小不啦叽的7寸平板设备会成为你的下一台电视？如果你想象中的“下一台电视”是50寸的4K超高画质电视(UHDTV)，你可能会无法同意以上论点，但依我的浅见，它已经发生了。
我说的“下一台电视”，指的是像以前放在客厅里那种大家伙，并不是“次屏幕设备(second-screen device)”；例如市场研究机构Gartner曾预测，平板设备将会成为推动“社交电视(social TV)体验的重要力量”。
你肯定能花上几个小时在平板设备上玩社交网络，就像是坐在客厅的大屏幕电视前面那样；我也是如此。不过我真的怀疑，我们之中有很多人早就会在沙发上或是床上抱着平板设备看电影或电视节目，而且频率高于我们所愿意承认的。
“让平板设备成为你家电视”的点子，成为许多厂商──包括软硬件开发商──为消费者带来的承诺；但是否成真，得取决于该业务是否能在2013年与之后的时间带来利润。
在我先前的文章中讨论到，今日的移动设备显示器画质远超越串流到设备上的视频内容画质，而我们理应会更享受平板设备上的更高画质视频，现实情况是我们看到的东西品质很差；视频的分辨率局限与缺陷，在新一代高分辨率移动设备显示器上会被放大。
有部分芯片供应商正在着手开发专为平板设备设计的显示处理器，不过就如其中一家芯片设计业者 Pixelworks 的总裁暨CEO Bruce Walicek在一场探讨相关主题的分析师会议上所言，目前还没有实际产品问世。
NXP Software也是致力于”填补内容与屏幕分辨率差距”的一家公司，专为移动平台打造视频锐利化软件算法(video sharpening software algorithms)
屏幕分辨率与尺寸对照
Source：NXP Softwareextesmc
本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载
第2页：为移动设备带来客厅高画质电视体验
第3页：移动显示处理领域的大战，现在才正要开打！
相关阅读：
• 夏普与联想合作开发智能电视
• 主打图像处理，博通发布第四代VideoCore技术
• LG获ARM Cortex-A50系列及下一代Mali GPU授权extesmc
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最 近NXP Software 的应用程序产品与开发经理Jeremy Thomas Davies接受EETimes美国版访问时，提及该公司继承自飞利浦实验室(Philips Laboratories)的电视技术与各种视频IP，以及其旨在“为移动设备带来客厅高画质电视体验”的三管齐下策略。
NXP Software计划将其”视频体验模块(video experience module)”提供给服务供应商、各OEM (包括芯片供货商与平板设备制造商)，以及为消费者提供名为CineXPlayer的视频锐利化应用程序。Davies表示，其视频体验模块的设计目标， 就是提升视频串流分辨率，并将类高画质电视的体验带至移动设备。
不同于那些专注于开发硬件解决方案(例如移动平台专用视频处理器)的厂商，NXP Software倚重的是软件──该公司期望利用已经整合在移动应用处理器内的绘图处理单元(GPU)，来执行视频体验模块算法。
Davies指出：“无论是采用Imagination 的GPU核心、或是ARM的Mali绘图处理核心，今日的多核心应用处理器功能是如此强大，足以支持视频锐利化与智能视频缩放(intelligent video scaling)等功能。”
不过NXP Software并未打算在单一解决方案中提供所有的视频强化算法(也就是能处理各种视频功能)；“我们有一个产品蓝图，”Davies：“而且我们计划以阶段性方式来教育客户。”换句话说，该公司并不是要一鼓作气推出所有视频技术，而是希望与市场趋势并进。
其它视频强化算法如抖动修正(correct judder)、动态模糊(motion blur)、对比(contrast)、人工错色(color artifacts)等等，Davies表示都正在开发中。
NXP Software 相信该公司具备说服移动平台供货商取得其视频体验模块授权的优势；因为Davies指出，两年前，NXP Software开发了一款iPhone用的视频锐利化消费性应用程序CineXPlayerHD，已经获得了上百万使用者的青睐。
Davies也表示，消费者对最佳视频品质的看法是主观的，因此从CineXPlayer应用程序收集到的群众信息显得非常有价值；NXP Software的工程团队已经从使用者对CineXPlayer的设定习惯，归纳出消费者对最佳画质的偏好模式。
本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载
第3页：移动显示处理领域的大战，现在才正要开打！
相关阅读：
• 夏普与联想合作开发智能电视
• 主打图像处理，博通发布第四代VideoCore技术
• LG获ARM Cortex-A50系列及下一代Mali GPU授权extesmc
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NXP Software 的视频体验模块能藉由分辨率强化，为屏幕提供高品质放大功能，让视频品质配合高画质屏幕，并缩减压缩功能区块；该模块也藉由智能添加画素细节，提供局部与锐利度强化，以及感知色彩与深度等效果的提升。
在过去至少二十年来，包括飞利浦在内的所有领先消费性电子制造商致力于为新一代显示器带来高分辨率视频；这些业者磨练其视频技能并藉由差异化在其上蓬勃发展：“对我们来说，这有点像是历史重演。”
但现在媒介成了移动设备，所有视频处理解决方案供货商必须重新考量，到底多少程度的视频处理是为了在视觉上取悦平板设备使用者而真正所需的；除了成本议题，对电池寿命所带来的冲击也需要一并考量。
不过所有的应用程序处理器大厂包括高通(Qualcomm)与博通(Broadcom)，在这方面应该也有自己的策略；看来移动显示处理领域的大战，现在才正要开打！
本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载
编译：Judith Cheng
参考英文原文：Media tablet is your next TV，by Junko Yoshida
相关阅读：
• 夏普与联想合作开发智能电视
• 主打图像处理，博通发布第四代VideoCore技术
• LG获ARM Cortex-A50系列及下一代Mali GPU授权extesmc
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Media tablet is your next TV
Junko Yoshida
That idea of “the media tablet as your next TV” is the premise on which a number of companies — software and hardware developers included — are depending to capitalize their business in 2013 and beyond. PARIS — Is the media tablet your next TV?
