A case for GPU computing: Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and the Mercury Playback Engine

Comments

  • photodudephotodude Salt Lake, Utah Member
    edited July 2010
    I think the Mercury playback engine also shows the maturity of the CUDA program language. If ATI Stream, openCL, Directcompute, or one of the other GPGPU languages were as robust and mature; we would see similar solutions available based on those languages.

    It doesn't hurt that Nvidia is a much better marketer of their technology platform then ATI, provides a library location of CUDA plugins for different software like MatLab (something ATI has yet to do), and 355 universities around the world are teaching CUDA programing. It really helps build the perception that CUDA is the future.
  • UPSLynxUPSLynx :KAPPA: Redwood City, CA Icrontian
    edited July 2010
    CUDA is definitely in the best position right now. I'm curious to see how it all pans out.

    It does suck that Mercury Playback is limited to Quadro GPUs though. Despite the ability to build a formidable editing workstation with this kind of setup, this really does hurt the rebel filmmakers that operate on small budgets.

    My short film crew back in Indiana just put together an editing bench. We didn't have the money to build something absurdly extravagant - the mark of any rebel filmmaker really. Mercury Playback is something that would have helped us in deadlines for film festivals immensely. We would have never been able to use it though, because $700 for the lowest end compatible GPU is just too much. Our entire edit bench cost that much.

    If NVIDIA were to expand the capability out to their high end GeForce cards as well (which I'm sure they're able to do), they would become heroes to the indie filmmaking crowd.
  • Kram
    edited July 2010
    Are we expecting new quadro GPUs in the coming weeks/months?
  • UPSLynxUPSLynx :KAPPA: Redwood City, CA Icrontian
    edited July 2010
    There is no word from NVIDIA of plans to release new Quadro GPUs yet.
  • photodudephotodude Salt Lake, Utah Member
    edited July 2010
    Mercury Playback engine is NOT limited to only Quadro GPUs even if Nvidia wants everyone to believe that it is. Adobe says GeForce GTX 285 will run the Mercury Playback engine, and Adobe plans to add Fermi based cards in the future, maybe later this year around September.
    http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/performance/

    Rumor is the Quadro Fermi card might be available in 4Q10 pushed back about as much as the original Fermi card were.

    I think it would be nice if Adobe added support for Tesla cards in their GPGPU accelerations, in addition to adding support for ATI cards.
  • UPSLynxUPSLynx :KAPPA: Redwood City, CA Icrontian
    edited July 2010
    Tesla is way too much overkill for such an application. Tesla is computationally based, and way too expensive, not to mention the cards don't output video natively. You can do much more in terms of video work with a Quadro or GeForce board.

    Doesn't surprise me that GeForce cards are able to do Mercury Playback though. I read about some of those during the evaluation, but without officially endorsing it, I didn't want to add that into the piece.
  • photodudephotodude Salt Lake, Utah Member
    edited July 2010
    I was considering a Tesla based on it being a GPGPU computation card, Video output as secondary to just crunching the data. But looking at the fermi Tesla card specs I question the validity of my argument since the C2050 and C2070 only have 480 cuda cores, same as a GeForce GTX 480. You really only gain extra memory with a Tesla card: 5-6GB vs 1.5GB respectively, possibly helpful for large renderings and encoding, but not much else.

    Adobe officially supports only the GeForce GTX 285 and Quardo FX cards above 3800. where Nvidia's marketing only lists the QuadroFX cards. I haven't heard if any non-supported CUDA cards working with the Mercury Playback Engine. I would like to know if there are any since I'm in need of a video card for my system. I would like to get something with a Fermi chip that works with the Mercury Playback Engine, even if works unsupported. My debate on a new video card is something in the GeForce GTX 4xx series or wait for the Fermi Quadro cards. The question is how long will I have to wait for a Fermi Quadro card vs end cost for performance.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited July 2010
    Kram wrote:
    Are we expecting new quadro GPUs in the coming weeks/months?

    According to NVIDIA's blog, they are set to introduce a "host of new Quadro solutions" at SIGGRAPH 2010, next week.
  • photodudephotodude Salt Lake, Utah Member
    edited July 2010
    We can only hope that Nvidia will be announcing the immediate availability of this "host of new Quadro solutions" (the fermi based tesla cards were quietly announced and made immediately available in a similar fashion)
  • tmjcbs
    edited August 2010
    Mercury playback can also be enabled on most of the cheaper Nvidia cards, not just the few expensive ones Adobe mentions. A simple hack is all that's needed.
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