"Microsoft applied for the patent titled “Accelerated video encoding using a graphics processing unit” in October 2004 and was granted a patent to its invention today. It outlines a concept where the GPU is used, among others, to perform motion estimation in videos, the use of the depth buffer of the GPU, to determine comprising, collocating video frames, mapping pixels to texels, frame processing using the GPU and output of data to the CPU.

The patent appears to cover all bases of GPU-accelerated video encoding, which hands Microsoft the rights to a major technology that already impacts prosumer applications and is making its way into the mainstream as we are moving into HD and beyond. Especially with the arrival of 3D, video encoders will depend on GPU acceleration to achieve reasonable video rendering times..." | more