Youview Graphics Specification

Youview, the renamed Project Canvas is not a bad specification. Its obvious it has been created with considerable real world experience of key areas that need to be defined for a broad purpose hybrid platform. The specification can be downloaded at the resources site. Covering areas of hardware and software I was naturally curious what it has to say about graphics.

To summarise:

• Blitter graphics required (filled boxes, scaled images, alpha blending)
• RGBA8 and RGBBA4 formats
• DirectFB acceleration
• MHEG mandated
  

For a spec that must target as many entry level platforms as possible, it seems to make sense. Keep the platform cheap and single chip. Reduce memory requirements. Still no requirement for vector acceleration or 3d. The most the spec is brave enough to say is that OpenGL (or OpenVG) could be used.

Yet, for a spec that is scheduled to launch in 2012, its a little worrying. Iphone 5 (q1?), ipad 2, Samsung Galaxy (2?) are all going to be available and competing for business, not to mention other smart phones, tablets and laptops. There seems to be no model for device capability discovery, effectively preventing an apps store model exploiting higher spec hardware, for encouraging games on STBs for example. The spec several times mentions FLASH applications, though its obvious FLASH cannot run well on this platform.

We have seen time and again in the DTV world in Europe that if something is not mandated, it does not happen. If Youview succeeds in its ambitions to become a European wide platform for hybrid content delivery, graphics on DTV will fall two to three generations behind competing devices in Europe.