

The wretched state of GPU transcoding - cedel2k1
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/128681-the-wretched-state-of-gpu-transcoding

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wmf
(2012)

If you're interested in a more scientific look, check out the MSU comparison:
[http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2012/m...](http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2012/mpeg4_avc_h264_video_codecs_comparison.pdf)

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/S337...](http://on-
demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2013/presentations/S3379-High-Performance-GPU-
Video-Encoding.pdf)

Intel is also trying to improve their Quick Sync encoder:
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-
architectu...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-
architecture/13)

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reiichiroh
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.

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akoumjian
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.

~~~
wmf
I would try QuickTime or ffmpeg.

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

