Variable Quality Multimedia Player for Power Reduction in the Mobile Device

With the growth of mobile device market, studies for achieving low power are becoming essential. In particular, power management for multimedia player is also very important, since it is usually executed for a long duration. In this paper, we propose a variable quality video player for power reduction in the mobile device. By playing a low quality video with our proposed player, processor usage is shown to be three times less, and the total power consumption is also 21% less compared to when playing a high quality video. When we play the video in low quality for 50% of the total execution time, the video can be played for 12% longer duration with the same amount of battery. Furthermore, if we combine our work with display, sound and other power management schemes, we expect the effect to be maximized.