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Comment by erikpukinskis

9 years ago

Right but I guess I’m asking if they COULD be or if you’d need like a FPGA for that.

AFAIK a lot of "hardware" codecs are DSPs with some extra instructions that are good for video (like sum of absolute differences). In theory maybe they could support new algorithms with a firmware update. In reality, such firmware may simply not be developed or the DSP may not be fast enough to run a new codec.

  • Most DSPs I've worked with have an assortment of really specific extra instructions added for the particular application. I suspect these DSPs are similar - adding a new codec probably means adding a few more instructions, or even the odd hardware block dangling off the side.

  • Do you think the Mill family of processors could find a niche here? (if it ever sees the light of day, and I hope so because the technical videos are super-interesting (and educational))

    [0] https://millcomputing.com/

    • People suggesting Mill as the solution to every problem without giving any reasons certainly doesn't give a good impression.

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