Accelerating video decoding using GPU

Most modern computers or game consoles are equipped with powerful graphics processing units (GPU) to accelerate graphics operations. There is a trend that the power of GPU outgrows that of the CPU (central processing unit). However, the GPU engines are specially designed for graphics operations. Can we take advantage of the powerful GPU engines for more general operations other than pure graphics operations? The answer is positive. In this study, we present schemes that map other non-graphics operations into graphics engines with an example application of accelerating video decoding with the assistance of GPU. Our results show that significant speed-up can be achieved by leveraging the GPU power. Specifically, we have achieved real-time playback of high definition video on a PC with an Intel Pentium III 667 MHz CPU and an nVidia GeForce3 GPU.