New Power Director 7 patch and CUDA

[rica]

Hi,

This time Cyberlink has almost done with the latest patch of PowerDirector7, 2519.

Even i see 100% CPU utilisation, it is clear it is effectively using the GPU.

Mean encoding time is realtime*1.5 and the encoding quality is satisfactory:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/1594/pdnew.th.png (http://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pdnew.png)

Dunno what Ati users say? :)

EDIT: just finished the encoding of whole BD movie; re-encoding time was 1.25 times to realtime...wow :)

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9297/pdnew02.th.png (http://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pdnew02.png)
_ _ _ __

Vista 32 SP1 E6750 GTX260 182.08 FW


_ _ _ _ __ __

[Sagekilla]

Got any pictures of what the quality is like?

[rica]

Got any pictures of what the quality is like?

Sure:)

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8115/hm01.th.png (http://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hm01.png)


_ _ _ _ _

[Dark Shikari]

A picture is completely meaningless for comparing quality if you don't know the bitrate it was encoded at and don't compare it against some known benchmark encoder.

Also, only 1.25x realtime? Are they still completely utterly incapable of getting worthwhile performance from CUDA?

[rica]

A picture is completely meaningless for comparing quality if you don't know the bitrate it was encoded at and don't compare it against some known benchmark encoder.


You might see the bitrate on above SCaps :)

Plus i just said "satisfactory" but it was a lie; it is "better than satisfactory"

Here is a sample if you wish to give it a go:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/n4s8wd

Also, only 1.25x realtime? Are they still completely utterly incapable of getting worthwhile performance from CUDA?

Pardon?
1920*1080 with this bitrate?
_ _ _

[Dark Shikari]

Pardon?
1920*1080 with this bitrate?
_ _ _Yes, 1.25x realtime is quite slow for that. Considering that x264 can get 1.25x realtime 1080p on a decent CPU without a significant sacrifice in quality settings, I don't see how a CUDA encoder can be competitive unless it gives a very very significant performance boost over that.

[rica]

Yes, 1.25x realtime is quite slow for that. Considering that x264 can get 1.25x realtime 1080p on a decent CPU without a significant sacrifice in quality settings, I don't see how a CUDA encoder can be competitive unless it gives a very very significant performance boost over that.

With what preset profile?

Excuse me; dunno any profile like this:

one-pass
VB
10000-15800

[Dark Shikari]

With what preset profile?Not any in particular, but I work for a company that does real-time 10 megabit CBR High Profile x264 encoding (Television broadcast) at around ~subme=7 with quad-core CPUs... at 1080i30. Since Blu-rays are 24fps, 30fps is 1.25x that. And 1080i is significantly slower to encode than 1080p.

So 1.25x realtime doesn't seem like that much to me.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Speed alone is completely useless as long as the bitrate and the quality aren't reasonable too.

So unless somebody makes a quality comparison with "1.25x real-time speed" settings we can only speculate. Of course both encoders need to be configured with the same target bitrate.

[rica]

Not any in particular, but I work for a company that does real-time 10 megabit CBR High Profile x264 encoding (Television broadcast) at around ~subme=7 with quad-core CPUs... at 1080i30. Since Blu-rays are 24fps, 30fps is 1.25x that. And 1080i is significantly slower to encode than 1080p.

So 1.25x realtime doesn't seem like that much to me.

There is no custom selection in the application as of right now.
If the original is 23.97 BD you have to select 29.97 i.
As a second step i used eac3to to get 23.97 :)

[rica]

Speed alone is completely useless as long as the bitrate and the quality aren't reasonable too.

So unless somebody makes a quality comparison with "1.25x real-time speed" settings we can only speculate. Of course both encoders need to be configured with the same target bitrate.

This is what i was trying to say. :)

Additionally under the same circumstances; same CPU, same GPU, same OS.
Right?

[rica]

Really, i've been wondering any comment on the sample file?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Additionally under the same circumstances; same CPU, same GPU, same OS.
Right?

Not necessarily. Using a system with a high-end multi-core CPU (or even several CPU's) and a low-end GPU would be biased towards x264.
And using a system with a high-end GPU of the latest generation and a medium (or low-end) CPU would be biased towards the CUDA encoder.
Therefore both encoders should be measured under their "preferred" circumstances. But still some "realistic" setup should be used...

[rica]

But still some "realistic" setup should be used...

High-end CPU plus High-end GPU together would be more realistic setup then?
Prerequirement must have been the same profile/bitrate settings?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

High-end CPU plus High-end GPU together would be more realistic setup then?
Prerequirement must have been the same profile/bitrate settings?

