ATI Delivers GPU-Accelerated Video Transcoding

[M0RPH]

Anyone who does video encoding knows how slow it can be. For anyone who does a lot of video encoding, like myself, this new feature from ATI is going to be very useful. Extremetech has tested it out and the performance increase it gives it pretty huge. Give it a read and tell me what you think.


ATI Delivers GPU-Accelerated Video Transcoding
-by Jason Cross
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1880668,00.asp

But there's one such task that is already extremely common, and it's growing more so every day?video transcoding. Do you take your videos and translate them to MPEG-4 or H.264 to put them on your PSP? Squash down your DVDs to fit on a CD, or backup those dual-layer DVDs to a single-layer DVD-R disc? Archive your video collection so you can watch all your stuff from your PC without fumbling for discs? Edit together home movies?

Encoding this nearly 5-minute clip, at DVD resolution, takes about 2 minutes 17 seconds with DivX 6, with single-pass encoding at 1 megabit. Windows Media Encoder can produce a high-quality single-pass transcode to WMV9 at 1 megabit in about 4:35. Windows Movie Maker 2 takes a few quality shortcuts to produce a DVD resolution clip at 1.5 megabits in 2:05. That's all pretty good: This is, after all, one of the fastest CPUs money can buy, paired with very fast RAM.

How fast does ATI's new Avivo Transcode app get it done? Try 24 seconds! Okay, that's "give or take a second," because the MPEG-4 profile finished a 1-megabit encode in 23 seconds, the MPEG-2 and Windows Media Video 9 profiles were done in 24, and the DVD profile at 6 megabits finished in 25 seconds. That's all at the default full resolution, too. Crunching down the output resolution by choosing the "WMV9 for PMC (Portable Media Center)" profile at 700 kilobits per second completed the job in 17 seconds.

That's right; we're look at a minimum of 5-to-1 speed improvement over CPU transcoding speed. That's just huge.

Still, this is worth getting excited about. A 5x performance advantage over the CPU isn't the kind of thing that will be leapfrogged by dual-core CPUs and multithreaded encoders, or by any CPU released for some time. Every manufacturer of video transcoding software should be absolutely beating down a path to ATI's door right about now, figuring out how it can add that "GPU acceleration" checkbox to its application as quickly as possible. We mean Nero, Microsoft, Apple, Cyberlink, Adobe, and every other firm that makes a video-encoding application. Given how many countless man-hours are spent trying to get a 20% or 30% boost in encoding performance, the prospect of encoding on the GPU should have a bunch of engineers salivating.

 

[xtknight]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1727160&enterthread=y
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1693443&enterthread=y
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1705269&enterthread=y
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1696954&enterthread=y
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1708832&enterthread=y
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1696292&enterthread=y
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1721094&enterthread=y

Unfortunately this article doesn't contain any new info AFAIK and the first linked thread is already discussing this specific one.

 

[M0RPH]

Ah well, if we can have a half-dozen threads about the 7800GTX 512MB, I suppose we can have a couple about this.

This is a repost of the first article you listed but different from the others.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Sounds very good.

However, as far as their AVIVO goes, perhaps ATI should concentrate more on IQ where Nvidia and the rest simply destroy them.

-Kevin

 

[Hacp]

Too bad I only encode to Mpeg-2 .

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Sounds very good.

However, as far as their AVIVO goes, perhaps ATI should concentrate more on IQ where Nvidia and the rest simply destroy them.

-Kevin

I thought ATI's IQ was on par with Nvidia (and perhaps even a bit above in some ways)?

Anyways (like I said in yesterday's thread ), I'm very much looking forward to this. HD-quality encoding in any format is still way too slow...

 

[M0RPH]

He's only referring to the tests that showed Nvidia to have slightly better deinterlacing.

 

[rbV5]

Unfortunately this article doesn't contain any new info AFAIK and the first linked thread is already discussing this specific one

It has a screenshot of the beta application as well as some comparative benchmarks, so I'd say it has some new information.

I missed the other thread discussion myself (the first one you linked), but it does look extremely promising. Those are some very impressive encoding times...wow.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Sounds very good.

However, as far as their AVIVO goes, perhaps ATI should concentrate more on IQ where Nvidia and the rest simply destroy them.

