SD card interface for writing videos directly to flash memory. It also carries its own 64MB of internal RAM to handle many of its own tasks internally, without having to send data out to the rest of the device.
Renesas is already sending early samples to companies, but hasn't said when it plans to enter mass production. Customers for the media chip also haven't been named. [via Tech-On]
Dedicated MacNNer
Joined: Aug 2003
old news
HD record/playback functionality has been in mobile chips for nearly 2 years now, this isn't new.
The gateway to success in mobile platforms is power efficiency. It's hard to believe this article would hit the wire without a scrap on battery life.
It reads more like an ad for a merger/acquisition to me...