Again not necessarily. Somebody with a relatively weak CPU may tend to "upgrade" his system with a high-end GPU. Such people would probably benefit most from a CUDA enabled encoder. At the same time somebody targeting for pure software encoding would probably get the best CPU he can afford (remember that 16 core Opteron server?), but may very well use the "onboard" GPU - these are sufficient for HD playback nowadays. So I think the encoders should be measured on the type of system where they would benefit the user most...

[rica]

Again not necessarily. Somebody with a relatively weak CPU may tend to "upgrade" his system with a high-end GPU. Such people would probably benefit most from a CUDA enabled encoder. At the same time somebody targeting for pure software encoding would probably get the best CPU he can afford (remember that 16 core Opteron server?), but may very well use the "onboard" GPU. So I think the encoders should be measured on the type of system where they would benefit the user most...

This is completely right; i got it.
But what i am saying how to compare them under the same circumstances?
Even me have never believed GPU based encoders would do the job as much as SW encoders(remember Badaboom). But anymore, i'm not sure so much.:confused:

[deekey777]

Not any in particular, but I work for a company that does real-time 10 megabit CBR High Profile x264 encoding (Television broadcast) at around ~subme=7 with quad-core CPUs... at 1080i30. Since Blu-rays are 24fps, 30fps is 1.25x that. And 1080i is significantly slower to encode than 1080p.

So 1.25x realtime doesn't seem like that much to me.

What speed do you expect for GPU encoding?
There is an article in the german magazine c't about "Supercomputers at home". And a part of this article is video-transcoding on GPU (PowerDirector 7 (both IHVs), Badaboom). And there are some words of you in this article about problems of GPU based video-transcoding (parallism, integer performance etc).
Nvidia says, that the current version of the Badaboom uses 64 SPs only, so can we be sure, that their own encoder is better? Or AMD's AVIVO Converter?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

There is an article in the german magazine c't about "Supercomputers at home". And a part of this article is video-transcoding on GPU (PowerDirector 7 (both IHVs), Badaboom). And there are some words of you in this article about problems of GPU based video-transcoding (parallism, integer performance etc).

Yeah, I read that article too. And I could remember Dark Shikari's post that was cited in the article. It seems the c't authors are following the x264 discussion on Doom9 :D

Also interesting that they attested "Avidemux" to scale excellent on a multi-core CPU without even mentioning that this is thanks to "x264" ;)

(Anyway, I noticed a mistake in that article: When they talked about different Containers/Formats, they didn't distinguish between "Codec" and "Format" properly. For example they listed "DivX" as one of the Formats that usually are stored in the AVI container. They also often use "MPEG-4" as a synonym for "MPEG-4 Part-2 ASP", which is inaccurate at least...)

[Dark Shikari]

What speed do you expect for GPU encoding?
There is an article in the german magazine c't about "Supercomputers at home". And a part of this article is video-transcoding on GPU (PowerDirector 7 (both IHVs), Badaboom). And there are some words of you in this article about problems of GPU based video-transcoding (parallism, integer performance etc).
Nvidia says, that the current version of the Badaboom uses 64 SPs only, so can we be sure, that their own encoder is better? Or AMD's AVIVO Converter?From my analysis of this PowerDirector CUDA encoder (from the sample file), it is much better than Badaboom. It does full analysis (all partition modes) and has some basic psy opts of some sort. It's probably nowhere near x264, but I can't guarantee that statement unless I see a real comparison at lower bitrates between it and x264. But it's definitely a huge step above Badaboom.

I don't know what speed to expect from GPU encoders, but I expect that if they are to be useful, they should be significantly faster than CPU encoders (to make up for the fact that they require an expensive add-on card). Of course, there's a speed-quality tradeoff; if the encoder gets relatively good quality, it can justify lower performance.

[rica]

if the encoder gets relatively good quality, it can justify lower performance.

Seems to me that common belief will be a nostalgia in a very close feature :eek:
Too much optimistic?

[Cyber-Mav]

so how is this power director panning out to be? worth buying badaboom over it?

[CruNcher]

Rica the Encoder is definitely tuned for High Bitrate same as Cyberlinks own so AVCHD Scenario just try Parkrun @ 3 Mbit and see a complete different world ;)
and in the last tests i did i couldn't be really sure if the GPU was used @ all , because as you said 100% Cpu utilization not used from Badaboom of that High one :D

[Dark Shikari]

Rica the Encoder is definitely tuned for High Bitrate"Tuned for high bitrate" is a euphemism for "sucks."

[Sagittaire]

"Tuned for high bitrate" is a euphemism for "sucks."

Well it's not false ... lol

For me it's "don't work very well at low bitrate"

[rica]

and in the last tests i did i couldn't be really sure if the GPU was used @ all , because as you said 100% Cpu utilization not used from Badaboom of that High one :D

CruNcher, i have to admit i've never seen any SW based encoder which has 1.25 real-time encoding speed at that bitrate with my poor core2-duo.

