On CES 2011, AMD is going to introduce the Brazos platform alongside with Zacate processor. However, AMD is also preparing new software that should enhance their offering.
Using ATI's free transcoding software often resulted in errors such as this oneThe software is known under codename "VPP" i.e. Video Power Pack [we also heard "Video Processing Pack" being mentioned, probably a deliberate distraction in an order to control who leaked the information]. Primary goal for VPP is to significantly improve video quality and video transcoding, enhancing the consumer experience by improving the already high level of video playback and avoid errors.
The problem AMD had with AVIVO HD software was the unpleasant fact that AVIVO is old, hard-coded software that could not properly utilize the current generation of DirectX 11 hardware, often producing inexplicable errors. Thus, we were not surprised to hear that AMD is working on complete rework of current Catalyst driver stack, as AMD was unable to properly address issues they were facing internally. Read - legacy software was also to blame for the poor scalability of AMD Radeon cards when compared to their competition, i.e. how two $200 cards would outperform two AMD's $400 cards in their respective multi-GPU configurations.
However, all of that is now history - it looks like Rick Bergman received open hands to fix everything that was wrong with AMD's GPU division, and the company is finally dedicating financial and human resources to make that happen. We won't go into exact details how we learned of experiences that some AMD engineers faced in order to bring great features to the market, busy fighting with the engineers from older-school which shot their chance of fame long time ago.
In any case, that "old school" lost the war and now ex-ATI folk are making sure Fusion gets executed properly.
