News

Leadtek Readies Image and Video Processing Card Based on Toshiba’s SpursEngine.

Leadtek Creates Co-Processing Board Featuring Toshiba SpursEngine

[09/09/2008 03:12 PM]
by Anton Shilov

Leadtek Research, a leading supplier of graphics cards as well as other multimedia add-ons, has demonstrated its WinFast PxVC1100 image and video processing board that is based on Toshiba’s SpursEngine SE1000 processor. The card is designed to speed up video editing and improve quality of video playback.

Leadtek’s WinFast PxVC1100 image and video processing card is a low-profile PCI Express x1 board that fully resembles Toshiba’s reference design for such a product. The SpursEngine SE1000 card is compliant with PCI Express 1.1 x1 and x4 slots, sports 128MB of 1.6GHz XDR memory and carries SpursEngine processor at unknown clock-speed. The board is demonstrated at Ceatec Japan 2008 trade-show in Tokyo, Japan.

Such card is targeted at those, who need rapid decoding or encoding of video streams, but it may also upconvert standard-definition video to “nearly” high-definition quality using Toshiba’s recently announced eXtended detail enhancement (XDE) technology.

Presently there is hardly a lot of software that can take advantage of SpursEngine or XDE, but earlier this year Toshiba said that it partnered with Canada-based Corel Corp. and Taiwan based CyberLink Corp., two of the world’s leading edge producers of video playback and editing software. Corel has already announced that its DVD MovieFactory software would take advantage of SpursEngine SE1000 in late 2008.

SpursEngine is a co-processor that integrates four of Cell high-performance RISC core SPEs, half the number of the full configuration, hardware dedicated to decoding and encoding of MPEG-2 and H.264 video, XDR memory interface as well as PCI Express interface.

In fact, Toshiba’s SpursEngine processor may be used for various products and in various markets. In the computer industry the SpursEngine may be used for video processing, graphics computations, physics computations and various other applications that involve processing of data streams. Potentially, video professionals may find useful to decode or encode four full-HD (1920×1080 with progressive scan, 1080p) streams at once. In the consumer space currently only two full-HD video decoders are required to provide picture-in-picture functionality on Blu-ray and HD DVD players, however, as high-definition television becomes more popular and more channels are broadcasted digitally, four-way video processing may become a necessary feature for advanced HDTVs.

It is unclear when and at what cost Leadtek’s WinFast PxVC1100 image and video processing card is set to become available.