Chipmaker Intel’s CES 2020 media event previewed partnerships, PC form‑factor experiments, and early looks at graphics and media tech that have since produced measurable outcomes. By 2025, Intel’s joint work with Netflix on the SVT‑AV1 encoder underpins practical AV1 streaming at scale; its 3D Athlete Tracking (3DAT) appeared in Tokyo 2020 broadcasts aired in 2021 (Intel; Olympics.com); venue “free‑viewpoint” video matured under standards like MPEG’s V‑PCC and MIV; Intel’s Horseshoe‑era foldable PC concept foreshadowed shipping 16–17‑inch foldables from multiple OEMs; and the discrete‑GPU tease became the Arc A‑series launch in 2022 with an Xe2/Battlemage follow‑on positioned for 2025 (launch details; Intel Xe2/Lunar Lake).
The company’s partnership talks included a visit from Netflix Director of Encoding Technologies Anne Aaron. Onstage, she discussed last year’s agreement between the two companies to leverage a new video codec to allow for more efficient video compression. In subsequent years this collaboration concretized around SVT‑AV1, a high‑performance AV1 encoder co‑developed by Netflix and Intel. Independent 2024 comparisons report AV1 delivering meaningful bitrate reductions versus HEVC for OTT workflows, while VVC achieves ≈40–50% savings over HEVC at equal quality (MSU 2024; Fraunhofer HHI on VVC). Crucially, AV1 hardware decode expanded across major platforms—including new Apple silicon (A17 Pro/M3 and later)—broadening reach for lower‑bitrate streams (Apple media formats).
Intel also brought out Olympian Ashton Eaton to discuss his role in helping the company develop its 3D Athlete Tracking (3DAT) tech. The technique uses multiple cameras to capture athletes in motion and the resulting biomechanical data can be overlaid on top of the video footage to offer TV viewers (or athletes in training) more insight. Intel expects to show off the feature at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Speaking of fancy sports viewing tech, Intel also demonstrated advancements in its volumetric video technology, which uses an array of cameras to track players on the field and create 3D data. You might have seen earlier generations of the tech during sports broadcasts, where one camera view of the action seamlessly transitions to a different perspective as if a physical camera was being moved from one place to another. Since then, Intel wound down its True View sports group in 2021, while free‑viewpoint deployments continued via vendors like Canon’s Free Viewpoint Video System. On the standards front, MPEG’s V3C framework—V‑PCC for point clouds and MIV for multi‑view video—now anchors practical compression/delivery, and newer neural methods such as 3D Gaussian splatting and 4DGS are reshaping capture and playback pipelines.
“With volumetric video, we can create infinite perspectives,” Intel’s James Carwana said. Today, venue‑installed arrays and standardized codecs make those virtual camera moves more repeatable for broadcast highlights while studio volumetric and neural approaches expand immersive production options (V‑PCC; MIV).
Like most companies here at CES, Intel also spent a good chunk of time discussing the role of AI in improving performance and making previously difficult computing tasks easier. To that end, Adobe’s Jason Levine led a high-energy demo of the company’s flagship Photoshop editor easily removing the background around a complicated subject and properly outlining an object with just a few clicks.
Of course, Intel is best known for powering a lot of desktop and laptop computers, so the company ran through a couple new options from laptop makers, as well as more advanced devices, including a 17-inch foldable PC that’s part of the company’s “Horseshoe Glove” foldable device initiative. In an onstage demo, a prototype was shown in a number of fancy use cases, like the standard laptop “clamshell” position, where the lower half of the screen emulates a keyboard. There was also a partially folded option, like a traditional book, and a fully open position for a full, 17-inch screen.
Overall, Intel showcased a number of practical laptop models for consumers, but seemed content just to tease more exotic wares like a discrete graphics card and the aforementioned foldable PC concept. Will we see a closer-to-production version next year? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.