ATi/AMD GPU accelerated encoder coming soon...

[lucassp]

It seems that ATi/AMD are prepapring to launch their version of GPU accelerated encoding along with Catalyst 8.12. I hope it will be better than Badaboom :D

On December 10 AMD will release Catalyst 8.12 (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3457&p=3)

[Dark Shikari]

I laughed at their "12 minutes to encode an hour of HD video" in the marketing materials.

Especially since the fine print said that HD video apparently now means 320x240 :)

[CruNcher]

It's still the Itunes comparison also for AMD sure Nvidia did that first so there is no other way for AMD then to continue it (else they would look bad), but it is ridiculous from a technology point of view to compare a GPU with such a low performance efficient encoder then Itunes in a multithreaded environment.
Also they missed too update the Information about Badaboom as it's really possible to encode upto full 1080p by now in the normal version as there is no PRO Version anymore and all PRO features merged into the Normal Consumer Retail version before the official Release. Dark Shikari the Slides show only the marketing for Device Conversions 1080p->to Device with lower resolution and that's also what the numbers and times are based on not 1080p->1080p though they say it's capable of Doing (also via slides like the Camcorder Transcoding Example) that and also show it as a additional feature vs the Badaboom Encoder (which as i stated above is misinformation).
So the really from a consumer point of view interesting thing about AMDs attack is that their Encoder will be "FREE" for every of their Customers compared to Badaboom, all the other things like the actual Encoder Quality still have to be reviewed when it's finally released :)
Also it doesn't say anything about if ISVs like Cyberlink and Arcsoft are gonna use the same Encoder base for their Solutions as AMDs Encoder with just a different GUI or their own Developed Encoders like ETI developed for CUDA, as far as i know Cyberlink didn't even yet released their own CUDA based Encoder just a update for PowerDirector to accelerate Post Processing effects via CUDA im not sure if Cyberlinks AVT Encoder will be even done by them or just as i said be based on the same code base as AMDs free Encoder.

[Sharktooth]

commas were "made" for a reason... damn it!
btw, if you read the news forum, cats 8.12 will enable Stream for series 4000 GPUs and the stream sdk will be fully OpenCL compliant.

[tomos]

looks like this was a no-show. show's over, nothing to see with the 8.12's.

[Fishman0919]

looks like this was a no-show. show's over, nothing to see with the 8.12's.

ATI Stream application: ATI Avivo Video Converter

Using ATI Stream technology, owners of ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 4600 Series of graphics cards can take advantage of this video conversion tool (found in Catalyst Control Center Basic View) to achieve incredible performance levels in video transcoding.

[tomos]

not in there without installing the seperate download

[STaRGaZeR]

How about testing the actual implementation instead of quoting the marketing crap? The encoder is just useless, and even more for Doom9's users.

[Sharktooth]

the encoder is there. it's fast but quality is not good, at least comparing against software encoders.

[tomos]

i wonder if anyones looking at offloading parts of the encoding process for x264?

[Sharktooth]

it has been already discussed. :search:

[STaRGaZeR]

the encoder is there. it's fast but quality is not good, at least comparing against software encoders.

At the same quality x264 needs around the same time... again it's plain useless, like Badaboom. Just another marketing tool.

[tomos]

it has been already discussed. :search:

got a link? i have searched. x264 and stream show up a ton of results for 360 streaming

[Sharktooth]

"stream" is a bit of a generic word. try with "GPU" or "CUDA" or something more specific...

[Sharktooth]

At the same quality x264 needs around the same time... again it's plain useless, like Badaboom. Just another marketing tool.
on what CPU?

[Dark Shikari]

on what CPU?Last I remember x264 on a reasonable CPU with very fast settings outpowered Badaboom on a reasonable GPU, though of course specifics do matter, and YMMV.

[STaRGaZeR]

on what CPU?

E8400@4GHz. I hope more people try with other CPUs.

