Interview with Imagination Technologies by Kathleen Maher

Interview with Imagination Technologies by Kathleen Maher in Barcelona Spain at 3GSM

Interview with Tao Group by Kathleen Maher

Interview with Tao Group by Kathleen Maher at 3GSM in Barcelona Spain

Interview with Texas Instruments by Kathleen Maher

Interview with Texas Instruments by Kathleen Maher at 3GSM in Barcelona Spain

Dazzling pyrotechnics on a handheld 3D budget

OpenGL ES 1.1 mobile phone coding optimizations and graphics include matrix management, vertex lighting, visibility determination, how to generate convincing volumentric explosions, and then bringing it all together in 64-spaceship battle scene with lighting and explosions running at 30 fps on a mobile phone.

1. Subscribe on iTunes
2. View and rate on YouTube

OpenMAX DL: Media Codec Portability

• OpenMAX DL is a library of key static primitive functions
  - Designed to cover 80% of the processing required in a multimedia codec
• Abstracts the ISA from the multimedia codec
  - Enables faster codec development time and faster porting of existing codecs
• Enables third party codec vendors to sell processor-agnostic codecs
  - Multi-core architectures (i.e. ARM + DSP) gain greater code reuse between cores

OpenMAX DL Domains

1. Video
   - MPEG-4 SP/H.263 BL (encode and decode)
   - H.264 (encode and decode)
2. Image Codec
   - JPEG (encode and decode)
3. Image Processing
   - Color space conversion
   - Pixel packing/unpacking
   - De-blocking / de-ringing
   - Rotation, scaling, compositing, etc.
4. Multimedia Audio
   - MP3
   - AAC
5. Signal Processing
   - FIR
   - IIR
   - FFT
   - Dot Product

OpenGL ES 2.0: Shaders Go Mobile

OpenGL ES 2.0 represents a major milestone in the convergence of graphics capabilities between desktop and handheld gaming devices. The OpenGL ES 2.0 specification introduces the majority of the functionality used by today’s desktop games into the embedded space. While this change from OpenGL ES 1.1 ushers in the shader era to mobile gaming, it also means that mobile game developers will need to make significant changes to their applications. This podcast from the 2006 Game Developers Conference, reviews in detail what has changed in OpenGL ES 2.0 and what the changes mean for mobile game development.


The video version is the slideshow from the talk (PPT slides synced with audio and video of the presenter from ATI/AMD).

1. Audio only (mp3)
2. Video slideshow with audio (mp4)

OpenSL ES : Enhanced audio for mobile devices

This interview with Nathan Charles from Creative and Ytai Ben-Tsvi from Samsung looks at the new OpenSL ES (Open Sound Library for Embedded Systems) API to reduce fragmentation in the audio market and standardize access to hardware acceleration and advanced audio functionality.

• There is a bewildering variety of proprietary audio APIs in the embedded market. Games or music applications have to either write to the lowest common demonitor (which is very low) or lose portability between devices.
• OpenSL ES provides a cross-platform, common API, with support for current standards built in.
• Different applications need different kinds of functionality.  Profiles address these different markets.
• Different devices will ship with different numbers of profiles based on their markets
• Three profiles to start:  Game profile (include functionality such as 3D positioning of sound), music profile (for MP3 Players) and phone profile (for phone UI, ring-tone and simple 2D games)
• OpenSL ES will let silicon vendors stop having to support many drivers for many different APIs, and instead have a common way to provide hardware accelerated audio
• OpenSL ES is receiving enormous support from most of the major audio API and hardware vendors. The Working Group represents both PC and mobile developers so it brings the perspective of both together.
• Public launch of the specification is expected in early 2007

OpenKODE: Portable rich media applications on mobile phones

This interview with Neil Trevett, chairperson of the OpenKODE working group, looks at the new OpenKODE APIs for state-of-the-art media acceleration technologies combined with system abstraction for portable access to operating system resources, input devices and displays.

• OpenKODE is like DirectX but it is for mobile phones and it is an open cross-platform standard
• OpenKODE provides application developers with a familiar set of C++ media APIs that provide system abstraction so that you don’t have to worry about the underlying handset hardware or OS
• OpenKODE provides full mixed-media data and temporal integration
• The OpenKODE Core provides system abstraction (hides difference between handsets)
• OpenKODE provides a well-defined media stack with native performance - OpenGL ES (3D graphics), OpenVG (Vector and raster graphics), OpenMAX (streaming media, video and image processing), OpenSL ES (enhanced audio)
• OpenKODE includes an enhanced EGL that allows trans-API coordination and integration
• OpenKODE appeals to developers, carriers and handset manufactuers, enabling each with a way to make money and reduce fragmentation of development and marketing resources
• OpenKODE can be used to accelerate Java applications as well as native applications
• Public launch of the specification is expected at 3GSM in San Franisco (March 2007)