AVIVO
Encyclopedia
ATI Avivo is a set of hardware and low level software features present on the ATI Radeon R520
family of GPUs
and all later ATI Radeon products. ATI Avivo was designed to offload video decoding, encoding, and post-processing
from a computer's CPU
to a compatible GPU. ATI Avivo compatible GPUs have lower CPU usage when a player and decoder software that support ATI Avivo is used.
Like NVIDIA PureVideo HD, ATI Avivo does not offer any actual decoding software.
and NVIDIA
have resulted in GPUs
with ever increasing processing power since early 2000s. To parallel this increase in speed and power, both GPU makers needed to increase video quality as well, in 3D graphics applications the focus in increasing quality has mainly fallen on anti-aliasing
and anisotropic filtering
. However it has dawned upon both companies that video quality on the PC would need improvement as well and the current APIs provided by both companies have not seen many improvements over a few generations of GPUs. Therefore, ATI decided to revamp its GPU's video processing capability with ATI Avivo, in order to compete with NVIDIA PureVideo API.
In the time of release of the latest generation Radeon HD
series, the successor, the ATI Avivo HD was announced, and was presented on every Radeon HD 2600 and 2400 video card
s to be available July, 2007 after NVIDIA announced similar hardware acceleration solution, PureVideo HD
.
As of 2011 Avivo is also known as AMD Media Codec Package, an optional component of the AMD Catalyst software.
In decoding, the GPU core supports hardware decoding of H.264, VC-1, WMV9, and MPEG-2 videos to lower CPU utilization (the bitstream processing/entropy decoding still requires CPU processing). ATI Avivo supports vector adaptive de-interlacing and video scaling to reduce jaggies
, and spatial/temporal dithering, enabling 10-bit color quality on 8-bit and 6-bit displays during process stage.
capabilities, the Xilleon
chip for TV overscan
and underscan correction, the Theater 200 chip as well as the originally-presented ATI Avivo Video Converter.
However, most of the important hardware decoding functions of ATI Avivo HD are provided by the accompanied Unified Video Decoder
(UVD
) and the Advanced Video Processor (AVP) which supports hardware decoding of H.264/AVC and VC-1
videos (and included bitstream processing/entropy decoding which was absent in last generation ATI Avivo). For MPEG-1
, MPEG-2
, and MPEG-4
/DivX
videos, motion compensation and iDCT (inverse discrete cosine transform) will be done instead.
The AVP retrieves the video from memory; handles scaling, de-interlacing and colour correction; and writes it back to memory. The AVP also uses 12-bit transform to reduce data loss during conversion, same as previous generation ATI Avivo.
HDMI
supports the transfer of video together with 8-channel 96 kHz 24-bit digital audio (and optionally Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio streams for external decoding by AV receivers, since HDMI 1.3). Integration of an audio controller in the GPU core capable of surround sound output eliminates the need for S/PDIF
connection from motherboard
or sound card
to the video card, for synchronous video and audio output via HDMI cable.
The Radeon HD 2900 series lacked the UVD
feature, but still was given the ATI Avivo HD label.
, MPEG-2, MPEG-4
, DivX
video formats, as well as formats used in iPod
and PSP
. Earlier versions of this software uses only the CPU for transcoding, but have been locked for exclusive use with the ATI X1000 series
of GPUs. Software modifications have made it possible to use version 1.12 of converter on a wider range of graphics adapters. The ATI Avivo Video Converter for Windows Vista
was available with the release of Catalyst 7.9 (September 2007 release, version 8.411).
The ATI Avivo Video Converter with GPU transcoding acceleration is now also available for use with HD 4800 and HD 4600 series graphics cards and is included with the Catalyst 8.12 drivers. Support for Vista x64 is available via a separate download starting with Catalyst 9.6 (9-6_vista32-64_xcode). The new software is faster than Badaboom, an encoder that uses NVIDIA's CUDA
to accelerate encoding, but has a higher CPU utilization than Badaboom. One review reported visual problems with iPod and WMV playback using Catalyst version 8.12, and although concluding there was no clear winner, if forced to choose would go with the Avivo converter.
