Digital Media Indexing on the Cell Processor

We present a case study of developing a digital media indexing application, code-named MARVEL, on the STI Cell Broadband Engine (CBE) processor. There are two aspects of the target application that require significant computing power: image analysis for feature extraction, and Support Vector Machine (SVM) based pattern classification for concept detection. We discuss the mapping of a large application like MARVEL onto a multicore processor, and show how feature extraction and concept detection can be implemented on the CBE. We discuss how the synergistic processing units of a CBE can be used to gain dramatic performance improvements. The empirical results of our experiments, conducted on a Cell blade running at 3.2 GHz, show that the CBE provides a significant performance speed-up in our digital media indexing application.