It's frustrating, isn't it!

The CUDA patch has been available for some time now. There must be PD7 users with suitable NVIDIA graphics cards in their pc's, but nobody seems interested in running some simple tests to properly evaluate the effect of CUDA support. I've only read the vaguest references to CUDA usage, generally in the form of complaints that it didn't seem to do much.

I would perform tests myself - but don't have a suitable video card. Since I anticipate upgrading my pc in the near future, I'm very interested in the benefits of CUDA or AVT support.

Certainly from the publicity material that Cyberlink have put out, CUDA should speed up video encoding, and by several times the speed at which even the fastest cpu can do it. It's not clear to me if that speed increase will only be gained when encoding to h.264, or if it will occur when, say, transcoding to mpeg2.

AVT support seems to have even more promise. AMD demonstrated a pc encoding four HD video streams to h.264 in real time. Compare that with a top of the range Intel Quad taking ten hours for a single stream, and you can see the potential benefit.

A glimpse of the performance benefit of CUDA is demonstrated by the otherwise poorly featured "Badaboom" program.

I believe the ATI 4800 series video cards, having many more stream processors than even the latest NVIDIA ones, have greater potential as parallel processors used to offload video encoding from the cpu.

If AVT support is or can be properly implemented, it should change everything. Instead of paying top dollar for the fastest cpu, the optimum system for video editing might comprise a lower-end cpu paired with a mid-range to upper mid-range video card.

There's also the possible additional benefit of having multiple video cards.

The kind of parallel processing that GPU's can perform is well suited to video encoding, which is a relatively simple process readily divided up into smaller "chunks", so you would expect video encoding to be just about the first pc task taken on by video cards.

If it turns out that the benefit is limited to h.264 encoding only, the principal benefit may be to HDV users, if they wish to target their projects to AVCHD. It should also show a benefit to AVCHD users, however, if they are making much use of video filters, transitions, and so on, and anything else that would prevent SVRT from functioning. Of course in that case, however, you need to have a video editing program that actually can edit AVCHD satisfactorily in the first place, and I think we're some way off that at the moment.

Quote: can someone please answer my questions of what GPU transcoding is supposed to do...
1. Is ATIs transcoding only goint to help me to convert the avchd movie to a easier editing format as mpeg2.
2. Or am I going to have faster rendering time using my original avchd-files (cutting, joining, adding effects, adding sound)
3. Have i totally misunderstood what ATI is goint to do, and the ATI patch is not going to replace the need for a faster computer.

I don't believe graphics acceleration is going to replace the need for a faster computer.

I have a computer with a quad core processer at 2.4Ghz and with the software I used to use (the last 2 versions of which support AVCHD without transcoding) that processor speed was too slow and caused problems plus long rendering times. The lack of enough processor speed caused the NLE to have to shut off graphics card acceleration and that caused no end of editing inconveniences and problems.

Power Director is noticeably less demanding of computer resources (and has cut my HD rendering times to about 25% of what the other NLE did) but when I tried to use it on a dual core computer that met the minimum specs performance was very dicey.

No matter which way you slice it, whatever graphics card resources you have, AVCHD at 17Mbps bitrate or higher will likely require either a fast quad core (2.66Ghz as a bare minimum) or an extremely fast dual core.

I don't see any way out of a serious computer upgrade/replacement.

Hi everyone,

There are some FAQ answers (click the link to the data source) that some of you may like to read.

*********************

1. How do I enable the GPU optimization feature in CyberLink PowerDirector 7?
To enable CUDA acceleration in CyberLink PowerDirector, you must first make sure your video card supports CUDA technology and that the CUDA patch for PowerDirector 7 is installed prior following the steps listed below:
1. Download and install the latest NVIDIA driver at: http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_get.html
2. Go to: Edit > Preferences> Editing, and then select "Enable NVIDIA CUDA GPU acceleration on video effects" to enable CUDA.
3. Add any of the video effects that have the NVIDIA logo to your video clip, and then produce it as a file. You'll find the processing speed much faster.

2. Which effects can be enabled with GPU optimization?
CyberLink PowerDirector supports end-to-end HD video editing, from capturing video to production, in AVCHD, MPEG-2 HD and WMV-HD formats. These files are optimized for NVIDIA CUDA, featuring Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT) core technology.

Currently we have 10 video effects that support CUDA acceleration:
GaussianBlur
RadialBlur
LightRay
PenInk
Abstractionism
Kaleidoscope
ColorEdge
ReplaceColor
ColorPainting
Glow

3. What are the benefits of the CUDA version of CyberLink PowerDirector 7?
CyberLink PowerDirector now supports NVIDIA CUDA Technology, which optimizes HD Video Editing Performance. With NVIDIA CUDA technology, CyberLink PowerDirector delivers a much faster video rendering performance and improved user experience by processing HD videos with advanced video effects, such as Gaussian radial blur, pen ink, and so on. The rendering performance gain is from 20%-250% (Rendering speed is up to 5X faster).

4. How do I know if my NVIDIA card is compatible with the CUDA version of CyberLink PowerDirector 7?
CyberLink PowerDirector 7 requires NVIDIA CUDA technology and will run on NVIDIA 8 series or higher GPUs.

The CUDA version of CyberLink PowerDirector 7 currently supports the following NVIDIA VGA series:
NVIDIA GeForce and GeForce Mobile
NVIDIA Quadro and Quardro Mobile
NVIDIA Tesla

For more information about NVIDIA's CUDA, go to:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_learn_products.html

********************

Dafydd

is it only "effects" that renders faster? If i for example have my avchd files and wants to add music, is there any rendering gain with CUDA or ATI´s patch? I realy want an answer...

