ATI GPU transcoding app?

That is enlightening for sure. But the guys who wrote this article for example, surely could use some information much early in time (published like 10 weeks earlier) to avoid being look that stupid. Right?

 

I can't vouch for what was communicated to others at the time, nor can I tell what questions they had or assumptions made, although that particular link with the wording "Beta" and "still secret" could suggest some things. Rys also had likewise communication for his article in December (I think I may even remember the breifing together actually!).

I'm not sure there should be much surprise registered here. Even if some articles thought this to be GPU assisted, other articles prior to the release of the of the actual software had already pointed out the use case.

 

Beside that Cyberlink PowerDirector 7 is there any other software that can hardware accelerate MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 via the 4800 series ?

I just want an encoder type software like SUPER or something similar. Also speed is one thing, how is the quality of the encode ? Any review on that ?

 

Awesome! Anyone used it? Share your experience, pls

 

I think PowerDirector 7 that can do this is not out yet. It will need to be patched for GPU transcoding.

How is the AVIVO Xcoder ? Will that be updated to PowerDirector 7 style GPU transcoding ? I don't want to get PowerDirector 7 if Xcoder can do the job. Any ATI guys want to give detail on that ?

 

One of the few you've managed to stay awake in, if memory serves

 

The slide in first post is not referring to that quote, it says four full length movies to 200MB+ files takes around 30 mins, while the slide is about transcoding 1 hour of 1080p video, and since it's taking 32min it's safe to assume this would be 1080p in the end aswell.

 

looks like I get to bump this up. It looks like they are releasing a trancoder on December 10th. Exciting indeed!

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/AMD-Set-Release-Free-Software/story.aspx?guid={CC10E4FE-57E0-4024-9546-1C7CBE3E463D}

 

Running Badaboom on every CUDA enabled videocard: priceless.

 

Except it's not available yet...

Definitely the right answer though. I was wholly unimpressed with Badaboom.

 

There's more detail on this from Charlie at the Inq. It's more that just a video transcoder, it's about making stream computing ubiquitous at the consumer level by folding the functionality into the mainstream graphics driver. It opens up the market for stream and stream-apps, and hurts Nvidia where they try to make CUDA a highend professional product.

 

Ehm... what?

This is BS. Example: The F@H GPU2-Client comes with CAL DLLs and you get GPGPU functionality for free, no download, no install... SiSoft Sandra comes with CAL DLLs, too.

So, what's the point? Yes, it's easier for consumers and developers. And there is "one" CAL DLL (ok, there are two DLLs) for all GPGPU programms. That's all.

The new AVIVO transcoder runs only on HD4000 series. The next question is: With Badaboom I can convert an 1080 video (eg MPEG2) to 1080 video (h.264), can the AVIVO converter this, too?

 

From the very slide you posted, yes. 1080P input and output are features of the new AVIVO transcoder.

 

I think that's the point. It's soon to be part of the standard domestic graphics driver install. Your stream-apps use it transparently, it's not some high-end GPGPU thing that needs user input or professional level hardware. The fact that it's easier for consumers and developers, that any developer knows that it will "just work" for every ATI card without any messing about should give devs the confidence to add stream support to their apps.

IIRC, people like the Quickpar and Virtualdub developers are already looking at support, so all of a sudden stream becomes much more viable for smaller and more mainstream apps that will benefit from the extra processing power. It's no longer just for the £3000 image processing suites.

 

Where is nVidia making Cuda high-end professional product?
They've had support for all GeForce 8 and higher products for a while now, in the standard driver (since the 178 release).
ATi doesn't have ANYTHING yet, and their first release will be only for the 4000-series. nVidia supports cards that have been on the market for over 2 years.

 

This misconception is arising perhaps because CUDA products were badaboom(which wasn't free btw), and quadro CX was played up. Truth is new adobe software utilizes openGL and not CUDA as such. So normal geforce products should be accelerated as well(low memory could be a problem though).

As ATI is releasing transcoder for free, it is perhaps creating the impression that nVidia is targeting high end market.

 

The main point here is qualification. With CAL being bundled in the driver CAL is going through our qualification process, this then enables the app to use the CAL in the driver and then automatically benefit from improvements that we may make from release to release.

Note, Rage3D has an interview which touches on some of the points being discussed here: http://www.rage3d.com/articles/stream/index.php?p=3

 

Somewhat correct. The wrinkle is that Adobe Premiere has a plug-in mechanism. There is a "CUDA" Transcoding plug-in here for GPU accelerated Transcoding, provided by Elemental, but instead of this being Badaboom the plug-in is RapiHD, which is listed as being Quadro only.

 

But Cuda and Stream are both APIs/extensions to the driver.
We're not talking about applications that may or may not be using them. That is up to developers (except that they didn't really have a choice, because ATi didn't have a proper SDK yet).
Thing is that nVidia has had Cuda as a standard feature of the driver for all 8-series and higher for a while (yes, going through qualification and everything), so I don't see how what ATi is going to do next month is different from what nVidia is already doing, let alone how that has anything to do with 'high end'?

Well that's pretty far-fetched, seeing as nVidia didn't even develop Badaboom in the first place. It's just one of those applications that taps into the potential of the GPU unlocked by Cuda.
Badaboom is a product of Elemental Technologies, Inc.
A commercial software company, which obviously is not going to give its products away for free.
So well, trying to predict the future of Cuda by a single product from a company independent of nVidia... that doesn't make a lot of sense.
Cuda is a standard feature on all GeForce 8 and newer GPUs, and the SDK can freely be used by any developer. So neither the hardware nor the software has to be expensive.

 

Do they plan on supporting their other unified architectures? Because the install base is pretty small right now. CUDA has a huge install base now. Like over 100M now and its also being taught at college universities. ATI has an uphill battle getting this to take off. Unless of course this is just a stop gap solution till OpenCL and DX11 arrive.

Isnt Nvidia's Cuda's C compiler the model baseline for openCL?