-Kevin

I thought ATI's IQ was on par with Nvidia (and perhaps even a bit above in some ways)?

Anyways (like I said in yesterday's thread ), I'm very much looking forward to this. HD-quality encoding in any format is still way too slow...

No as far as Purevideo is compared to AVIVO.. Nvidia is leaps and bounds ahead, which is understandable as PV has been out MUCH longer than AVIVO.

He's only referring to the tests that showed Nvidia to have slightly better deinterlacing.

Oh shut up and stop trying to make me sound like an ignorant fan boy.

-Kevin

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Sounds very good.

However, as far as their AVIVO goes, perhaps ATI should concentrate more on IQ where Nvidia and the rest simply destroy them.

-Kevin

I thought ATI's IQ was on par with Nvidia (and perhaps even a bit above in some ways)?

Anyways (like I said in yesterday's thread ), I'm very much looking forward to this. HD-quality encoding in any format is still way too slow...

No as far as Purevideo is compared to AVIVO.. Nvidia is leaps and bounds ahead, which is understandable as PV has been out MUCH longer than AVIVO.

Yeah...misunderstood what you were saying, sorry about that. I haven't owned an ATI card since I sold my 9700 Pro last year, so I don't know how their video playback is these days. Hopefully (if it is indeed lacking) they'll get it up to par with Nvidia's (and Nvidia will similarly work on a hardware encode/transcode solution like ATI is).

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Sounds very good.

However, as far as their AVIVO goes, perhaps ATI should concentrate more on IQ where Nvidia and the rest simply destroy them.

-Kevin

As Kevin says, speaking for himself... My editor already uses the GPU through DirectX to render. Wonder if this will really kick it up a notch.

 

[M0RPH]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

No as far as Purevideo is compared to AVIVO.. Nvidia is leaps and bounds ahead, which is understandable as PV has been out MUCH longer than AVIVO.

What the heck are you talking about? If you're going to make a ridiculous claim like this, at least make some attempt to back it up.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Sounds very good.

However, as far as their AVIVO goes, perhaps ATI should concentrate more on IQ where Nvidia and the rest simply destroy them.

-Kevin

Nvidia and the rest? Hmmm. I have a feeling that AVIVO's deinterlacing may perhaps look a little better going forward with codec and driver support, IQ itself has been a strong point for ATI video, thats not going to change with AVIVO. Don't think ATI isn't concentrating considerable effort on AVIVO either.

 

[rbV5]

Oh shut up and stop trying to make me sound like an ignorant fan boy.

Do you have some AVIVO/Purevideo IQ comparisons? or are YOU just being an ignorant fanboy Kevin?

 

[crazydingo]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Oh shut up and stop trying to make me sound like an ignorant fan boy.

Do you have some AVIVO/Purevideo IQ comparisons? or are YOU just being an ignorant fanboy Kevin?

Probably the latter as Purevideo is better than AVIVO in de-interlacing dept (the test conducted by AT), all other aspects are unknown.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

No as far as Purevideo is compared to AVIVO.. Nvidia is leaps and bounds ahead, which is understandable as PV has been out MUCH longer than AVIVO.

What the heck are you talking about? If you're going to make a ridiculous claim like this, at least make some attempt to back it up.

OK

Link

Sorry but that is not "slightly better"....now that stupid little "shimmer" you keep bringing that up that would fall under slightly noticable.

-Kevin

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Oh shut up and stop trying to make me sound like an ignorant fan boy.

Do you have some AVIVO/Purevideo IQ comparisons? or are YOU just being an ignorant fanboy Kevin?

Jeez someone is a little over anxious to accuse. Why do you feel like you have to jump on my case everytime i post. You gave me what...2 minutes to find that after M0RPH asked.

Chill out and stop running your mouth.

-Kevin

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

Originally posted by: rbV5

Oh shut up and stop trying to make me sound like an ignorant fan boy.

Do you have some AVIVO/Purevideo IQ comparisons? or are YOU just being an ignorant fanboy Kevin?

Jeez someone is a little over anxious to accuse. Why do you feel like you have to jump on my case everytime i post. You gave me what...2 minutes to find that after M0RPH asked.

Chill out and stop running your mouth.

