Sources are pointing to a newly granted patent available at the USPTO website entitled “Accelerated Video Encoding Using a Graphics Processing Unit“, granted to Microsoft, that seems to cover not only GPU video encoding but motion estimation as well.
The systems and methods described herein are directed at accelerating video encoding using a graphics processing unit. In one aspect, a video encoding system uses both a central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processing unit (GPU) to perform video encoding. The system implements a technique that enables the GPU to perform motion estimation for video encoding. The technique allows the GPU to perform a motion estimation process in parallel with the video encoding process performed by the CPU. The performance of video encoding using such a system is greatly accelerated as compared to encoding using just the CPU.
In another aspect, data related to motion estimation is arranged and provided to the GPU in a way that utilizes the capabilities of the GPU. Data about video frames may be collocated to enable multiple channels of the GPU to process tasks in parallel. The depth buffer of the GPU may be used to consolidate repeated calculations and searching tasks during the motion estimation process. The use of frame collocation and depth buffer enables the GPU to be better utilized and to further accelerate video encoding.
This is a potentially damning patent for the industry, as companies like Adobe,NVidia, Cinnafilm and others have been releasing GPGPU-accelerated encoding systems for the last few years. Now Microsoft has the means to crush them all under patent violations.
So now’s the time, people, to start digging for Prior Art. Microsoft applied for this in 2004. Anyone know of any GPU-accelerated video encoders before then?
via Microsoft Patents GPU-Accelerated Video Encoding | ConceivablyTech.