Radeon R520
ATI's "R520" core is the foundation for a line of DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0 3D accelerator X1000 video cards. It is ATI's first major architectural overhaul since the "R300" core and is highly optimized for Shader Model 3.0. The Radeon X1000 series using the core was introduced on October 5,...
family of GPUs
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
and all later ATI Radeon products. ATI Avivo was designed to offload video decoding, encoding, and post-processing
Video post-processing
The term post-processing is used in the video/film business for quality-improvement image processing methods used in video playback devices, , and video players software and transcoding software...
from a computer's CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
to a compatible GPU. ATI Avivo compatible GPUs have lower CPU usage when a player and decoder software that support ATI Avivo is used.
Like NVIDIA PureVideo HD, ATI Avivo does not offer any actual decoding software.
Background
The GPU wars between ATIATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
and NVIDIA
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
have resulted in GPUs
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
with ever increasing processing power since early 2000s. To parallel this increase in speed and power, both GPU makers needed to increase video quality as well, in 3D graphics applications the focus in increasing quality has mainly fallen on anti-aliasing
Anti-aliasing
In digital signal processing, spatial anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution...
and anisotropic filtering
Anisotropic filtering
In 3D computer graphics, anisotropic filtering is a method of enhancing the image quality of textures on surfaces that are at oblique viewing angles with respect to the camera where the projection of the texture appears to be non-orthogonal In 3D computer graphics, anisotropic filtering...
. However it has dawned upon both companies that video quality on the PC would need improvement as well and the current APIs provided by both companies have not seen many improvements over a few generations of GPUs. Therefore, ATI decided to revamp its GPU's video processing capability with ATI Avivo, in order to compete with NVIDIA PureVideo API.
In the time of release of the latest generation Radeon HD
Radeon R600
The graphics processing unit codenamed the Radeon R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies...
series, the successor, the ATI Avivo HD was announced, and was presented on every Radeon HD 2600 and 2400 video card
Video card
A video card, Graphics Card, or Graphics adapter is an expansion card which generates output images to a display. Most video cards offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors...
s to be available July, 2007 after NVIDIA announced similar hardware acceleration solution, PureVideo HD
Nvidia PureVideo
Nvidia PureVideo is a hardware feature designed to offload video decoding processes and video post-processing from a computer's CPU hardware to Nvidia's GPU hardware series GeForce 6 and later, GeForce M series ; and Nvidia Quadro series...
.
As of 2011 Avivo is also known as AMD Media Codec Package, an optional component of the AMD Catalyst software.
ATI Avivo
During capturing, ATI Avivo amplifies the source, automatically adjust its brightness and contrast. ATI Avivo implements 12-bit transform to reduce data loss during conversion; it also utilizes motion adaptive 3D comb filter, automatic color control, automatic gain control, hardware noise reduction and edge enhancement technologies for better video playback quality.In decoding, the GPU core supports hardware decoding of H.264, VC-1, WMV9, and MPEG-2 videos to lower CPU utilization (the bitstream processing/entropy decoding still requires CPU processing). ATI Avivo supports vector adaptive de-interlacing and video scaling to reduce jaggies
Jaggies
"Jaggies" is the informal name for artifacts in raster images, most frequently from aliasing, which in turn is often caused by non-linear mixing effects producing high-frequency components and/or missing or poor anti-aliasing filtering prior to sampling....
, and spatial/temporal dithering, enabling 10-bit color quality on 8-bit and 6-bit displays during process stage.
ATI Avivo HD
The successor of ATI Avivo is the ATI Avivo HD, which consists of several parts: integrated 5.1 surround sound HDMI audio controller, dual integrated HDCP encryption key for each DVI port (to reduce license costs), the Theater 200 chip for VIVOVideo In Video Out
Video In Video Out, usually seen as the acronym VIVO , is a graphics port which enables some video cards to have bidirectional analog video transfer through a mini-DIN connector, usually of the 9-pin variety, and a specialised splitter cable .VIVO is found on high-end ATI and NVIDIA...
capabilities, the Xilleon
Xilleon
The Broadcom Xilleon video processor is a 32-bit system-on-a-chip MIPS processor, for use in set-top boxes and digital TVs, providing MPEG2 decoding and other functions for major worldwide broadcast networks .The Xilleon line consists of four products, models 210D/H, 226,...
chip for TV overscan
Overscan
Overscan is extra image area around the four edges of a video image that may not be seen reliably by the viewer. It exists because television sets in the 1930s through 1970s were highly variable in how the video image was framed within the cathode ray tube .-Origins of overscan:Early televisions...
and underscan correction, the Theater 200 chip as well as the originally-presented ATI Avivo Video Converter.
