Renesas chip allows mobile phone HD video playback and recording

Well here it is, folks! Renesas announced this morning that their latest media processor is optimized to allow for full HD video on mobile devices and phones. It's called the SH7370 and as a part of the SH-MobileHD1 series, it will be able to decode 1080p at 30 frames per second.

But that's not all. It can also encode H.264-based video at 30 frames per second. This means that your smartphone could both play and create video akin to Blu-ray format. It could also be outputted with full quality via HDMI with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound.

Other features include support for MPEG-4, MPEG2-TS, SD cards and Wi-Fi. It also has 64MB of RAM, making it a rather self-contained device. We don't know when the the SH7370 will hit mass production, but for now, some unspecified companies are getting samples for testing.