Quote: Argh, since the June announcement then nothing at all on ATI accelerated encoding.

Just an official update would be nice, along the lines of when it is expected, what is delaying it (waiting for the just released AMD OpenCL driver perhaps?).

Otherwise with all the nVidia and Intel advertising Cyberlink have done recently one would start to think not only was money given to promote those companies, but to prevent their mutual competitor getting a look in.

I bought Power Director partly on the ATI announcement as I'd just got a 4800 and since then feel let down. Especially when having asked the very lacking customer support about it and they came back saying they knew nothing about it (despite being linked on the news page...).

It's frustrating to say the least. I check Cyberlink's website once a day just to see if there is any new information on it.

I too was excited when I heard about Cyberlink's GPU accleration for ATI cards. But after the reviews of ATI's new GPU assisted AVIVO converter I'm a lot less optimistic. It didn't even use the GPU and the reason why it was fast is because the quality is crap. Have you tried the new AVIVO converter found in the Catalyst 8.12 driver download that was released in DEC? If so how was your experience with that?

I was all ready to buy a ATI 4870 when I learned of it's GPU trancoding abilities, now it looks like I'l be getting a GTX 260 and just use Badaboom if Cyberlink results are anything like ATI's. I hope Cyberlink can get it right, but the lack of information concerning this topic has me skeptical.

I'm building a new Intel i7 rig once I get my tax return in Feb and I have the GTX 260 on my wishlist. If no new information is available by then, I see no reason to change my card. I really want both the ATI and Cyberlink applications to do well, but with Badaboom actually doing what it is advertised to do it looks like I'll be going that route.

Note to Cyberlink: When you do come out with the GPU update can you please increase the bitrate limit for ipod files? 700kbps is way to low when Ipods support a much higher bitrate than that. We want to get maximum quality and 700kbps is really limiting if you want to use the TV/Out function of Ipod. In fact, all profiles need to support the max bitrate for the supported device (Zune's, Ipods, and other portable devices).

Hi Rico,

I've tried the free ATI encoder but didn't have much hope for it given its past history. I'm sure it will improve in its use of the graphics hardware but it will always be a free "novelty" product at best.

The actual hardware capabilities in stream computing between the top end nVidia and ATI consumer cards are actually pretty close and it is pretty much the current wisdom that the 4800 ATI series offers best bang for buck in gaming at the moment (though of course it is a moving target).

The worrying thing is that without doubt nVidia has a much bigger marketing budget and my worry is that they will have pushed Cyberlink down a proprietary (CUDA) route. Hopefully this is not the case and Cyberlink are also coding for ATI's format or optimally the new OpenCL format that will give a commmon interface to all cards. ATI have only just implemented OpenCL in the December drivers (it is just ratified) so I hope that Cyberlink were waiting for this. I'd just like someone from Cyberlink to give an update to their customers as their communication is appalling.

I've been burnt once by the arbitary decision to remove HD-DVD support from PowerDVD that made me have to move to Intervideo (yes Blu-Ray won, yes I had both formats but yes, I'd like to be able to play my movies !). I still stuck with them for Power Director but this could be the last time.

Cheers

Alex

Look at the announcement link below - PowerDirector section:
http://www.cyberlink.com/stat/events/enu/2008/q4/ces2009/index.html
It seems that the update will come out probably after CES 2009.
As far as I have tested so far a Sapphire RADEON 4850 1 GB in my Home Vista Premium, with the exception of mobile low bitrates, everything else works very fast; with the slowest time being 4 mins for more than an hour DVD movie

Quote: Look at the announcement link below - PowerDirector section:
http://www.cyberlink.com/stat/events/enu/2008/q4/ces2009/index.html
It seems that the update will come out probably after CES 2009.
As far as I have tested so far a Sapphire RADEON 4850 1 GB in my Home Vista Premium, with the exception of mobile low bitrates, everything else works very fast; with the slowest time being 4 mins for more than an hour DVD movie

Great...at least that is some news. Hopefully it lives up to the expectations. The ATI 4870 is $200 and it will go great with my new system.

Quote: Look at the announcement link below - PowerDirector section:
http://www.cyberlink.com/stat/events/enu/2008/q4/ces2009/index.html
It seems that the update will come out probably after CES 2009.
As far as I have tested so far a Sapphire RADEON 4850 1 GB in my Home Vista Premium, with the exception of mobile low bitrates, everything else works very fast; with the slowest time being 4 mins for more than an hour DVD movie

Thanks Nikolaos, appreciate your response and I'm looking forward to the ATI patch. Cheers!

Has anyone tried out the new GPU acceleration yet in the new update? PD7 supports both Nvida Cuda & and ATI's Stream technology for H.264 encoding now. ATI's cards can also do mpeg2 encoding. I'm in the market for a new video card and I'm trying to decide if I'm going with the GTX260 or HD 4870.

Hopefully the end results are good for both cards.

Unfortunately ATI Stream optimization in PowerDirector DOES NOT live to the great expectations ATI and Cyberlink have been creating for so much time!

First of all, the ATI Stream support update is NOT here yet. It will be made available early February.

But the main and critical reason for one to be disillusioned is that although ATI stream will be used for MPEG2 and H.264 video transcoding, it will be used to create videos using ONLY the iPod profile and none else !!!!

That is ATI stream capabilities will be used to produce ONLY 320x240 videos at best, while the NVIDIA CUDA counterpart will be used for AVCHD, M2T and various portable video profiles !!!!

I am very sad with this development and can only wish that ATI stream support will soon be extended to additional profiles or else I will have to turn to NVIDIA for serious video transcoding and processing very soon.

Should we have waited for so much time since last June and pay just to get what already ATI Converter provides in the GPU arena and free ???

Can ANYBODY tell me the reasoning behind this, unless some more profiles are on the way be supported REALLY SOON ??

Quote: Unfortunately ATI Stream optimization in PowerDirector DOES NOT live to the great expectations ATI and Cyberlink have been creating for so much time!

First of all, the ATI Stream support update is NOT here yet. It will be made available early February.

But the main and critical reason for one to be disillusioned is that although ATI stream will be used for MPEG2 and H.264 video transcoding, it will be used to create videos using ONLY the iPod profile and none else !!!!

That is ATI stream capabilities will be used to produce ONLY 320x240 videos at best, while the NVIDIA CUDA counterpart will be used for AVCHD, M2T and various portable video profiles !!!!

I am very sad with this development and can only wish that ATI stream support will soon be extended to additional profiles or else I will have to turn to NVIDIA for serious video transcoding and processing very soon.

Should we have waited for so much time since last June and pay just to get what already ATI Converter provides in the GPU arena and free ???

Can ANYBODY tell me the reasoning behind this, unless some more profiles are on the way be supported REALLY SOON ??

You have to be kidding me!!! The best thing that ATI can come up with as far as GPU encoding is a 320/240 Ipod file at 720kbps!!!! I'm sooooo glad I didn't get that 4870. What happened to "transcoding 4 1080p MPEG-2 movies into MPEG-4 at one time." First Avivo over promises and now Cyberlink follows suit. I'm done. Smoke and mirrors...

You have to be kidding me!!! The best thing that ATI can come up with as far as GPU encoding is a 320/240 Ipod file at 720kbps!!!! I'm sooooo glad I didn't get that 4870. What happened to "transcoding 4 1080p MPEG-2 movies into MPEG-4 at one time." First Avivo over promises and now Cyberlink follows suit. I'm done. Smoke and mirrors...