Evaluation of Two Compiler-Based Approaches for the Parallelisation of an MPEG-2 Decoder

Abstract. In this paper, we evaluate two different approaches for the compiler-based parallelisation ofa C program for MPEG-2 decoding. The first approach experiments with a commercial uto-parallelising compiler for exploiting coarse-grain parallelism on a Silicon Graphics Power Chal-lenge, while the second approach experiments with a simple assembly code scheduler for exploiting instruction-level parallelism. Results ob-tained through the high-level auto-parallelisation f the code are disap-pointing, far from those that can be achieved through manual paralleli-sation. On the other hand, better results are achieved when exploiting instruction-level parallelism; the corresponding compiler technology ap-pears to be more efficient. 1 In t roduct ion In recent years, research developments into producing digital representations of audiovisual information have led to a whole spectrum of new needs and possi-bilities; applications uch as Digital Television have already become a practica