New Apple Macs to include video encoding super-chips?

Steve Jobs has let slip that Apple’s planning new products in the near future, and speculation is rampant that the firm’s poised to unleash new MacBook laptops. But what’ll be inside? According to the latest rumours, dedicated video processing hardware.

Sure, it might sound a bit dull, but by including chips to handle video encoding and decoding Apple could take the workload off its computers’ main processor, vastly improving performance in playback, editing and encoding video.

That means mundane tasks like converting clips for playback on an iPod would be significantly faster if done using a Mac. Likewise, editing weighty video clips would be faster, and wouldn’t hinder the performance of other applications running at the same time.

It’d be a smart move, since Apple has a loyal following in the TV and film industry, as well as at home, thanks to apps like iMovie. But whether it’s anything more than hopeful speculation, we’ll have to wait and see.

TBC | £TBC | Apple (via Crunchgear)

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