Phone co-processor found on cutting room floor

BANKING ON the current fad for today's youth uploading every moment of their lives to social networks, Ireland's Movidia has launched a dedicated video chip, the MA1110, for mobile handsets.

The objective is to remove the need to upload a handset-generated video to a desktop computer just so that it can have the boring bits chopped out. With Movidia's multimedia processor and software the handset can handle the video editing.

Significantly, the software has been designed so that anybody can use it - in order to provide mass market appeal. The MA1110 is also aimed at featurephones not just high-end smartphones.

According to Movidia's CEO, Sean Mitchell, this means the co-processor is addressing a market of some 300 million handsets per annum. So it will be cost competitive, too.

Video editing is, of course, processor intensive. So, to prevent a drain on the handset's main (baseband) processor, the MA1110 communicates directly with the handset's multimedia facilities.

That includes the camera (naturally); the FM radio; the speaker; and the screen(s) as well as any TV or GPS capabilities. Mitchell assured the INQ that the MA1110 dispenses with the need for any separate processor to handle MP3 playback as well.

Although Movidia has built its own video editing software, to showcase the coprocessor's video handling, Mitchell also admitted he's talking to the likes of Scalado, the handset still picture editing software specialist.

The demo, which Mitchell showed us on a mocked-up cameraphone, was indeed impressive. The INQ was particularly taken with the picture stabilisation facility which smooths out the shakes in a typical amateur video.

He also claimed that one in four music gig attendees now captures at least part of the performance on his or her cameraphone. So there's at least one ready-made market for video editing.

The chip can handle videos up to 30 frames per second and picture resolutions up to 12 megapixels. The 32-bit Risc-based device comes in a standard 8 x 8 mm BGA format.

Samples will become available later in 2009 with full mass production by Q1 2010.

The chip will be showcased at the forthcoming MWC show in Barcelona. µ