[CruNcher]

It seems Nvidia is changing something :)
there is now a nvcuvenc.dll (NVIDIA CUDA Video Encoder, Version 185.66 ) in the latest Cuda 2.2 driver (185.66 beta) not the nvpvenc.ax ("NVIDIA Pure Video Encoder") So Nvidia renamed it from Pure Video Encoder to Cuda Video Encoder, it still seems to be the same Directshow filter with some more options now :)

I wonder if they finally gonna make it accessible to everyone with the Final Cuda 2.2 SDK like they did with nvcuvid.dll (NVIDIA CUDA Video Decoder) http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=92416 nothing about the change here it seems only for 3rd Party ISVs currently @ all



Nvidia Pure Video Encoder: 1.253.376 Bytes Nvidia Cuda Video Encoder: 1.310.720 Bytes
http://s10.directupload.net/images/090404/ulqbtjo9.png http://s10.directupload.net/images/090404/anqpx9nw.png

i guess quality wise though not much has changed gonna test if it still works with PowerDirector

[hackaro70]

Hi all,

I tried Power Director v.7 build 2519 myself with an Intel Core 2-Duo E8600 (3.33GHz) and an ATI HD 4850 (1GB ddr5, not OC) as on the Cyberlink site they state that there is an acceleration for ATI graphic video cards too.

A full HD (1080p , 25 fps .m2ts stream from a BD) stream of 1:10 (hour:min) duration has been converted to AVC H.264 in less than 3 hours, which is very good in my experience. For doing the same file by the way of x.264 converter my pc took around 10 hours!

the dummy question is: Power Director 7 produces as AVC264 output an .m2ts stream , how can I convert it to .mp4 or .mkv WITHOUT recoding it another time!?

Thanks to all! :-)

[LoRd_MuldeR]

A full HD (1080p , 25 fps .m2ts stream from a BD) stream of 1:10 (hour:min) duration has been converted to AVC H.264 in less than 3 hours, which is very good in my experience. For doing the same file by the way of x.264 converter my pc took around 10 hours!

This doesn't say anything. You would have some useful result, if you visually compared x264 to Power Director 7 with settings that give the same speed for both encoders.

Note that x264 can run very fast, if you only configure it accordingly. You will loose some quality, but maybe not enough to loose against Power Director ;)

the dummy question is: Power Director 7 produces as AVC264 output an .m2ts stream , how can I convert it to .mp4 or .mkv WITHOUT recoding it another time!?

eac3to.exe "foobar.m2ts" "foobar.mkv"

[STaRGaZeR]

A full HD (1080p , 25 fps .m2ts stream from a BD) stream...

Interesting, 1080p25 is not in the BD spec. Are you sure about that?

[nm]

Interesting, 1080p25 is not in the BD spec. Are you sure about that?
1080i25 (or 1080i50, if you want to use that notation) is in the spec. If such video is progressive, it is effectively 1080p25.

[CruNcher]

Btw that's also a funny thing Cyberlinks Encoder Produces Progressive Streams and Nvidias Interlaced with Pal 25 selected ;)

[hackaro70]

This doesn't say anything. You would have some useful result, if you visually compared x264 to Power Director 7 with settings that give the same speed for both encoders.

Note that x264 can run very fast, if you only configure it accordingly. You will loose some quality, but maybe not enough to loose against Power Director ;)



eac3to.exe "foobar.m2ts" "foobar.mkv"

thanks for the hint. I will try immediately.;)

As for the visually comparable x.264 and Power Director 7 files, I used the Blue-ray standalone profile for x.264 (8000 mb/s as AVBR) because I looked for the highest quality, while with Power Director I used an higher bitrate 10000-15000, if I don't remember wrong; anyway you cannot choose it chooses for you. I'm a really a newbie ... I don't know any much more!

[hackaro70]

Interesting, 1080p25 is not in the BD spec. Are you sure about that?

Yes, I'm pretty sure. In EU countries 25 fps is the standard and all the BD discs are encoded like that! :)

[LoRd_MuldeR]

As for the visually comparable x.264 and Power Director 7 files, I used the Blue-ray standalone profile for x.264 (8000 mb/s as AVBR) because I looked for the highest quality, while with Power Director I used an higher bitrate 10000-15000, if I don't remember wrong; anyway you cannot choose it chooses for you. I'm a really a newbie ... I don't know any much more!

For a useful comparison you must configure both encoders to the same target bitrate, of course.

