Intel Gears up for Windows 8
August 7, 2012, Santa Clara, CA. We talked with Ryan Tabrah, Product Manager, Intel Media SDK and Codecs and Suresh Rangarajulu, Marketing Manager for Intel HD Graphics about new SDKs for iA (Intel Architecture) products. The new tools are directed towards developers planning to create new applications for the soon to be released Windows 8.
The media SDK is a cross platform API for video and graphics, and are set to address the growing importance of video in all types of communications and media. The emerging video cascade is changing the nature of media and the role that the PC plays in that arena.
The media SDK has an API, dispatcher, and source code samples. Within a video framework, the tools enable better filters and a smoother workflow. By integrating the tools into a standard media workflow, the resulting combination allows OpenCL to offload processes like filtering and color correction.
The strong growth of high definition graphics is calling for better ways to encode and display images. The quick sync technology provides a single API that can optimize all content for Intel CPUs. Prior to this release, changes in processors made development work much more difficult as new features, op-codes, and embedded processes changes with each processor. Now, this new API can optimize the image data for all iA processor families.
The OpenCL SDK is focused on the evolution of computers from large, tethered machines to very thin ultrabooks. The challenges for the ultrabook designer are in managing the limited battery capacity, and taking advantage of the performance available in the new APUs. The performance improvements in GPUs have increased by a factor of greater than 10 in the last 5 years, greatly surpassing the improvements in CPU throughput.
The new OpenCL SDK is currently on version 1.1, with 1.2 to be released in the near future. Specific optimizations for the IvyBridge CPU family allow the APU to work well with the existing and future standards. The API performs media operations to decode to OpenCL, perform post processing and filtering. The software package includes a set of libraries to provide code example and demonstrate the overall functionality.
All of the software is a part of the Intel visual computing initiative. The tools will enhance the workflows and provide transitions to next-generation workflows. The new abilities will enable consumers to produce more content without having to spend a lot on new tools and methodologies.
Already, some ISV have started to use the SDKs and this latest release will provide them with more capabilities and performance. This tool set will also encourage more development in HTML5, an emerging browser-based standard. As more browsers integrate the necessary engines, the SDK tools will become more important to the content developers. HTML5 is a H.264-based standard that benefits greatly from the use of the quick sync tools to gain faster and lower power performance from iA APUs.
There are other tools for debug and optimization in the total tool set. Most of the tools are built to use C+ + and some other c-based variants. There are extensions for other languages like WebCL and python. The other languages depend upon libraries on top of the language plus some bindings to provide functionality.
The target audience for this new set of tools is the video creator, who is using common tools like Sony’s Vega, or Adobe CS6. Avid incorporates a Sorenson fast codec to do similar work. This is creating a growing need for PC users to get tools that allow them to make and optimize video. Additionally, they want to make the best use of the new platforms and the available performance.
Finally, they are hoping to give the developer community an edge up to optimize new applications for Windows 8. The SDKs will reduce the transition times for the developers to the new OS by eliminating the need to write new and separate blocks of code for graphics and video functions.
The media SDK is for use on any x86 platform and will also be available for any Intel mobile devices. Eventually all of the iA platforms will be supported. This release provides a single point of use and development for all processors. The tools will work under Linux and Windows for the CPUs and under Windows for the GPUs.
The tools and their functions will be demonstrated at Siggraph. Free downloads of the tools are available at: http://intel.com/software/mediasdk and http://intel.com/software/opencl. The complete set of video content tools is available at: http://intel.com/software/vcsource
