System-level analysis for MPEG-4 decoding on a multi-processor architecture
Egbert G. T. Jaspers, E.B. van der Tol, P.H.N. de With · 2002
The convergence of TV and new features such as Internet and games, requires a generic media-processing platform, that enables simultaneous execution of very diverse tasks, ranging from stream-oriented processing to highly data-dependent irregular processing with complex control. This paper presents the mapping of a Main-Visual profile MPEG-4 decoder for High-Definition (HD) video onto a flexible architecture platform. The hardware-software (HW-SW) design is derived by analyzing a partitioning of distinct tasks within the application. The proposed implementation contains a hierarchy of processors, which are matched to the characteristics of the processing tasks. Additionally, we introduce a hierarchy in communication and memory for memory-bandwidth efficiency and flexibility for HW reuse. The architecture provides various trade-off possibilities (flexibility, extensibility, HW-SW) while achieving the high performance density (i.e. the performance per unit area per unit power) that is required for consumer systems. 1. Trends and highlights in media processing In the past decade, the proliferation of digital video processing was strongly enforced by a number of international standards, of which MPEG-1 for Video CD, DV for digital camcording, and MPEG-2 for DVB and HDTV have become widely accepted. The high compression efficiency made MPEG-2 video compression especially successful for practical video transmission and storage systems. The breakthrough of this new technology was enabled by the fast continuous increase of the transistor density on a single chip, thereby keeping the system costs at an acceptable level. The transition into a new millennium coincides with MPEG-4 as yet a new advancement in coding techniques, not in the least triggered by the popularity of the Internet in the past years. Simultaneously with the growing success of the Internet, its problems also became apparent. Firstly, the Internet as a communication channel proved to be rather