[hackaro70]

eac3to.exe "foobar.m2ts" "foobar.mkv"

it doesn't work :(

here it's the log:
--
eac3to v3.15
command line: eac3to m:\geisha_p2.m2ts m:\geisha_p2.mkv

TS, 1 video track, 1 audio track, 1:09:38, 50i
1: h264/AVC, 1080i50 (16:9)
2: AC3, 2.0 channels, 256kbps, 48khz, 8ms
[v01] Extracting video track number 1...
[v01] Muxing video to Matroska...
[a02] Extracting audio track number 2...
[a02] A remaining delay of +8ms could not be fixed.
[a02] Creating file "m:\geisha_p2 - 2 - AC3, 2.0 channels, 256kbps, 48khz.ac3"...
Added fps value to MKV header.
Video track 1 contains 104451 frames.
eac3to processing took 6 minutes, 32 seconds.
Done.
----

but then I cannot open the MKV, Nero tells me "error in the file" and exit. Same with WMP. :confused:

And now what!? :-) gee ... it's so damn difficult to convert a video file!?!?!?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

The re-muxing was successful, it seems. So throw away Nero/WMP and get a player that actually works instead of annoying the user!

I suggest MPlayer -or- VLC Player -or- MediaPlayerClassic + Haali's Media Splitter + ffdshow ;)

[rica]

Can you upload a cut?

eac3to m:\geisha_p2.m2ts m:\geisha_p2.mkv -50MB

[STaRGaZeR]

Yes, I'm pretty sure. In EU countries 25 fps is the standard and all the BD discs are encoded like that! :)

Nope, they aren't. Almost all of them are 1080p24. In your own log is the answer:

TS, 1 video track, 1 audio track, 1:09:38, 50i
1: h264/AVC, 1080i50 (16:9)
2: AC3, 2.0 channels, 256kbps, 48khz, 8ms

1080i50 is not 1080p25. 1080p25 is not BD compliant ;)

Can you upload a sample?

[hackaro70]

Can you upload a cut?

sure I can ... ;)

here (http://www.aquaedi.net/ANTONIO/geisha.zip)

[hackaro70]

Nope, they aren't. Almost all of them are 1080p24. In your own log is the answer:

TS, 1 video track, 1 audio track, 1:09:38, 50i
1: h264/AVC, 1080i50 (16:9)
2: AC3, 2.0 channels, 256kbps, 48khz, 8ms

1080i50 is not 1080p25. 1080p25 is not BD compliant ;)

Can you upload a sample?

if you mean a sample of the Power Director 7 .m2ts just follow the link in the my previous post. Or do you mean of the original .m2ts stream?

[hackaro70]

.. of questions for you all:


how can I mux more than one language audio track in the same video stream?
how can I have the chapters as in the original movie? Does MKV support them? I really don't understand the differences between MP4 and MKV. Are they just containers or there is something more!?

[STaRGaZeR]

if you mean a sample of the Power Director 7 .m2ts just follow the link in the my previous post. Or do you mean of the original .m2ts stream?

The original, please.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

sure I can ... ;)

here (http://www.aquaedi.net/ANTONIO/geisha.zip)

Plays just fine in both, MPlayer and Media Player Classic (Haali Media Splitter + CoreAVC) ;)

[hackaro70]

The original, please.

ok, here (http://www.aquaedi.net/ANTONIO/00000.zip)you are.

Please respond to my previous post's questions, if you have time, TIA ;)

[STaRGaZeR]

ok, here (http://www.aquaedi.net/ANTONIO/00000.zip)you are.

Please respond to my previous post's questions, if you have time, TIA ;)

Thanks, that sample is interesting. To bypass the no 25fps progressive content support in the Blu-ray spec they've speedup the original 24fps to 25fps and then flag it as interlaced despite being progressive.

About your questions:

Matroska is a container. You can mux video streams, audio streams and subtitle streams, as many as you like (there is a limit but you will never reach it probably). You can also include chapters or even fonts for your styled subtitles, all in the same .mkv file. Use mkvmerge for all this stuff. BTW if your goal is to backup your Blu-ray's, you can just demux them and mux into Matroska. The process is lossless.

[rica]

To bypass the no 25fps progressive content support in the Blu-ray spec they've speedup the original 24fps to 25fps and then flag it as interlaced despite being progressive.


Correct.
This is a speedup to 25; but really it is a 25p.

[STaRGaZeR]

Correct.
This is a speedup to 25; but really it is a 25p.

It is at 25i, even if it's progressive material. Check the flags ;)

[rica]

It is at 25i, even if it's progressive material. Check the flags ;)

There is flag but it is progressive; fake interlaced.
Check with arcsoft video decoder and select "deinterlace" as "none"; do you see any interlaced artifacts?

[nm]

Thanks, that sample is interesting. To bypass the no 25fps progressive content support in the Blu-ray spec they've speedup the original 24fps to 25fps and then flag it as interlaced despite being progressive.
This is just a continuation of the 50-year tradition of 2:2 pulldown. There seem to be a few cases where European Blu-ray studios have done this to a 24p source for some reason: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1117941 (some movies in that list have been originally shot as 25i/p, others as 24p).