However, most of the important hardware decoding functions of ATI Avivo HD are provided by the accompanied Unified Video Decoder
Unified Video Decoder
The Unified Video Decoder, previously called Universal Video Decoder, or UVD in short, is the video decoding unit from ATI Technologies to support hardware decode of H.264 and VC-1 video codec standards, and being a part of ATI Avivo HD technology....
(UVD
Unified Video Decoder
The Unified Video Decoder, previously called Universal Video Decoder, or UVD in short, is the video decoding unit from ATI Technologies to support hardware decode of H.264 and VC-1 video codec standards, and being a part of ATI Avivo HD technology....
) and the Advanced Video Processor (AVP) which supports hardware decoding of H.264/AVC and VC-1
VC-1
VC-1 is the informal name of the SMPTE 421M video codec standard, which was initially developed as a proprietary video format by Microsoft before it was released as a formal SMPTE standard video format on April 3, 2006...
videos (and included bitstream processing/entropy decoding which was absent in last generation ATI Avivo). For MPEG-1
MPEG-1
MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
, MPEG-2
MPEG-2
MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
, and MPEG-4
MPEG-4
MPEG-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal standard ISO/IEC...
/DivX
DivX
DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the...
videos, motion compensation and iDCT (inverse discrete cosine transform) will be done instead.
The AVP retrieves the video from memory; handles scaling, de-interlacing and colour correction; and writes it back to memory. The AVP also uses 12-bit transform to reduce data loss during conversion, same as previous generation ATI Avivo.
HDMI
HDMI
HDMI is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data. It is a digital alternative to consumer analog standards, such as radio frequency coaxial cable, composite video, S-Video, SCART, component video, D-Terminal, or VGA...
supports the transfer of video together with 8-channel 96 kHz 24-bit digital audio (and optionally Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio streams for external decoding by AV receivers, since HDMI 1.3). Integration of an audio controller in the GPU core capable of surround sound output eliminates the need for S/PDIF
S/PDIF
S/PDIF is a digital audio interconnect used in consumer audio equipment over relatively short distances. The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable with RCA connectors or a fiber optic cable with TOSLINK connectors. S/PDIF interconnects components in home theaters and other digital high...
connection from motherboard
Motherboard
In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...
or sound card
Sound card
A sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware...
to the video card, for synchronous video and audio output via HDMI cable.
The Radeon HD 2900 series lacked the UVD
Unified Video Decoder
The Unified Video Decoder, previously called Universal Video Decoder, or UVD in short, is the video decoding unit from ATI Technologies to support hardware decode of H.264 and VC-1 video codec standards, and being a part of ATI Avivo HD technology....
feature, but still was given the ATI Avivo HD label.
ATI Avivo Video Converter
ATI has also released a transcoder software dubbed "ATI Avivo Video Converter," which supports transcoding between H.264, VC-1, WMV9, WMV9 PMCPortable Media Center
Portable Media Center is a defunct hard drive-based portable media player platform developed by Microsoft. Announced at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show , and released in early 2004, it was originally positioned as a competitor to Apple's iPod.The platform was conceived in line with Microsoft's...
, MPEG-2, MPEG-4
MPEG-4
MPEG-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal standard ISO/IEC...
, DivX
DivX
DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the...
video formats, as well as formats used in iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
and PSP
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
. Earlier versions of this software uses only the CPU for transcoding, but have been locked for exclusive use with the ATI X1000 series
Radeon R520
ATI's "R520" core is the foundation for a line of DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0 3D accelerator X1000 video cards. It is ATI's first major architectural overhaul since the "R300" core and is highly optimized for Shader Model 3.0. The Radeon X1000 series using the core was introduced on October 5,...
of GPUs. Software modifications have made it possible to use version 1.12 of converter on a wider range of graphics adapters. The ATI Avivo Video Converter for Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
was available with the release of Catalyst 7.9 (September 2007 release, version 8.411).
