Here is an article about it:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/GPU-video-transcoding,news-1785.html

I thought everyone here would know about this . What's the deal with this feature, where is it?

Also, can it accerlate straight encoding to h.264?

thanks,
ltg ecards

I registred in this forum just to make sure of this feature, I didnt see it at all in CyberLink's website... I so it first only in TomsGuide website two days ago, and now - thanks to Hakan - I saw it in AMD's website

this is a very strong marketing point if it's really true, hope CyberLink provides more info about it and wich GPU's are supported too...

does anyone from Cyberlink read these forums?

man, their CEO went out and did a big demo but won't put one word about it on the web site!
ecards

I've followed the GPU use for engineering applications for several years now. This nvidia site lists a lot of apps that have CUDA ports.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_home.html

If you filter by Video & Audio you will see a H.264 encoder but nothing about CL here either. 18x benefit in encoding time would be sweet! Does seem strange that it's not promoted much by CL, maybe not primetime?

Jeff

Is there's any reviews about the new PD7 ? I only saw PC Magazine's one and it did not mention this at all !!

Press Release
For Immediate Release

CyberLink PowerDVD and PowerDirector Support ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Graphics Series from AMD,
Delivering Optimized HD Playback and Accelerated Video Transcoding

Taipei, Taiwan¡XJune 30, 2008¡XCyberLink Corp. (5203.TW), innovative solution provider for the connected digital lifestyle, announced today its award-winning movie playback software PowerDVD, and video editing software PowerDirector are optimized for ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 series graphics from AMD (NYSE: AMD), to fully support HD video playback and deliver leading-edge HD transcoding performance.

CyberLink PowerDVD supports HD video formats like AVCHD, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), and Blu-ray Discs, and is fully compatible with HDMI connectors, delivering a true HD movie experience on the PC. With optimization for the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series incorporating UVD 2 technology, CyberLink PowerDVD ensures quality Blu-ray Disc playback with support for multiple ¡§picture-in-picture¡¨ (PiP) video streams.

CyberLink PowerDirector supports end-to-end HD video editing, from capturing video to production, in AVCHD, MPEG-2 HD and WMV-HD formats. Optimized for the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series, featuring Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT) core technology, CyberLink PowerDirector is the first video application for consumers to take advantage of General Purpose Computation on Graphics Processor Unit (GPGPU), supporting GPU accelerated HD video transcoding for up to four HD videos simultaneously, and upgrades the HD video experience on consumer PCs to a new level of performance.

¡§Amazing video performance with ATI Avivo™ HD is a vital element for AMD to provide ATI Radeon HD 4800 series customers with The Ultimate Visual Experience™,¨ said Matt Skynner, vice president of marketing, Graphics Products Group, AMD. With the support of CyberLink, we're able to utilize the ATI Radeon HD 4800 second generation Unified Video Decoder (UVD 2) to accelerate and enable Blu-ray™ dual stream picture-in-picture video playback which frees the CPU for other tasks. We¡¦re pleased to continue our long-standing relationship with CyberLink to deliver these exciting video capabilities to ATI Radeon customers.¨

2CyberLink is happy to work with AMD to offer industry-leading applications for HD video playback and video transcoding, with both PowerDVD and PowerDirector optimized for the latest ATI Radeon HD 4800 Graphics Series, said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. PowerDVD and PowerDirector are the leading applications optimized for general purpose computation on graphics processing units to provide The Ultimate Experience for high-definition
video on the PC.¨

THE PRESS RELEASE OUT TODAY.

Dafydd

Thanks Dafydd.

When can we know the most basic questions:

1) What's the speedup compared to CPU at a high quality setting?

2) Is direct encoding supported to h.264 from uncompressed video?

regards,
LTG ecards

I'm chasing this.... for the extra info.

Dafydd

Hi all.

in the press release, it says

CyberLink PowerDirector with support for Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT) Technology on ATI Radeon HD 4800 series graphics cards will be available in Q3 2008.

Do you have any estimation ?
I'm really looking forward to see the GPU encoding, and reduce the enormous time to encode a project

Wish they'd hurry up and release the ATI function so someone can test. How well the accelerated encoding works will be make or break for me buying the software. Not that fussed about the disc creation at the moment but really fast conversion of media centre files and the like would justify the cost to me!

I am also highly anticipating more information regarding this, as good results (even if just transcoding, and not in rendering, as I expect based on the information provided) will probably get to buy both the video card and the software.

I found this link detailing Badaboom with NVIDIA cards. It does mention the ATI/Cyberlink in the end though, and that perhaps it won't be released or available until the end of the year...

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3374&p=7

FWIW, a couple weeks ago I submitted a question about this to Cyberlink via their support website, and their reply said the feature will be added to PD later this year, which is consistent with Andrew's post.

Assuming the customer service rep understood my question, and provided an accurate answer, then hopefully we will get a patch to support hardware encoding in the next few months.

One thing I am not clear about though is when they say H.264 encoding, does that specifically refer to AVCHD? (I think AVCHD is a subset of H.264?)

The patch will be released in the 3rd or 4th quarter.

Dafydd

Anyone seen firmer release dates for this, or any beta versions?

My 4870 is looking for something other than games and folding@home :

Does PD 7 Ultra support CUDA (GPU Transcoding) for NVidia GTX 280 video cards? I've been searching the internet for days trying to find definitive word.

So now the patch has been released - do any users have any practical experience of using it?

I'd be very interested to see the speed gains with a range of different cpu/gpu combinations. After all, not everyone can hope to have a top-end GPU, and maybe there will prove to be an optimum combination of a moderately fast cpu paired with a mid to high-end gpu.

I'd be very interested to see the speed gains with a range of different cpu/gpu combinations. After all, not everyone can hope to have a top-end GPU, and maybe there will prove to be an optimum combination of a moderately fast cpu paired with a mid to high-end gpu.

couldn't agree more!

I am a bit confused as to what the implication of the differences between CUDA and ATI's variant of this is for the sofware, so I have taken out my long post and moved it to another thread that is CUDA specific.

Although it's a totally different product, there might be some relevance in the test results of various NVIDIA video cards with "Badaboom", a CUDA enabled program. You can see some figures in this article, which I believe may have been mentioned by a previous poster.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3374

Now whilst it would be impossible to make any direct comparisons, it could be that similar ratios of performance gain from different cards might apply to PD7. That might suggest the 8800GT as a reasonable candidate, at around $140, or the 9800GTX at around $180. If CUDA works in PD7, it would mean you could use a lesser cpu. If you're wanting quad core anyway, that might logically be a Q6600, giving a good balance of non CUDA performance and cost.

Of course if the promised ATI hardware acceleration works with the HD4800 series, it makes a Phenom cpu with a 4800 series video card look like a nice machine to me, since the Phenoms can be had at pretty competitive prices and AMD motherboards also tend to cost less than Intel ones.

I've emailed CyberLink to see if there is any info on GPU encoding with the HD4800 series. As I see it, that feature could easily be a deal maker for an increasing number of people struggling to edit AVCHD.