[STaRGaZeR]

There is flag but it is progressive; fake interlaced.
Check with arcsoft video decoder and select "deinterlace" as "none"; do you see any interlaced artifacts?

What artifacts, if it's already progressive?

It doesn't matter how you put it, if the stream has interlaced flags any good decoder or encoder should honor those flags, unless it has some power option to override that for people like us. You can't say it's progressive when it has interlace flags. Just take a look at the Power Director output, 1080i50. It has honored the flags like it should be.

This is just a continuation of the 50-year tradition of 2:2 pulldown. There seem to be a few cases where European Blu-ray studios have done this to a 24p source for some reason: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1117941 (some movies in that list have been originally shot as 25i/p, others as 24p).

I wonder, because the whole point of not allowing 1080p25 was to forget about PAL speedups.

[hackaro70]

There is flag but it is progressive; fake interlaced.
Check with arcsoft video decoder and select "deinterlace" as "none"; do you see any interlaced artifacts?

Rica, I noticed that Nero ShowTime stops to display the video part (the audio goes on normally) in the .m2ts stream whose I sent you a sample ... does it happen on your sample too? Mine stops video at around 1 minute and half of playback ... I re-enconded the original stream twice with Power Director 7 but all the times the playback stops at the same point! :(

TIA! :-)

Have a nice sunday! :sly:

[rica]

What artifacts, if it's already progressive?

That is what i was trying to say; no artifacts.
We should have seen any artifacts when deinterlacing selected "none".




Rica, I noticed that Nero ShowTime stops to display the video part (the audio goes on normally) in the .m2ts stream whose I sent you a sample ... does it happen on your sample too? Mine stops video at around 1 minute and half of playback ... I re-enconded the original stream twice with Power Director 7 but all the times the playback stops at the same point! :(

TIA! :-)

Have a nice sunday! :sly:

hackaro, i don't use Nero Showtime but i checked with MPC-HC and MPC.
Filters were haali and MPCVideo decoder and in a second shot they were Arcsoft's filters. It worked very well.
best :)

[hackaro70]

hackaro, i don't use Nero Showtime but i checked with MPC-HC and MPC.
Filters were haali and MPCVideo decoder and in a second shot they were Arcsoft's filters. It worked very well.
best :)

MPC-HC? MPC? what's that? :confused:

which filters are you talking about!? :confused:

are you sure that you didn't go to the end of file before getting to - at least - 1:30 mm:ss of playback? :p

[rica]

MPC-HC? MPC? what's that? :confused:

which filters are you talking about!? :confused:

are you sure that you didn't go to the end of file before getting to - at least - 1:30 mm:ss of playback? :p

MPC-HC Media Player Classic- Home Cinema (used with the filters i already mentioned on my above post)

BTW, your encode's duration is 27s 40ms... (you don't seem a noob or are you?- or just joking?)

[hackaro70]

MPC-HC Media Player Classic- Home Cinema (used with the filters i already mentioned on my above post)

BTW, your encode's duration is 27s 40ms... (you don't seem a noob or are you?- or just joking?)

I found the program and I will try it. OR maybe, later on, I will upload a longer sample for you to try because I'd like really to understand while the video part stops during playing.

No, i'm not a noob or joking with you, but I'm a newbie and it's not easy to learn all this stuff all at once. ;)

[rica]

Btw i gave it a go with NeroShowTime with your sample, it gives "file reading error" in two seconds. This is Nero's problem.

[Emulgator]

I was just comparing what I could get out of my purchased PowerDirector 7 Build 2519
(full version) vs. seeing the sample file in post #5.

Using PD7 on a 3.16GHz T7600G CPU (unfortunately I got a non CUDA-enabled machine)
I did not even come close to the picture quality shown in the sample.
Poor picture, blocks in dark areas all over the place even at wealthy bitrates.
Do CUDA algorithms fare so much better compared to CPU-only algorithms ?

I did expect to be much slower with PD7 on my system, but not so much blockier.
Bitrates were around 15.5Mbps, so comparable to the 16Mbps of the sample.
To me x264 provided much better results already with half the bitrate
and with an Avisynth Addgrain-frontend even my darkest HDV 1080/25i stage shots
after x264 encoding looked good and smooth enough,
even in dark areas and gradients (stage lighting, haze).

Furthermore the Format Info (MediaInfo 0.7.12) didn't match.
My PD7 output was flagged as "MPEG-TS",
rica's sample as "BDAV", Format/Info:"BluRay"
My PD7 Format/Profile: High@L4.0
rica's sample as High@L4.1
One conclusion: The encoder version which was used
to produce to encode the mentioned #5 sample
has nothing to do with the PD7 build 2519 which is on shelf.

