Does ATI AIW have hardware transcoder?

[ExplodingBoy]

So yesterday I realized that doing software transcoding (DIVX AVI -> MPEG-2) is teh suck at more than 6 hrs for 22 min of content. I did some research and found out what I need is a hardware MPEG-2 encoder (i.e. hardware transcoder). Most of these were made about 5 yrs ago and cost $600-2000. So funk dat.

Then I was thinking, the ATI AIW (all-in-wonder) series of cards must have some kind of hardware transcoder in them. In fact I found reference to that fact in my research. So my question is: can anyone confirm if the AIW has a hardware transcoder and which model should I buy if I want to transcode DIVX AVI -> MPEG-2 in real time?

 

[AndrewKu]

Are you trying to record TV or video/audio source directly to MPEG-2? If so, yes the PVR has a built in profile to record to DVD quality.

 

[rbV5]

The AIW R3xxx cards have ~10% to 20% hardware assist for MPEG-2 streams, its usefull for real-time video soap primarily. There are cheaper hardware encoders now, but generally its a trade off for quality/flexability (software) for reduced CPU load (hardware). Osprey and hauppage are 2 off the top of my head. Look for reviews from users before leaping into that route.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I'd look for one from hauppage, but Osprey is also good. If you do a lot of editing, no dought a hardware version of the process will help, but like you said, it its gon to be $2k, you can just get a dual cpu setup. What are the ssytem's specs that you do this encoding on?

 

[ExplodingBoy]

Thanks to everybody who's replied.

The system I'm trying on is a 2.0GHz Celeron. Also have a 2.25GHz P4 with similar slow speeds.

All I want to do is straight AVI -> MPEG-2 encoding. Not interested in doing any editing. I was kind of hoping to find a sub-$100 solution that would let me do the transcoding in real-time. But it sounds like the AIW won't do that if they provide only 10-20% hardware assist.