-Kevin

who's running their mouth Kevin? (from your link)

We excluded a few of the tests from our image quality comparisons, simply because they were more focused on noise reduction and both ATI and NVIDIA did equally poorly there. Instead, we decided to focus on cadence detection and de-interlacing quality

Jump on you everytime you post?:roll:Maybe you should try discussion when you post, proclamation isn't your strong point

 

[M0RPH]

Just as I thought, you see one test showing an advantage for Nvidia in deinterlacing and from that you pronounce "as far as Purevideo is compared to AVIVO.. Nvidia is leaps and bounds ahead." Seems like quite a stretch to me. Deinterlacing is only one aspect of many factors involved in video processing. And from what I understand ATI has already made improvements in driver releases after the one used in that test. You can rest assured that ATI will be working hard on improving their drivers in this area since, like rbV5 said, ATI places a high priority on AVIVO.

 

[xtknight]

The real question is...when will this thing be in any actual consumer's hands? The PureVideo WMV DLLs were in reviewer's hands for 6 months after coming in 8 months later. PureVideo WMV support took 14 months to get in to our hands from the original launch of it. I can only hope ATI delivers this within the next month. I'd rather have them release a beta than not release a beta so I could at least see they're not full of crap but just have a couple bugs to work out. I'd want to experiment with it if I had one of their cards.

I was at least glad to see a screenshot of the beta program, yes.

Originally posted by: M0RPH
Just as I thought, you see one test showing an advantage for Nvidia in deinterlacing and from that you pronounce "as far as Purevideo is compared to AVIVO.. Nvidia is leaps and bounds ahead." Seems like quite a stretch to me. Deinterlacing is only one aspect of many factors involved in video processing. And from what I understand ATI has already made improvements in driver releases after the one used in that test. You can rest assured that ATI will be working hard on improving their drivers in this area since, like rbV5 said, ATI places a high priority on AVIVO.

I do think ATI will end up better in this dept. eventually.

 

[rbV5]

The real question is...when will this thing be in any actual consumer's hands? The PureVideo WMV DLLs were in reviewer's hands for 6 months after coming in 8 months later. PureVideo WMV support took 14 months to get in to our hands from the original launch of it. I can only hope ATI delivers this within the next month. I'd rather have them release a beta than not release a beta so I could at least see they're not full of crap but just have a couple bugs to work out. I'd want to experiment with it if I had one of their cards.

That is the big question. The article claims they are going to try and release before the end of the year, so clearly ATI is hinting at the AVIVO timetable, as I've seen the same in a few AVIVO articles. Purevideo WMV ended up being a DXVA solution rather than the discrete hardware solution originally promised (and isn't supported on all the cards), Purevideo MPEG deinterlacing support took ~ 9 months from launch, so I don't think you can draw a parallel between the solutions, at least I hope not.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

Originally posted by: rbV5

Oh shut up and stop trying to make me sound like an ignorant fan boy.

Do you have some AVIVO/Purevideo IQ comparisons? or are YOU just being an ignorant fanboy Kevin?

Jeez someone is a little over anxious to accuse. Why do you feel like you have to jump on my case everytime i post. You gave me what...2 minutes to find that after M0RPH asked.

Chill out and stop running your mouth.

-Kevin

who's running their mouth Kevin? (from your link)

We excluded a few of the tests from our image quality comparisons, simply because they were more focused on noise reduction and both ATI and NVIDIA did equally poorly there. Instead, we decided to focus on cadence detection and de-interlacing quality

Jump on you everytime you post?:roll:Maybe you should try discussion when you post, proclamation isn't your strong point

Well i consider the product of deinterlacing the final image. If that looks crappy, than the IQ after deinterlacing is crappy, thereby reinforcing my point i made earlier.

It would seem that you are running your mouth. I posted that i thought it was awesome they were doing this but that i wish they would focus on IQ until that problem is fixed. Do i need to include a certain amount of praise in my post for a company or rbv5 comes after me?

-Kevin

 

[rbV5]

Well i consider the product of deinterlacing the final image. If that looks crappy, than the IQ after deinterlacing is crappy, thereby reinforcing my point i made earlier.

