4 ms·

The wretched state of GPU transcoding

21 points by cedel2k1 13y ago

Narkov 13y ago
Love the legends on the graphs. "Higher is larger" and "Lower is smaller".
wmf 13y ago
(2012) If you're interested in a more scientific look, check out the MSU comparison: http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2012/mpeg4_avc_h264_video_codecs_comparison.pdf http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2012/m... Since then Nvidia has given up on using CUDA for encoding and added specialized encoding hardware to their GPUs. http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2013/presentations/S3379-High-Performance-GPU-Video-Encoding.pdf http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2013/presentations/S337... Intel is also trying to improve their Quick Sync encoder: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architecture/13 http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architectu...
reiichiroh 13y ago
This article is from last year. Things have improved slightly in favour of Intel. I've found Intel QuickSync (I had to pay $ to LucidLogix for their Virtu MVP software to unlock this functionality since my Sandy Bridge motherboard wasn't one whose OEM paid LucidLogix) usable. Its appeal is for people with dual-core mostly I imagine. Nothing beats quad-core for quality but I've found that I can get 80% of the transcode quality in 4x of the time. Using Arcsoft MediaConverter8, transcoding a 1080p MKV of The Hobbit takes 25 minutes vs 3 hours on my 3.10 GHz i5-2400 quad-core in Handbrake. Unfortunately, this software only supports stereo audio profiles. Handbrake is going to get QuickSync support soon. I tried Badaboom with CUDA 1-2 years ago along with the AMD equivalent and both were ugly ugly pixelated messes that made me go back to Handbrake immediately. This is less of an issue with robust transcode-supporting media server programs like AirVideo, StreamToMe/ServeToMe, Emit, XBMC, PS3 Media Server though I find sometimes I do need to transcode if I'm expecting to be offline somewhere.
akoumjian 13y ago
Does anyone know of programmatic software which can reliably transcode 4k video (prores422, prores444, redcode, photojpeg) to similar or downscaled resolutions of photojpeg or other widely used intra-frame intermediary codecs? It seems to me like everything out there is targeted to encode to highly compressed super lossy formats like h264 for consumer playback. Would like to run a service which can transcode output to photojpeg.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- wmf 13y ago
  I would try QuickTime or ffmpeg.

21 points by cedel2k1 13y ago

Love the legends on the graphs. "Higher is larger" and "Lower is smaller".

wmf 13y ago

(2012) If you're interested in a more scientific look, check out the MSU comparison: http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2012/mpeg4_avc_h264_video_codecs_comparison.pdf http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2012/m... Since then Nvidia has given up on using CUDA for encoding and added specialized encoding hardware to their GPUs. http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2013/presentations/S3379-High-Performance-GPU-Video-Encoding.pdf http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2013/presentations/S337... Intel is also trying to improve their Quick Sync encoder: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architecture/13 http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architectu...

reiichiroh 13y ago

This article is from last year. Things have improved slightly in favour of Intel. I've found Intel QuickSync (I had to pay $ to LucidLogix for their Virtu MVP software to unlock this functionality since my Sandy Bridge motherboard wasn't one whose OEM paid LucidLogix) usable. Its appeal is for people with dual-core mostly I imagine. Nothing beats quad-core for quality but I've found that I can get 80% of the transcode quality in 4x of the time. Using Arcsoft MediaConverter8, transcoding a 1080p MKV of The Hobbit takes 25 minutes vs 3 hours on my 3.10 GHz i5-2400 quad-core in Handbrake. Unfortunately, this software only supports stereo audio profiles. Handbrake is going to get QuickSync support soon. I tried Badaboom with CUDA 1-2 years ago along with the AMD equivalent and both were ugly ugly pixelated messes that made me go back to Handbrake immediately. This is less of an issue with robust transcode-supporting media server programs like AirVideo, StreamToMe/ServeToMe, Emit, XBMC, PS3 Media Server though I find sometimes I do need to transcode if I'm expecting to be offline somewhere.

akoumjian 13y ago

Does anyone know of programmatic software which can reliably transcode 4k video (prores422, prores444, redcode, photojpeg) to similar or downscaled resolutions of photojpeg or other widely used intra-frame intermediary codecs? It seems to me like everything out there is targeted to encode to highly compressed super lossy formats like h264 for consumer playback. Would like to run a service which can transcode output to photojpeg.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
wmf 13y ago
I would try QuickTime or ffmpeg.