Trying to accelerate video encoding using Ati..

Maky

Hello

I recently purchased a 5870. I've been trying since to find a way to accelerate encode times by using the GPU. I came across MediaShow Espresso and downloaded it. I can't seem to find a way to Enable Ati Stream to improve encode although I found an option to Enable Hardware acceleration to decode in the preferences. I google'd quite a bit and found this thread here but no answer . Could someone help me here ? I'm on 10.4 CCC drivers.

Thanks in advance.

MrTRiot

If you want to use your video card to increase video encoding times you picked the wrong manufacturer. Nividia has a technology called CUDA in certain newer GPUs which is pretty much built for what you want to do. I've used it before and it makes the difference between four hours with a standard CPU and 20 minutes using your GPU for a standard ~4gb DvDRip.......

Sorry to be the bringer of bad news

Thrax

ATI also has the same capabilities, TRiot. It's called ATI Stream, and it can also accelerate encode/decode processes using open source languages like OpenCL and DirectCompute. It's built into the Radeon HD 5000-series GPUs just like CUDA is built into all of NVIDIA's DirectX 10 GPUs.

Maky, can you update to Catalyst 10.6 or newer? I'll do some double-checking to see how you can enable the encode acceleration.

Maky

I'm on 10.4 currently. Can't upgrade to 10.6 the drivers seem to be unstable or cause weird graphic anomalies...

Thrax

Catalyst 10.7 should be out in a few days. Let's give those a shot, and then work on getting Espresso going. Is that cool?

Cliff_Forster

If your running Media Show 5.5 ATI Stream is supported. You just have to check, "enable hardware acceleration". You should see a huge improovement.

Depending upon your project, the Catalyst Control Center has a nice built in tool for encoding video. AVIVO is intuitive, and its bleeding edge fast with the 5870. Thats what typically use, it does all the major formats in a bare bones interface.

Maky

I'll check out avivio and post back after trying out 10.7

Maky

I reinstalled the K-lite codec pack and was able to find enable hardware encode but now everytime I drag and drop a file onto it or even click anywhere in the program window it crashes with the following error:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: MediaShow_Espresso.exe
Application Version: 5.0.406.11840
Application Timestamp: 49d9fd29
Fault Module Name: ffdshow.ax
Fault Module Version: 1.0.5.2052
Fault Module Timestamp: 48d19d7f
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00122176
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 16393
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

Read our privacy statement online:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x0409

If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt

Additionally I downloaded AVIVO, I don't think ati update this any longer or I read somethign along those lines, I can't seem to encode any divx/xvid AVI file using the built in AVIVO converter in CCC. It says
'The selected source file contains either an unsupported video/audio format or no video/audio content. Please try another source file.'

Still waiting on 10.7 but if you guys have any solution to either fixing media express crashes OR making it so that avivo supports divX/Xvid I'd greatly appreciate it .

MrTRiot

I'd say in the future go for Nvidia for your GPU needs. CUDA is very well perfected and I haven't seen any issues so far using it......

Although, I had a radeonX1300 for longer then I care to remember. Not one problem with it so I guess that's a plus in ATI's direction

Cliff_Forster

Hey Maky,

What is the source file? What are you trying to encode? From what source, to what format, for use on what device?

Thanks.

Maky

It's an AVI file. Compression DivX/Xvid to PSP

Cliff_Forster

Maky wrote:

It's an AVI file. Compression DivX/Xvid to PSP

Check the interface out, this is native in the 10.6 Catalyst Control Center. I can go from .avi to psp format without a lick of trouble and its fast.

See the screen cap of the AVIVO UI here.

Its really intuitive once you find the tools. I don't think they have done a good enough job promoting AVIVO if I'm being honest. I think its a fantastic video conversion tool, its all most folks are ever going to need.

Maky

okies I just can't seem to get past with any file with avivio...
I uninstalled K-Lite and Installed Win7codecs and x64 components and mediashow seems to have stopped crashing but files were still not being recognised in AVIVO.
I used Mediashow to convert a 700MB file to PSP. It showed my GPU usage at only 25%max, I noticed my CPU was being utilised as well during conversion and took about 10m:39s total to convert. Is this normal ? Is there anyway to force 100% GPU load for the conversion to make it go quicker ?

Cliff_Forster

On the prior screen in the UI there is a check box that says "enable acceleration". This is what prompts the GPU to handle the load vs. the CPU. It will be nice when they get direct compute down so the system just fugues out how to best allocate the resources on the fly. Right now you just check that box off.

I'm not sure how big of a difference it makes, but I do have a fairly large amount of RAM at 8GB. Perhaps that helps to buffer whats getting loaded to a point where it helps my performance? I honestly don't have any trouble using that application. I convert video in it all the time, and its amazingly fast.