Canopus FireCoder

[Canadian*]

Folks

Considering this hardware card to speed up DVD production for a ski team

Is anyone out there using the card and/or have an opinion on its quality for speed and end result visuals.
The only downside is it looks like it does not do Multipass

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Canopus Firecoder.

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Here is its basic specs .... from their website ...

Create Portable and DVD-ready Video - Blazingly Fast!

Engineered with hardware-based MPEG encoding technology, and designed with a PCI Express form factor, FireCoder generates MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 files at blistering, faster-than-realtime speeds.



FireCoder is as versatile, as it is speedy! Use FireCoder to:

Capture video from DV and HDV cameras
Edit MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, including native HDV
Author and burn DVDs
Convert video into files compatible with Apple iPod® and Sony PSP™
Export video projects from Grass Valley EDIUS and Adobe® Premiere® Pro 1.x NLE software

The hardware-software combination featured in the FireCoder package provides a variety of ways to help you reduce the time it takes you to prepare your video. [more...]



Powered by Hardware, Driven by Software

Even with today's high-speed PCs, the time you spend waiting for your video projects to encode to MPEG format for DVDs or portable media devices can still stretch out to unbearable lengths. Instead of relying solely on the PC's CPU (as do software-only video editing, DVD authoring and format conversion products), the onboard MPEG encoding chip engineered into the FireCoder PCI Express board handles the tough encoding tasks.

The advantages of FireCoder are two-fold:

Speed - Create MPEG-2 files for DVDs and MPEG-4 files for portable media devices much faster - often more than twice the speed of realtime in most cases
Productivity - Free up your CPU for other work, while your video is being encoded.

FireCoder: Key Features


MPEG-2/MPEG-4 encoding hardware technology, incorporated into a high-speed PCI Express design
Faster-than-realtime MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video file creation

IEEE 1394 OHCI FireWire input for DV and HDV capture
Cut, stitch and trim MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and HDV video
Video format conversion software, supporting Windows Media®, DivX®, DV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and more
DVD authoring, "Watch" folder and batch conversion support
Timeline export plug-ins for Grass Valley EDIUS, Adobe Premiere 6.5 and Adobe Premiere Pro 1.x

FireCoder: Specifications



Package Contents:



FireCoder PCI Express bus card
Installation CD-ROM (Device drivers, MPEG applications)
User Manuals


Technical Specifications (Hardware):



Video Input


1 x 6-pin IEEE 1394 FireWire

2 x 4-pin IEEE 1394 FireWire (for internal connection)

Video Resolutions


MPEG-2: 720x480, 720x576, 704x480, 640x480, 480x480, 352x480, 352x576, 352x240, 352x288, 320x480, 320x240, 176x120
MPEG-4: 720x480, 720x576, 704x480, 640x480, 480x480, 352x480, 352x576, 352x240, 320x240, 176x120
Video Frame Rate

MPEG-2: 29.97fps (NTSC), 25fps (PAL)
MPEG-4: 15fps (NTSC), 30fps (NTSC), 25fps (PAL)

Video Compression


MPEG-2: (ISO/IEC 13818-2) Main Profile @ Main Level (I, B, P frames) I-frame support only
MPEG-4: (ISO/IEC 14496-14)

Video Bitrate


MPEG-2: 128kbps - 15Mbps
MPEG-4: 32kbps - 8Mbps
Variable (one-pass) and Constant Bitrate support
Audio Sampling Rates


MPEG-2: 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz
MPEG-4: 24kHz, 48kHz

Audio Compression


MPEG-2: MPEG-1 Layer 2

MPEG-4: AAC
Audio Bitrates


MPEG-2: 96 to 384kbps
MPEG-4: 32, 48, 64, 96, 128, 144, 182, 224, 256, 288kbps

[paulw]

And the price is.......?? It ain't going to be cheap.

[redwudz]

Seems to be about $350 - $400US. That's the low cost card. The others in the line are about $1000US - $2500US.

Not really that bad as the Canopus ADVC-100 DV converter I have was about $230US when I got it a few years ago.

I can't find any reviews for the FireCoder, though.

[Soopafresh]

$375, which isn't too bad. What makes me laugh is that a video company (Canopus/GV) can't even create a short flash video demoing the product.

It is PCI express , so make sure the mobo has an available slot.

[Canadian*]

Thanks for the comments, The PCI express is a good point, My mobo is SLI, so i can use the second pcie for the video encoder card.

What interests me before purchase, is finding a low cost card that does very fast mpeg2 (end product) encoding with a multipass hardware core for best quality....

I'm interested in hearing from anyone who uses a low cost hardware solution that meets these requirments.