/Andreas

Quote:
AVT support seems to have even more promise. AMD demonstrated a pc encoding four HD video streams to h.264 in real time. Compare that with a top of the range Intel Quad taking ten hours for a single stream, and you can see the potential benefit.

My Quad core isn't real time but encodes a 9 min video clip (HD 1080 Mepg2) to AVCHD 1440 in 15 mins. (see next post)

Quote: is it only "effects" that renders faster? If i for example have my avchd files and wants to add music, is there any rendering gain with CUDA or ATI´s patch? I realy want an answer...
/Andreas

OK Andreas: here are some brief tests for you.

My specs: Core2Quad 9550 2.83 GHz 3.2 GB RAM, XP SP3, 8600GT 1024Mb

Encode 9 mins Mpeg2 1080 to AVCHD 1440 render time 15mins. No change with or without CUDA

Encode 3 mins AVCHD 1080 Colour Painting video effect overlayed on entire 3 mins: CUDA on = 30mins, CUDA off = 7mins.

Yep that's right : 4 times longer with CUDA activated!!!!!

Processor utilisation for the above Colour Painting test : CUDA on = 30%, CUDA off = 100% (all 4 cores equal)

PS I have some screen shots but they won't attach : just get a blank web page. Any tricks?

100kb max on the screenshots.

Dafydd

Hello to everyone in the forum !

I have been dealing with the GPU assisted transcoding issue since last June very thoroughly !

There are some things that need clarification and I will try to do it for you !

PowerDirector's current GPU assistance provided by NVIDIA CUDA DOES NOT involve transcoding AT ALL !!

It is all in the filtering/rendering area and currently the ONLY tool to provide NVIDIA GPU assisted transcoding is Badaboomit !

On the other hand, ATI is going to provide GPU assisted transcoding using ATI Stream technology as officialy presented on November 13th. See more at: http://ati.amd.com/technology/streamcomputing/index.html

Furthermore, RADEON 4800 series has BUILT IN HARDWARE TRANSCODING for H.264 and MPEG-2 formats. You can see details at:
http://ati.amd.com/products/firepro/Siggraph_2008_video_encode_final.pdf

It is obvious from all above that ATI's transcoding solution is supported BOTH in software and hardware level. That means that using a 4800 RADEON series card one can achieve VERY FAST transcoding speed regardless of the CPU installed.

The crucial issue is that noone needs to upgrade the whole system; JUST the graphics card will be enough !!

can someone from Cyberlink confirm Nikolaos message? If that is true that i with my old Opteron 165 @2.35ghz and 2Gb ram can get good editing (rendering) improvments. I quote

"The crucial issue is that noone needs to upgrade the whole system; JUST the graphics card will be enough !! "

Andreas,

I don't think CyberLink needs to. There is no quotable test data that can be repeated (you yourself can confirm) from the post by Nikolaos.

Dafydd

I´m interested in buying there software if and a ATI-4800series card IF the software and there patch is going to get me a significant performance gain when rendering my avchd-files, so I don’t see why it shouldn´t be in there interest to tell me and others what to expect with there ATI-patch…

/Andreas

Andreas,

I've drawn your attention to the FAQ's released by CyberLink Customer Support. If you wish to continue to seek additional information beyond the release then you should place your enquiry with CyberLink Customer Support online services. http://www.cyberlink.com/prog/support/cs/index.do
The answer you seek wont be found on this forum beyond what I've already posted. I don't want you to be misled by speculative postings or inaccurate third party information.

This is a forum for CyberLink members to discuss and share their users' experience. CyberLink customer support will not reply in the forum regarding the technical issues. Topics or replies with attacking or illegal messages will be deleted by the forum management directly.

Dafydd
[Moderator]

Hi Andreas

maybe you should just hang in there until Q1 2009 when, hopefully, Cyberlink will announce the ATI patch, and with luck that will have more functionality than the current CUDA patch.

I think the fact of the matter is that it's still early days for gpu encoding, even though the technology has existed for a while.

It's interesting to consider an AVCHD camcorder. The onboard image processor has to encode the video to AVCHD "on the fly" - and clearly there isn't the room or power available for it to use a Q6600 or even a QX9770. Besides which, neither of those processors would manage to do the encoding quickly enough anyway.

So, using a dedicated hardware encoder, the camcorder can do the task using much less power and with a far simpler and smaller processor. I suspect there is a certain amount of parallel processing used, though the manufacturers never seem to release much in the way of technical details.

When you compare the performance of the current generation of AVCHD camcorders with the previous ones, it's also clear that important developments and advances in image processing technology are being made - and still need to be made. That will hopefully reduce motion artefacts, for example.

Returning to encoding on a pc, when you consider the potential speed gains, there just has to be an increasing head of steam pressing for development, and the first software to feature proper implementation of GPU encoding will have a huge advantage over all the others. The encouraging thing is that thus far, Cyberlink seem to be ahead of the mainstream pack.

I think many people don't appreciate the scale of the speed gains possible. Whilst you might reduce your encoding time by a factor of maybe two or even three by opting for a very expensive top of the line cpu, the potential is for a tenfold or more speed gain simply by using a mid range gpu.

It's entirely possible that some owners of Extreme Edition processors will be mightily peeved if a "lesser" pc equipped with a relatively low-priced video card can encode video at many times the speed of their own system.

I'm all about "bang for your buck" myself, so I'm as anxious as you to see what Cyberlink can do with ATI AVT support, and hope that AMD work with them to bring it about.

Quote:
When you compare the performance of the current generation of AVCHD camcorders with the previous ones, it's also clear that important developments and advances in image processing technology are being made - and still need to be made. That will hopefully reduce motion artefacts, for example.

What irks me is that often the improvements are firmware related, not hardware yet the consumer industry has little interest in providing support for existing/older models to upgrade their performance.