It would seem that you are running your mouth. I posted that i thought it was awesome they were doing this but that i wish they would focus on IQ until that problem is fixed. Do i need to include a certain amount of praise in my post for a company or rbv5 comes after me?

First of all, the thread topic is AVIVO transcoding..... leveraging the GPU to assist in the transcoding of video formats, something many users are particularly interested in, how exactly are you contributing to that? How about posting on the topic?

As far as image quality, Anands article you point to is about deinterlacing and cadence testing for DVD playback, hardly a comprehensive test of image quality for DVD's let alone the rest of the entire video world. To me, its funny how now all of the sudden since Anand's article that DVD playback for Radeon cards is now a "problem" when all along until very recently, DVD playback was considered not only excellent with Radeon cards, but the prefered solution by and large by the video community? How does that relate to the majority of the video world who doesn't use WMP to decode DVD's either? or use software deinterlacing solutions...or that even Nvidia deinterlacing scored well below the maximum score possible? or that they used Purevideo decoders for the test for ATI cards? Do Nvidia cards without Purevideo support suck for video in your opinion? How about current Nvidia cards that support Purevideo, but that choose not to use the Purevideo solution for video...do they suck at video as well?

Perhaps you could comment on Purevideo transcoding? It appears even early beta ATI software totally blows it out the door. Do you suppose thats because Nvidia is holding out till the last moment to trump them? Its funny you should point to Purevideo and mention transcoding in the same sentence (maybe you didn't mention transcoding?) because, I recall well the promise of video transcoding when I got my NV40 card last year, hows that coming along? as I haven't followed it all that closely since I got rid of my card.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Well i consider the product of deinterlacing the final image. If that looks crappy, than the IQ after deinterlacing is crappy, thereby reinforcing my point i made earlier.

It would seem that you are running your mouth. I posted that i thought it was awesome they were doing this but that i wish they would focus on IQ until that problem is fixed. Do i need to include a certain amount of praise in my post for a company or rbv5 comes after me?

First of all, the thread topic is AVIVO transcoding..... leveraging the GPU to assist in the transcoding of video formats, something many users are particularly interested in, how exactly are you contributing to that? How about posting on the topic?

Well, i believe i said:

Sounds very good.

Is that not good enough; would you rather me have done this:

WHEW..HELL YEAH SON!!!!!!$#&@*(&$#&(*$#&#@&((#&&(#$&(&(#&&
______

Anand's article that DVD playback for Radeon cards is now a "problem" when all along until very recently

Well if it isn't working the way it isn't working right, that means it is working wrong. In otherwords a flaw or a problem. If you dont believe this is a problem substitute "shimmering" into that. That wasn't a problem until very recently. No one noticed it before, but all of a sudden everyone seems to have it...whats up with that??

It appears even early beta ATI software totally blows it out the door. Do you suppose thats because Nvidia is holding out till the last moment to trump them? Its funny you should point to Purevideo and mention transcoding in the same sentence (maybe you didn't mention transcoding?) because, I recall well the promise of video transcoding when I got my NV40 card last year, hows that coming along? as I haven't followed it all that closely since I got rid of my card.

Why are you talking to me like im some deluded Nvidia fanboy?? I never said, ATI didn't blow them out of the door in transcoding. In fact, i remember saying to myself, "Wow, that is impressive!". No i dont think Nvidia has really paid attention to transcoding. I dont know, first hand how "that" is coming along. I dont have a 6 series card. However, you as well as i know that all the 6800's with the exception of the 6800NU PCI-E have a broken PVP. I would be interested in seeing how the 7 series does though.

-Kevin

 

[rbV5]

Well if it isn't working the way it isn't working right, that means it is working wrong. In otherwords a flaw or a problem. If you dont believe this is a problem substitute "shimmering" into that. That wasn't a problem until very recently. No one noticed it before, but all of a sudden everyone seems to have it...whats up with that??

Then apparently Purevideo has a flaw or problem as well. It didn't come close to a perfect score, do you consider that a problem?. I think you have a misunderstanding about video PQ and exactly what was tested and how to decipher the results. Hows DVD IQ or video playback on your own rigs? Whats your software and encoders you currently use, and a personal comment on its quality?

So you really have no personal experience with Purevideo or AVIVO either right? Do you do any transcoding?