Development of H.264 Encoder for a DSP Based Embedded System

This paper presents the various techniques used to first successfully port a Win32 based H.264 reference encoder software to the Texas Instruments's DM642 DSP based embedded platform, follows by the methods used to further optimise the performance of the encoder running on the DSP embedded platform. It provides useful guidelines on how to use appropriate programming practices on Win32 system to ensure that the codes produced can be easily ported to embedded platforms. It also describes how analysis tool is used to identify the critical parts of the software that can be further manipulated to improve the performance when running on the embedded platform.