video card with 'hardware mpeg playback'

[naysayer]

i have an original "All In Wonder Radeon" based on the radeon 7200.
ATI says this video card has "Hardware DVD video playback" and in other documentation i've read says it has "hardware assisted mpeg decoding".
i'm guessing that a software mpeg player knows theres an ATI card with hardware to help with decoding and iDCT, and a player would use it.

my question is: if i'm transcoding my mpeg2 captures to xvid, with tools like dvd2avi>avisynth>virtualdub... is there anyway to take advantage of this hardware?
or maybe i'm a dumbass and its already using it to help with iDCT and i just dont know it?

[kitchy]

I'm not an expert, but to my knowledge, you have a decoder card, and not a encoder card (which is more expensive and rare), thus the card is not able to do encoding of mpeg2 sources. The card you have is probably just for playback. But I might be wrong here.

Kitchy

[naysayer]

yeah, i know it cant help with the encoding. here's what im trying to say...

theoretical case 1:
the latest greatest mpeg4 codec can encode a clip at 60fps. but my mpeg2 decoding is only giving 29fps. so no matter what i do to the encoding codec, theres no way im going to get better than 29fps overall since the encoding codec is waiting most of the time for frames.

theoretical case 2:
the latest greatest mpeg4 codec can encode a clip at 29fps. but my mpeg2 decoding is giving 60fps. here i'm going to get 29fps overall, and its all about the codec now. if i want more fps i try a different codec or start tweaking codec settings.

if most of the time its case 2, the decoder is a moot point... but what if its like case 1? a simple change of decoding options to have the hardware decoding help out might make a big difference.

[killingspree]

that your ati radeon card can improve mpeg2 decoding. i think what radeon was promoting was mpeg1 decoding (not really worth promotion but sounds good i guess!!)

anyway, to improve your mpeg2 decoding speed you have to get a seperate mpeg2 decoding card or an mpeg2 encdoing card, which both are fairly expensive iirc

regards
steVe