The title of this blog can be taken in two ways; firstly as a reflection of the undeniable uptake in video demand (Infonetics Research Newsletter) and secondly, an oblique reference to the fact that the ubiquitous X86 is no longer the best fit for today’s demanding video applications. Quite latterly the x86 is running hot, white hot in fact, due to the ever increasing demands made by real-time video transcoding.

How could this be?

Well let’s first consider that video, thus far, has largely been an on demand service, i.e. stored then streamed as required. This is unlike voice that not only has to be real-time but also low latency. Consequently the underlying supporting infrastructure equipment has to be different. Voice leverages the agile real-time benefits of the DSP, while video hitches a ride on the standard X86 server platforms already used by the internet.
However, this is rapidly changing as the proliferation of mobile video and video conferencing creates the need for real time video also. Given that a single 1080P video channel takes as much processing power as say 1000 channels of voice! At least two issues come to mind; processing speed and network bandwidth.…