Or the CUDA thing works wonders and enables a higher Level setting (which is not user-definable in PD7) as well.
Or could it be that the mentioned sample (which looks really great)
is unintentionally a straight rip becauce it may have been remuxed only ? (not meaning to offend anyone...)

[rica]

...is unintentionally a straight rip becauce it may have been remuxed only ? (not meaning to offend anyone...)

I can upload a cut from the original if you need...

[STaRGaZeR]

I can upload a cut from the original if you need...

It would be nice if you upload the same cut as the sample so we can compare.

[rica]

It would be nice if you upload the same cut as the sample so we can compare.

Here it is:

http://rs422.rapidshare.com/files/218647862/00001_cut.rar


_ _ _ _ _ _

[Betsy25]

Ask every woman in town, quality is better than quantity, and slower is better than faster.:o

[Emulgator]

After looking at the source from post#60:
Still I wonder: Beside the format infos even the flagged max. bitrate of the source (from post #60)
and the sample (from post#5) are identical, 35.5Mbps.

The footprint of PowerDir7 CPU encoder is different from sample again,
outputs m2ts flagged as max. 40Mbps (not user-tunable). Hm.
But anyway, many thanks, rica.

[STaRGaZeR]

Yep, they look exactly the same. Are you sure that the first sample is the output of Power Director? And if so, are you sure that it has done anything to the source image? Maybe someone with enough knowledge (Dark Shikari?) could analyze both side by side to determine it?

[rica]

Yep, they look exactly the same. Are you sure that the first sample is the output of Power Director? And if so, are you sure that it has done anything to the source image? Maybe someone with enough knowledge (Dark Shikari?) could analyze both side by side to determine it?

There is no user defined settings in PD; and the source bitrate and the encode bitrate are very close to each other. (in this sample)

You can check out with mediainfo.

Here is the original:
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/1531/originalg.th.png (http://img21.imageshack.us/my.php?image=originalg.png)

And here is the re-encode:
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5707/encode.th.png (http://img21.imageshack.us/my.php?image=encode.png)

[STaRGaZeR]

I did check MediaInfo. Unfortunately that doesn't tell us anything. The samples have different sizes, are not of the same zone (only the beginning), etc. On top of that, they look exactly the same to me.

You can use your cut of the original, and encode that same sample with PD to see what's happening. Same ref frames, same everything... except the "Bit rate" reported by MediaInfo. I don't know how it calculates that, maybe it does file size/duration, which will give different numbers for the two different samples because of the lenght. There's something fishy here. Without analizing them I'd say PD didn't touch the original stream.

[CruNcher]

There is no user defined settings in PD; and the source bitrate and the encode bitrate are very close to each other. (in this sample)

You can check out with mediainfo.

Here is the original:
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/1531/originalg.th.png (http://img21.imageshack.us/my.php?image=originalg.png)

And here is the re-encode:
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5707/encode.th.png (http://img21.imageshack.us/my.php?image=encode.png)

There are you have to use a custom Profile and you get access to it's settings (but you can't set all the options like you see in Nvidias Encoder screen Cyberlink decided it's enough for the task both Encoder share the same range of options that you can change) that's how i do my 3 mbit tests, though Nvidias Bitrate target precision is very far away compared to Cyberlinks Encoder it can fluctuate a lot from the Target you had in mind (but even then you can see that Nvidias Encoder is still much better visually, though this behavior is very unusual for H.264).
Also the custom setting is buggy it can happen that it overrides your preset settings if you try to edit them again with 0 values and on Encoding crashes then (really bad coded) :P so unfortunately you have to recreate a new preset each encode if you want to change a options value or PowerDirector would Crash if you try to edit it on the next encode :). Though you have no access to things like Reference Frames or Partitioning just very basic stuff see screenshot bellow the rest are hardcoded defaults except the Profile that is set by the Level specification so in the case bellow it would be High L3.1.

http://s11.directupload.net/images/090409/rd5nlzml.png

btw the I frame count was 30 after pushing edit it was set to 27 very buggy this whole thing ;)

[HouseCat]

Any ATI users tried this yet?

[deekey777]

"Tuned for high bitrate" is a euphemism for "sucks."

I'm playing with Cyberlink's MediaShow Espresso (edit: Trial!): There is no way to set bitrates. You can switch between different profiles, but no way to set bitrates or size.
And I believe, that Cyberlink is afraid, that bad pirates could use MSE for Blu-ray rips, so there is no 1280x720, if you want to use your own H.264 profile.

Oh yeah, converted videos have high bitrates (iPhone videos with upto 2 mbit/s).


