A couple of things:
First, a PowerMac with Dual G5's, OS X, and Final Cut Pro is going to be an excellent editing system. My wife uses a G5 for video editing and digital photography and its definitely very slick. I'm still primarily a PC user, but for certain things the Mac platform is very nice.
I just recently purchased a Gainward 6800 GT Golden Sample, primarily because of the top notch 3D gaming performance. However I do a fair bit of video work on my PC, including editing and conversion of Mpeg-2 to Mpeg-4 etc. I was surprised to learn about the on-board video encoding and decoding capabilities of the 6800 series cards.
The question I have, do the individual applications have to be programmed to take advantage of this feature? My guess is yes but I'm not positive. If so, are there currently any apps that do use this capability.
For those of you interested, I cut and pasted the following directly from Nvidia's website. It describes the video capabilities of the 6800 series of cards:
On-Chip Video Processor
Next-generation PC games are not the only applications demanding more from today?s graphics cards. Consumers are demanding top notch DVD playback, television encoding and decoding, and support for high-definition television formats from their PC. The CPU can?t handle it alone. However, the latest NVIDIA® graphics processing units (GPUs) are set up to carry the intensive video-processing load.
NVIDIA GeForce? 6 Series GPUs contain a revolutionary programmable video processor that delivers state-of-the-art, high-quality video features. They provide on-chip acceleration for many functions previously relegated to the CPU or a second chip. A GeForce 6 Series GPU essentially serves as two chips in one: a GPU and a video processor.
Video processing on the GPU deals with two major uses of video: playback (decoding), and recording analog video and converting it into a defined digital format (encoding). The most common format for encoding or decoding is MPEG-2. Other popular formats, such as Windows Media Video9 (WMV9), are also supported in the GeForce 6 Series GPUs.
Video Decoding
A key element of modern-day video processing, MPEG-2 is the basis for such functions as DVD playback. Through advanced technology functions such as motion compensation and inverse discrete cosine transformation (IDCT), the GeForce 6 Series GPUs handle MPEG-2 decoding very efficiently, offloading the CPU of the heavy lifting involved in video playback. The result is smooth, high-quality video and reduced power usage.
Another important factor is that the GeForce 6 Series GPUs are completely programmable and can handle formats such as WMV9 and MPEG-4. The NVIDIA motion compensation engine can provide decompression acceleration for a variety of video formats including WMV9, MPEG-4, H.264, and DiVX. As with motion compensation for MPEG-2, the NVIDIA video engine can perform most of the computation-intensive work, leaving the easiest work to the CPU.
Video Encoding
The GeForce 6 Series GPUs are also capable of hardware video encode acceleration. Traditionally, video encoding is a difficult and time consuming process. The GeForce 6 Series GPUs include a motion estimation engine. Using state-of-the-art technologies, the motion estimation engine delivers higher-quality video at the same or lower bit rate, as well as lower CPU utilization for improved system performance.
Designed for the Future
Video processing on the GeForce 6 Series of GPUs has been designed with future formats in mind. The flexibility of the GPU video processor design easily accommodates new and improved video algorithms as they emerge. In addition, functions including de-interlacing, gamma correction, and noise reduction are programmed into the GPU?s video processor. With all of these features and full video processor programmability, the NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series GPUs create a foundation for current and future video device support and flexible viewing options, and have the ability to host a wide variety of sophisticated video applications to suit every consumers needs.
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