Jeff, you bolded the bit about the seperate streaming chipset, then stopped the bolding mid sentance where it says it would be prohibitively expensive, and could introduce latency issues when switching between systems.
In light of the industry’s business model, adding an additional $64 in parts to devices at these price points when they are often sold at a loss is not sustainable financially. The stakeholder also commented that it does not make sense to compare dedicated media steaming boxes to game consoles because the consoles are optimized for different function
In other words, 'no, we're not gonna do that'
That part is interesting.
1) The EPA Energy star specs are voluntary but they will be mandated by multiple countries all over the world (this is in the AMD proxy statement).
2) PS4 and Durango MUST comply, they have no choice. The verbiage in the stakeholder letters to the EPA are exaggerating the price and difficulty. A USB stick with a complete Android Google TV SoC system and memory retails for $48 and that includes a controller. Remove controller and we are down to less than $40, remove markup and we are under $30.
They have two issues (active UI interface power 40 watts and streaming power 50 watts) and prior to the current specs there was a Set Top Box power spec for streaming RVU and OTT IPTV of less than 20 watts; that was removed but likely after the designs for next generation were implemented.
Plans, for instance, include Skype support while RVU streaming as well as XTV browser overlay support while streaming. RVU mode is a STB mode but the additional features mentioned are likely to exceed STB power regs so they were lifted.
There are EU power regulations for Always on Standby mode with exceptions for "special features". Standby is 500mw but special exceptions are allowed and I have not been able to find the power that is authorized.
EU paper on standby power mode and exceptions. it applies to the PS4 and Xbox 720.
Cerney did state that the CPU in the second chip "so called Southbridge" is there to handle background tasks because of restrictive EU power regulations. Southbridge is on and the APU is mostly turned off, that should include the GDDR5 controller and memory. This depends on what the EU regulations will allow as well as GPU and GDDR5 standby power requirements.
My opinion is that the second chip for IPTV streaming is for foreground and also can be used for background. Cerney stating the second chip is to meet EU regs for Standby special exceptions is probably bogus as I can find no specs for the special exception power regs.
EPA is concerned by power use that occurs for long periods not for a firmware update that may happen once a month. They are concerned with STB power use for always on when the TV is on RVU streaming and implementing XTV at the same time requires a GPU. So second chip for Standby mode yes but not for the special exceptions that are allowed.
You also missed the Sony patent filed July 2012 on using 2 GPUs, low power and high power and the context switching between them. Hopefully Sony followed/implemented the patent. The cheaper method is to have fixed duties for the two GPUs to comply with the Energy star Regs.
onQ123 said:
http://www.imgtec.com/corporate/news...asp?NewsID=643
06 September 2011
Sony licenses Imagination Technologies' PowerVR graphics IP technologies
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP"), has signed a further license agreement with Sony Corporation, (“Sony”
, a leading consumer electronics company, for IP cores from Imagination’s PowerVR SGX Series5XT graphics family.
Sony will deploy Imagination’s technologies in SoCs targeting consumer markets.
Under the terms of the licence agreement Imagination receives licence fees and royalty revenues based on shipments of semiconductor products incorporating Imagination's IP.
Good find, timing is right and it's a ARM derived GPU so it's a possible in the PS4, Sony TVs, Blu-ray players, 22nm refreshed PS3.
FCC rule in 2010 mandated RVU in 2014 is going to drive STB features and home networking in all CE products. FCC rules on ATSC 2.0 2013 is going to add 1080P and S3D as well as XTV.