Cyberlink MediaShow Espresso GPGPU Performance (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/978/1/)

[CruNcher]

yeah it's funny how they restrict the stuff even if you try to edit the custom profile manualy and force 720p you end up with a 480p encode :P only WMV can be transcoded to 720p so silly
but all Nvidia Cuda based Encoder except Badaboom (own Engine) are restricted in some way or another currently, wonder when some absolutely non restricted fully configurable encoder based on nvcuvenc.dll comes out :P

[Kurtnoise]

MSE tools-like are not targeted for advanced users...So, it's quite normal to have such restrictions imo.

Anyway iirc, if you want 720p, you have to use the PS3 profiles (in MSE).

[CruNcher]

didn't tried that yet thx Kurtnoise i see the 720p AVC now :) though you can't still change bitrate :( but yeah made for the AVG joe, though one thing i really like is their GUI work (started with PowerDirector 7 and PowerDVD 9 it's once again superb and fits perfectly aside to the new productline very nice and user friendly if you compare it for example against Nero Move It's GUI disaster :)
MeGUI with that GUI would rock for AVG Joes and for the Pros being able to get the Advanced features blended in if necessary (Dreams)

PS3 720p Profile:

Allgemein
ID : 0
Vollständiger Name : C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Administrator\Eigene Dateien\Eigene Videos\parkrunps3.m2ts
Format : MPEG-TS
Dateigröße : 30,1 MiB
Dauer : 19s 520ms
Gesamte Bitrate : 12,9 Mbps
maximale Gesamtbitrate : 40,0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menü-ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format-Profil : High@L4.0
Format-Einstellungen für CABAC : Ja
Format-Einstellungen für ReFrame : 2 frames
Dauer : 19s 480ms
Bitrate : 11,8 Mbps
Breite : 1 280 Pixel
Höhe : 720 Pixel
Bildseitenverhältnis : 16/9
Bildwiederholungsrate : 25,000 FPS
Auflösung : 24 bits
Colorimetrie : 4:2:0
Scantyp : progressiv
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.511
Stream-Größe : 27,4 MiB (91%)

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menü-ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Dauer : 19s 520ms
Bitraten-Modus : konstant
Bitrate : 256 Kbps
Kanäle : 2 Kanäle
Kanal-Positionen : L R
Samplingrate : 48,0 KHz
Video Verzögerung : 8ms
Stream-Größe : 610 KiB (2%)

11,8 mbps jesus ;)


Youtube 720p Profile:

Allgemein
Vollständiger Name : C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Administrator\Eigene Dateien\Eigene Videos\parkrunyoutube.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format-Profil : Sony PSP
Codec-ID : MSNV
Dateigröße : 5,10 MiB
Dauer : 19s 597ms
Gesamte Bitrate : 2 182 Kbps
Kodierungs-Datum : UTC 2009-06-01 10:11:55
Tagging-Datum : UTC 2009-06-01 10:11:55

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format-Profil : Main@L3.1
Format-Einstellungen für CABAC : Ja
Format-Einstellungen für ReFrame : 1 frame
Codec-ID : avc1
Codec-ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Dauer : 19s 586ms
Bitraten-Modus : variabel
Bitrate : 2 176 Kbps
Breite : 1 280 Pixel
Höhe : 720 Pixel
Bildseitenverhältnis : 16/9
Modus der Bildwiederholungsrate : konstant
Bildwiederholungsrate : 29,970 FPS
Auflösung : 24 bits
Colorimetrie : 4:2:0
Scantyp : progressiv
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.079
Stream-Größe : 5,08 MiB (100%)
Sprache : Englisch
Kodierungs-Datum : UTC 2009-06-01 10:11:55
Tagging-Datum : UTC 2009-06-01 10:11:55

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format-Version : Version 4
Format-Profil : LC
Format-Einstellungen für SBR : Nein
Codec-ID : 40
Dauer : 19s 597ms
Bitraten-Modus : konstant
Bitrate : 5 857 bps
nominale Bitrate : 256 Kbps
Kanäle : 2 Kanäle
Kanal-Positionen : L R
Samplingrate : 44,1 KHz
Auflösung : 16 bits
Stream-Größe : 14,0 KiB (0%)
Sprache : Englisch
Kodierungs-Datum : UTC 2009-06-01 10:11:55
Tagging-Datum : UTC 2009-06-01 10:11:55

yep that's not bad ok no High Profile whyever and Video bitrate a tad to low therefore Audio Bitrate to high imho (would have wished for 2872 kbps High Profile Video and AAC LC 128 kbps Audio) (Youtube supports it) though the Visual Quality is awfull short gop pulsing like hell not comparable anywhere with x264 and AutoVaq

WOW the thumbnail scaling via the slider bellow inside the main interface is really smoooooth it instantly changes the size that's damn nice :)

PSP only 480x res they should know that the newer firmware supports full SD :(


All in all not bad but still some quirks and the HVS efficiency is nowhere near x264 the way it's setup and with missing Psy features :(

Once again the Avg Joe consumer gets a Perfect Designed GUI and usability but in the background a awfull working (technology outdated) Core :(

[Kurtnoise]

I dream all the nights to build a gorgeous GUI based on SL3 & WPF...:cool:


btw, did you test MSE w/ any CUDA/Stream capable GC using acceleration material ? I did it w/ an ATI 4850 and I was quite disappointing...

