real time MPEG-2 encoding?

[atreides93]

Is it possible to get real-time mpeg-2 encoding on a PC with any processors out today?

Or is there some inexpensive hardware board I can get?

I'm sick of it taking 5 hours to encode 43 minutes of DV video every time I want to convert my home movies to DVD

I currently have an Athlon 1.4 gig processor on a KT133A motherboard with 512megs of PC133 SDRAM

Using performance monitor in WinXP I can see that the CPU is used 100% of the time during encoding, and the hard drive is barely used (3% of the time)...so obviously I need a much faster CPU..but to go from 5 hours to real time...I don't think a faster Athlon will do it

[TRILIGHT]

CCE should provide you with realtime encoding. Shouldn't take but about 35min - 1hr to do your 43min video given your processor. Granted, you would still have to capture your video and then encode it.

You could pick up a hardware encoder but the decent ones will cost you quite a bit of money. I've personally been very pleased with the Pinnacle DVD1000 I picked up used for about $600. The quality is not quite as high as a software encoder like CCE (at the SAME bitrate) but it still looks pretty damn good! Especially considering, it captures in realtime directly to a DVD compliant MPEG2 stream. I've heard some people say they had good results using the Pinnacle DV500 as well which was designed as a DV only capture device.

[Edster007]

Do you know what software is used to capture real time MP2 files? I have a DV-500 and use Premiere 6.5 AVI format and them CCE to M2v.

[TRILIGHT]

Well, with the DVD1000 card I have, there are drivers that get installed that provide this functionality in Premiere. I choose "Pinnacle MPEG" (or something like that) and it captures in realtime to a DVD compliant MP2 video stream and a WAV for the audio. I usually take the resulting WAV and compress to Dolby Digital AC3.

[Nahie]

Originally posted by Edster007
Do you know what software is used to capture real time MP2 files? I have a DV-500 and use Premiere 6.5 AVI format and them CCE to M2v.

I also have a DC1000. This board is unique in that it will also edit MPEG2 video natively on the Premier timeline. Quality is pretty good after capturing. I don't think the DV-500 will capture realtime to MPEG2. This was a feature of the DC1000 only, although I did have a Matrox RT1000 that would capture realtime to MPEG2...it just wouldn't edit the file and with the delay introduced during capture, it was unusable.

My Athlon 1.4 ghz with 512 meg PC133 ram gets about .5 realtime using CCE, CBR. I could see how VBR would push it down to about 5 - 10 x realtime. But then no hardware realtime capture card will look as nice as 3 pass VBR. Just not possible...yet. CCE uses dual processors, no? Well get a dual AMD and you'd be up to 1x realtime CBR with CCE.

EDIT: These guys are getting 1.8 to 2.2x realtime with their machines: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35821

[auenf]

my ATI Radeon card has realtime MPEG-2 capture (in software, but hardware assisted by the radeon a little, but it helps)

at work we use the Canopus Amber, altho there is a cheaper version as well.

Enf...

[Arky]

Originally posted by auenf
my ATI Radeon card has realtime MPEG-2 capture (in software, but hardware assisted by the radeon a little, but it helps)


If this is anything like my Gainward GeForce3, it's done using Cyberlink or Intervideo software, and I have not been at all impressed with the results, unfortunately. Not enough control over parameters, and not enough end-quality :(

Originally posted by auenf

at work we use the Canopus Amber, altho there is a cheaper version as well. Enf...

Yeah, Canopus's Storm 1 card allows the addition of the Storm MPEG module, for hardware MPEG2 encoding. Quality is apparently reasonable, but, as Nahie mentioned, cannot honestly compete with the capabilities of something like Cinemacraft. This hardware module has now become an integrated feature of the new Storm Mk.2 card. The supposed benefit of MPEG2 hardware is the halving of time, due to encoding during capture, but I have long been sceptical about this as a true benefit, since, unless you have an encoder capable of doing a genuinely high quality job of RE-encoding MPEG2 fades and transitions on the timeline, you would generally be better off doing all your editing in DV (or similar low-compression - 5:1 or less), and only THEN transcoding to MPEG2.

Personally, I have really come to like CCE-SP (not that I'm saying I wouldn't enjoy having a Canopus Amber at my disposal!), despite it's difficulties and idiosynchrosies. If capturing first, and subsequently encoding, doubles my time, then so be it -- quality must come first in my view, and I have yet to come across a job that could not wait a mere 2hours longer for the MPEG stream to render, prior to DVD authoring - 4hrs longer(or more) WOULD be a hindrance, but 2 is managable, I believe, because you can spend the 2 hours preparing still assets and audio for menus etc.

Just my "2 cents" !


Arky ;o)

[atreides93]

Interesting,
i'll have to check out CCE.

[auenf]

@Arky

there are a couple of things i dont like about the Amber:

- minimum average bitrate is 4mbit
- multipass paramater is implemented in the SDK, but none of the apps/samples (and i dont have enough time to write a prog myself): http://www9.brinkster.com/sportschook/?ambervaf.jpg
- premiere plugin(s) only work with program streams made up of m2v and m2a (standalone program can capture to m2v+wav

but apart from that its nice, and the new version of the DV2MPEG app that uses the amber to encode actually supports batch encoding, and works very nice.

pity i cant borrow one of them and put it in my home machine :(

Enf...

[NorcoO1]

ok I know it isn't quite what your looking for, but what I did recently was purchase a ReplayTV unit. You can input RCA jacks, S-video, and CATV into it and it encodes MPEG2 real time to its own hard drive. There are older units that don't have subscription fee, but they dont also have a ethernet jack built in. My unit cost 217+subscription fee, which is 10 bucks a month or 250 for the lifetime of the unit. So far I'm extremely pleased at how well it captures video, and just another thing to think about before you spend 600$ on a used mpeg2 card in your comp. Best of luck!