However I had a very hard time finding settings on x264 to match the craptastic quality this encoder outputs. Who wants speed if the video looks like crap. Also it has artifacts here and there :scared:

[CruNcher]

Last I remember x264 on a reasonable CPU with very fast settings outpowered Badaboom on a reasonable GPU, though of course specifics do matter, and YMMV.

Also x264 got faster again since the last compare i wonder if the Elemental guys improved speed on 1.1 a little bit more as Nvidia promised (on slides) faster CUDA with the new "Big Bang" Drivers, especialy for Video Transcoding ;) tough my comparison takes place on the 8800GT (112 Stream Processors) and we already 1 Generation ahead with the 2xx series (192,240 Stream Processors) also CPU wise i compare vs the rather old Athlon 64 X2 Generation.

[deekey777]

AMD Responds ATI AVIVO Video Converter Feedback (http://hothardware.com/News/AMD-Responds-ATI-AVIVO-Video-Converter-Feedback/)

Q: Why are reviewers seeing so little GPU processing during transcoding?
A: The ATI Video Converter uses the GPU for only a portion of the video encoding. Specifically, the GPU currently offloads only the motion estimation portion of the encoding pipeline which is the most compute intensive part of the encoder. The GPU is particularly well-suited for this task. Given that a fixed workload is being offloaded to the GPU the load on the GPU may be relatively low or high based on the specific model of GPU.

[burfadel]

If you want to code for GPU, wouldn't OpenCL be the way to go? OpenCL at least is not restricted to only one GPU type, such as Nvidia or ATI etc.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

OpenCL at least is not restricted to only one GPU type, such as Nvidia or ATI etc.

...and won't be available soon :p

[Sharktooth]

AMD Stream is already full OpenCL compatible...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

AMD Stream is already full OpenCL compatible...

But as far as I know, Nvidia won't add support for OpenCL until mid 2009. So the argument OpenCL works for both, ATI and Nvidia, doesn't apply yet. And not being able to test your code for at least the next 6 months is not exactly what a developer desires. Once OpenCL is fully supported by both, ATI and Nvidia, it will be the preferred choice, of course...

[CruNcher]

Which is clear why hehe sure no one would like to give up his proprietary ecosystem immediately after establishing it and who knows Nvidia from their aggressive TWIMTBP Programm knows they won't yet, also in terms of their Partnership Relations and ongoing Products. I wouldn't bet that Nvidia jumps so fast onto full establishing OpenCL, but they surely gonna prepare for it in a slow transitioning process though mass usage of OpenCL on Nvidias site i wont expect that so fast.

[slavickas]

AMD Stream is already full OpenCL compatible...

http://forums.amd.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=328&threadid=104649&enterthread=y
AMD has stated that we will have support for OpenCL in the first half of 2009.

[Sharktooth]

you're rigth, i forgot the opencl support is in testing stage and it is not yet included in the downloadable stream sdk.

[CruNcher]

Lol the new Xcode still runs with Nvidia Cards just updated it to the latest 10.x core and it still works in CPU mode on my 8800GT ;)
Try that with Badaboom on a ATI Card hehe

Before = 9.15.0.20713
Now = 10.0.0.31121

Imho the slides AMD released are a complete joke they just try to hide that they use explicit high speed presets and Software tuneing (with even bad visual tuneing) to gain those speed results vs Nvidias (Elemental Technologies) GPU Encoder it's really loughable and somehow i doub't Cyberlink gonna do it any better (they always licensed Moonlight/Elecard/Mainconcept Encoder Technology in the past).

[lucassp]

maybe the're going to do some GPU accelerated filters just like TMPGEnc Xpress did.

[Sharktooth]

@Cruncher: the AMD encoder works with every card and every CPU coz it just switches to software mode if it doesnt find a sutable video card (at this time ATi HD 4000 series video cards...)

[B@Ron]

Hi, from ATi AMD pages it is now possible to download Avivo™ Package. Is this important and can we now expect tools like nv card owners have?

[burfadel]

Yeah I tell you what! opencl based motion estimation in x264 would be a massive plus!