The ATI Avivo Video Converter with GPU transcoding acceleration is now also available for use with HD 4800 and HD 4600 series graphics cards and is included with the Catalyst 8.12 drivers. Support for Vista x64 is available via a separate download starting with Catalyst 9.6 (9-6_vista32-64_xcode). The new software is faster than Badaboom, an encoder that uses NVIDIA's CUDA
CUDA
CUDA or Compute Unified Device Architecture is a parallel computing architecture developed by Nvidia. CUDA is the computing engine in Nvidia graphics processing units that is accessible to software developers through variants of industry standard programming languages...
to accelerate encoding, but has a higher CPU utilization than Badaboom. One review reported visual problems with iPod and WMV playback using Catalyst version 8.12, and although concluding there was no clear winner, if forced to choose would go with the Avivo converter.
Software support
- ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre
- Corel WinDVD
- Media Player Classic Home Cinema
- MediaPortalMediaPortalMediaPortal is an open-source media center software project, often considered an alternative to Windows Media Center. It provides a 10-foot user interface for performing typical PVR/TiVo functionality, including playing, pausing, and recording live TV; playing DVDs, videos, and music; viewing...
- MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Windows VistaWindows VistaWindows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
internal MPEG-2MPEG-2MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
decoder - Nero (software suite)
- All linuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
players supporting XvX video extensionThe X video extension, often abbreviated as XVideo or Xv, is a video output mechanism for the X Window System. The protocol was designed by David Carver; the specification for version 2 of the protocol was written in July 1991. Its main use today is to rescale video playback in the video controller...
output (with ATIAtiAs a word, Ati may refer to:* Ati, a town in Chad* Ati, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines* Ati-Atihan Festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines* Ati, a queen of the fabled Land of Punt in Africa...
official drivers 9.1 or newer)
See also
- AMD Catalyst - contains the AMD Video Converter successor of ATI Avivo
- UVD (Unified Video Decoder)Unified Video DecoderThe Unified Video Decoder, previously called Universal Video Decoder, or UVD in short, is the video decoding unit from ATI Technologies to support hardware decode of H.264 and VC-1 video codec standards, and being a part of ATI Avivo HD technology....
- is the video decoding bit-stream technology from ATI TechnologiesATI TechnologiesATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
to support hardware (GPU) decode with DXVA. - OpenVideo Decode (OVD) – an new open cross-platform video acceleration API from AMD.
- X-Video Bitstream Acceleration (XvBA) APIX-Video Bitstream AccelerationX-Video Bitstream Acceleration , designed by AMD for its Radeon GPU and Fusion APU, is an arbitrary extension of the X video extension for the X Window System on Linux operating-systems. XvBA API allows video programs to offload portions of the video decoding process to the GPU video-hardware...
for Linux/UNIX operating-system. - Video Acceleration API (VA API) for Linux/UNIX operating-system.
- DirectX Video Acceleration (DxVA) API for Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
operating-system. - Nvidia PureVideoNvidia PureVideoNvidia PureVideo is a hardware feature designed to offload video decoding processes and video post-processing from a computer's CPU hardware to Nvidia's GPU hardware series GeForce 6 and later, GeForce M series ; and Nvidia Quadro series...
- a competing technology from NVIDIANVIDIANvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
for use with their graphics chips. - VDPAU (Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix) from NVIDIAVDPAUVDPAU is an open source library and API originally designed by Nvidia for its GeForce 8 series and later GPU hardware, targeted at the X Window System on Unix-based operating systems...
- Intel Clear VideoIntel Clear VideoIntel Clear Video is a hardware feature designed to offload video decoding processes and video post-processing from a computer's CPU hardware to Intel's GMA integrated graphics processors.- External links :* *...
- X-Video Motion Compensation (XvMC) API for Linux/UNIX operating-system.