ATI Technologies has announced that its soon-to-be-released graphics controller, codenamed R520, includes a hardware H.264 Advanced Video Codec, which handles both HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats.
Although Microsoft has shown years ago that WMVHD technology can easily store high-quality 1920 × 1080 movies on a traditional DVD, unfortunately, even the software giant is not strong enough to convince the authorities. So HD-DVD and Blu-ray its development is unbroken, and although we could read about "peace negotiations" between the two standards, there was already enough confusion surrounding the formats of the future that we cannot predict which one will survive in the long run. We can only trust that it is only one.
The compression algorithms known as H.264 require 1280-720 megabits of data per second at 1920 × 1080 and 8 × 10, respectively, while MPEG-2, which is already very outdated, is used for today's traditional DVDs. It requires 15-20 Mbits with the same quality.
In order to achieve this quality safely and smoothly with the help of average computers and other consumer electronic devices, we will definitely need decoding target hardware. And that’s where the ATI R520 comes in: the manufacturer claims that this chip family is already coping with the new compression format, which will become especially important with the advent of mid-range video cards.