If your definition of “next-TV” is a 50-inch screen 4K UHDTV, you may disagree with the contention that you’re going to end up watching a seven-inch screen that fits in a purse. But in my humble opinion, that little tablet has already taken over.
When I say “next-TV,” I mean TV as a boob tube, not a “second-screen device.” Gartner, Inc., for example, predicts that the tablet will become “the principal force behind social TV experiences.”
You can certainly while away the hours doing all sorts of social stuff on your tablet, just as you watch a big-screen TV in the living room. No question. I do that, too. But I do suspect many of us also cuddle up with our tablet in a sofa or in a bed, simply to watch a movie or a TV show in selfish solitude — probably more often than we’d care to admit.
That idea of “the media tablet as your next TV” is the premise on which a number of companies — software and hardware developers included — are depending to capitalize their business in 2013 and beyond.
As discussed in a previous article entitled “Retina Display badly needs video processing,” the quality of mobile displays today is by far outpacing the quality of content streamed to mobile screens. Even though we should be enjoying on our tablet far better video, the reality is that we are watching is pretty crappy. Resolution limitations and flaws in video only get magnified in the newfangled high-resolution mobile displays.
Some chip companies are pondering a display processor specifically designed for tablets. Although no such chip has emerged on the market, Bruce Walicek, president and CEO at Pixelworks, discussed — in a recent quarterly financial analysts’ call — how display processing technology is becoming even more important on mobile devices.
References in Screen Resolutions and Sizes
source: NXP Software
NXP Software is similarly keen on filling in the “experience gap between content and screen.” The company is pitching its video sharpening software algorithms to mobile platforms.
NXP Software
Citing the Dutch giant’s famed TV heritage and a variety of video IPs accumulated at Philips Laboratories, Jeremy Thomas Davies, NXP Software’s product and development manager of applications, recently talked to EE Times about his company’s three-pronged strategy to “bring the living room HD TV experience to mobile.”
The company hopes to offer its “video experience module” to a) service providers; b) OEMs (chip suppliers and tablet vendors), and c) directly to consumers as a video sharpening app called CineXPlayer. The video experience module is designed to “upscale video stream resolution and bring HDTV-like experience to mobile,” claimed Davies.
Unlike those eyeing to develop hardware-based solutions (i.e. a special video or display processor for mobile platforms), NXP Software, as its company suggests, is a strong believer in software. The company is hoping to leverage the GPU – already integrated in mobile apps processors – to run NXP Software’s video experience module algorithms.
“Look, whether they are using Imagination’s GPU core or ARM’s Mali, today’s multi-core apps processors are so powerful and they are more than capable” of sharpening video and intelligent video scaling, said Davies.
The company, however, doesn’t plan to offer all the video enhancement algorithms (designed to deal with various video artifacts) in one package. “We have a road map,” said Davies, “and we plan to roll them out in phases as we educate our customers.” In other words, rather than pushing every video hat trick in one go, “we need to bring the market with us,” he said.
Other video enhancement algorithms to correct judder, motion blur, contrast, and color artifacts, for example, are “cooking in the pipeline,” Davies said.
NXP Software believes it’s well positioned to talk mobile platform vendors into licensing its video experience modules. Since it rolled out two years ago a consumer app, called CineXPlayerHD, designed to sharpen video on iPhone, NXP Software has been collecting insights from a million CineXPlayer users, according to Davies.
Noting how each consumer perceives best video quality is subjective, Davies pointed out CineXPlayer’s crowd-sourced information is extremely valuable. NXP Software’s engineering team has been extracting patterns from how consumers used a variable slider in the CineXPlayer to set what they believed as optimal video viewing.
The company’s video experience module offers high-quality up-scaling to screen by resolution enhancement, matching video quality to the HD screen and compression blocks reduction. It also provides details and sharpness enhancement by intelligently added pixel detail, increasing perceived color and depth and others.
Bringing high-resolution video specifically tailored to a new display is an exercise all the leading consumer TV manufacturers, including Philips, went through in the last two decades. They honed their video skills and thrived on them as their differentiator. NXP Software’s Davies noted, “For us, this feels like a history repeating itself.”
But when the medium is mobile, every vendor of display processing solutions must newly ponder how much video processing is actually needed to visibly please tablet users. The issue of cost is also compounded by the impact on battery.
While every leading apps processor company, Qualcomm and Broadom included, is believed to have its own strategy, the battle of mobile display processing has only begun now.
责编：Quentin
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