[deekey777]

I don't understand it:
When I convert a true Blu-ray sample (1080p24) to 1920x1080 (PS3), I get an interlaced video (1080i25). But when I convert it to 1280x720 (PS3), it's progressive (720p25). 720x576 is interlaced again.

But the real gag ist: When I convert a 720p50 video, I get this: http://rapidshare.de/files/47354323/EinsFestival_HD_Kir_Royal_20080323_190838__1.mp4.html

Actually it doesn't matter, if it's 1080i50 or 720p50, the result is the same (regardless of profile).

[CruNcher]

@ Kurtnoise
yep i tried it but i made no speed test failing in this test means it isn't efficient enough for me anyways but still Nvidias Encoder Visual Quality is better (more stable) then Cyberlinks that get used when you disable CUDA :) very funny is that in PowerDirector 7 Nvidias Encoder fails to hit the bitrate straight and here in MSE it's Cyberlinks that fails, assuming that it targets 3000 kbps for the Youtube 720p profile (which still doesn't make perfect sense with the 265 kbps Audio but that's a subjective thing to everyone his own, myself wouldn't have Designed it that way ;) )
The Main Profile thing seems to be a decision for highest Device interoperability though my point on that is Devices that don't support High Profile shouldn't have been coming out in the first Place as HD Devices in 2009 :P and yes i also say that to the Zune HD it is a big fail in my eyes if it doesn't support High Profile the same fail as with Qpel support back in ASP days and i never gonna understand these fail decisions of this industry (on the other side sure you can make more money that way selling such stuff later as a new better product, but i find this is customer fooling).


I dream all the nights to build a gorgeous GUI based on SL3 & WPF...


Yeah sounds nice and it shouldn't be that hard to Design a nice Gui with the Expression Designer and package it around MeGUI shouldn't it ? , though the way Meguis tasks work currently would need to be adapted to the GUI, just putting a nice Skin around the current Megui would be nice but without improving the whole tasks order and usability pretty useless on the other hand. I personaly can live without a nice Skin if it doesn't improve my tasks efficiency :P that's also why i like Cyberlinks current GUI's they not only for Show they are Designed for usability in mind ok that alone can't rescue their products completely if they fail like they currently do ;) (on the important Main CORE Background stuff you see in the end the result off, the reason the user started the application in the first place)

Currently i prefer to work on the CMD and with Editplus instead of working with Megui :D i find i can solve tasks faster that way then being bound to that awful GUI (also i never liked the response time of the MeGUI GUI) ;)

[Kurtnoise]

The Main Profile thing seems to be a decision for highest Device interoperability though my point on that is Devices that don't support High Profile shouldn't have been coming out in the first Place as HD Devices in 2009 :P
by devices, you mean portable or standalone ? coz for the 1st ones, MP is clearly sufficient and HP mainly overkill imo...

[CruNcher]

ehh portable with HDMI output that support only MAIN are flawed decisions (like the Zune HD) surely im not talking about portable devices that have a mini screen and no possibility to be connected to a HD Ready display, why should they playback 720p anyways ;)
The only reason would be avoiding TRANSCODING and that is the other thing i hate about this flawed industry it's still presenting workarounds instead of getting better (we have 2009) @ delivering full potential devices but yeah it's nice to present 500 different transcoding solutions to make money with and keeping that industry alive saving yourself some money not to lose the ability to buy you another ferrari model the next year, instead of finally invest that money into no transcoding @ all requirements chips. Profile Transcoding is a FLAW a really big FLAW i wouldn't never have thought that by now we would have these problems :(
But everything from the Qpel disaster seems to repeat itself only that it is now the MAIN/HIGH Profile thing i really really hope @ last in 2010 we wont have MAIN profile only chips anymore in any DEVICE

I even have my DVD SD stuff in High Profile because i can see the difference and it's allready a pain transcoding this all the time to watch on the PSP into Main Profile :( (instead of just copying it over)

And belive me have read Zune HD only supports Main Profile almost made me to vomit directly on the floor the disaster continues (and you can question yourself how the Quality of the Main Profile H.264 stuff versus the Advanced Profile Vc-1 stuff will be)