3 ms·
You are also limited by number of access paths into the memory which holds, say, macroblock. I forgot about this issue, sorry. For block RAM in previous genera
by thesz 8y ago
You are also limited by number of access paths into the memory which holds, say, macroblock. I forgot about this issue, sorry.
For block RAM in previous generation FPGAs from Altera there were one read and one write paths. To have two read paths you would need to copy block RAM as many times as you need read paths. This means that if you search for block content inside a macroblock with N parallel accesses you would need N copies of macroblock stored.
Tabula's time shifting tech allowed for up to, I believe, twelve paths into the block RAM, six for read and six for write (they were time-scheduled to 1-read-1-write block RAM operating at six times the frequency). I thought this thing would be a road for superscalar FPGA CPUs, but Tabula was closed.
You can imagine not using RAM at all, but then you will spend other resources in FPGA.
These are problems with video compression I see here. I think they are substantial but not unsurmountable and require a balance to solve. It is just me that I saw the balance is not in favour of FPGA.
- fezz 8y agoDepends alot on the codec too. Light weight codecs like Tico/jpeg-xs and some jpeg implementations can use very little ram (~12 rows worth). Others need alot more for rate control, motion estimation, etc.
- cbHXBY1D 8y agoSuch a shame that Tabula closed down. They had some of the most interesting tech -- hopefully someone is able to pick it up someday. As someone who works with FPGAs, I think a solution like theirs is the only way FPGAs will become mainstream.
- nxmehta 8y agoAltera took many of the employees (although quite a few are now at AWS) and it's rumored they also bought the IP. A lot of the core ideas will live on in Stratix, hopefully.