HTC Planning to Improve Video Performance on Some of Its Smartphones

HTC has released a statement in which it promises a software update that will improve the video performance of some of its smartphones.

This is in response to protests from some users of this company's devices, who have complained that these models -- the HTC Touch series and the AT&T Tilt, the Sprint Mogul, and the HTC TYTN II -- have sub-par performance in many video-related tasks.

The protests really took off a few weeks ago, when it was revealed that, although the Qualcomm MSM7200/MSM7500 processor in these devices has ATI Imageon hardware, the HTC smartphones don't make use of it. This is because they lack the necessary software driver.

HTC's Response

The statement released by HTC on this subject says:

Some of our top engineers have investigated video performance on our devices and have discovered a fix that they claim will dramatically improve performance for common on-screen tasks like scrolling and the like. The update is in testing and we hope to release it soon.

However this fix is not a new video driver to utilize hardware acceleration; it is a software optimization. Video drivers are a much more complicated issue that involves companies and engineers beyond HTC alone. We do not want to lead anyone to believe they should expect these.

Why No Video Driver? 

HTC goes on to give it's explanation of why it's not releasing video drivers for its models with the Qualcomm 7200 processor.

It's official statement on this issue says, "It is important for customers to understand that bringing this functionality to market is not a trivial driver update, and requires extensive software development and time."

As HTC points out, Qualcomm's processor has been designed to be used with a wide variety of mobile devices, not just Windows Mobile smartphones with QVGA touchscreens. It is a common practice for devices to ship using a processor that supports features that aren't implemented.  

HTC's statement says, "Unlocking extended capabilities of chipsets like the MSM7xxx requires in-depth and time consuming software development, complicated licensing negotiations, potential intellectual property negotiations, added licensing fees, and in the case of devices that are sold through operators, the desire of the operator to include the additional functionality.

Still, HTC's promise of a video improvement has not satisfied the people behind HTCClassAction.org.