Patent ID: 8542732

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a graphics processing unit comprising an array of software-configurable general purpose parallel processors and a globally shared memory, wherein each of the software-configurable general purpose parallel processors in said array of software-configurable general purpose parallel processors has access to said globally shared memory; a central processing unit; a first memory accessible by said graphics processing unit, said first memory storing a first set of computer executable instructions, said first set of computer executable instructions using said software-configurable general purpose parallel processors in said array of software-configurable general purpose parallel processors to perform video compression steps including prediction, decimation, transformation and quantization, and inverse-quantization and inverse-transformation involving a current frame and one or more reference frames stored in said globally shared memory; and a second memory accessible by said central processing unit, said second memory storing a second set of computer executable instructions, said second set of computer executable instructions using said central processing unit to perform rate control on said current frame by choosing at least one target parameter value for transformation and quantization as said video compression steps are performed by said graphics processing unit and to perform entropy encoding on said current frame in response to a signal indicating the current frame is ready for encoding.