Converting streaming MPEG-2 to H264

[tripflex]

Figured i would come on here and ask to see what you guys think and get any kind of input. Wasn't sure if this should be posted in the streaming forum or video conversion.

Here's our application. The state of florida runs a 511 website where they want it so users can log on and view traffic cameras from all over the state of florida. Here is the issue. They want to stream the feeds in h264, but all the streams coming from the cameras are multicast through an encoder which converts them to mpeg-2 from coax then at the central location the network runs to they are decoded back to a coax signal.

So basically we are looking for the most cost effective way to convert the mpeg-2 streams to h264. We have been looking at numerous options including switching out the encoders to h264, but there are about 2300 cameras so it would be very expensive. Especially since we would have to replace all the decoders also.

The next option we looked at was "transcoding", specifically a company named "RipCode" which they said can work with 16-20 streams per unit. Each unit costs about $25,000. My assumption is that this company has its own software they created, they buy a server and install their software and charge an arm and a leg.

Does anybody know about any other companies that offer hardware/software like this?

What about a company that provides just the software? It seems like this will be our most cost efficient way to achieve what we are looking at doing, we just want to find the best price and hopefully keep this project under 4 million.

Anybody have any other ideas on what we might be able to do that we haven't though of?

Any help would absolutely be appreciated, thank you for your time in reading this thread.

[Soopafresh]

Have a look at Nvidia Tesla technology, which is relatively inexpensive and very powerful. Do a search on CUDA. I'm not certain whether or not there's a turnkey solution available, but you'll see there are ways to offload the CPU processing requirements to much faster GPU hardware. Whatever your solution is, there's going to be a hardware component involved, so figure in the costs of electricity, air conditioning, rack space, staffing and support.

Elemental Technologies might have a solution for you:

http://www.elementaltechnologies.com/products/product-overview

[tripflex]

Have a look at Nvidia Tesla technology, which is relatively inexpensive and very powerful. Whatever your solution is, there's going to be a hardware component involved, so figure in the costs of electricity, air conditioning and rack space.

Ok i'll check it out, thanks. Yeah we will be hosting all the equipment in a server room at each one of the FDOT RTMC (Regional Traffic Management Center).

[creamyhorror]

You might want to look into x264, a free and excellent H.264 encoder. It's been deployed as a streaming/transcoding solution by a few companies (TV broadcasters, streaming sites, videoconferencing providers), and recently it was upgraded to handle low-latency streams even better. I'd recommend you post your question at the following forum on Doom9:

http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=77

The people there will be able to advise you on what solutions might work and what sort of hardware you'd need. The x264 developer also answers questions there, and he can code any features in x264 that you require for a fee.

I'm not sure how much a server system running x264 works out to (you'd probably want core i7s in each server). The software side should be relatively cheap since x264 is free, but you might have to hire expertise to do the setup.

A few relevant threads from Doom9:
Looking for multi-stream SD H.264 encoding hardware
Running tons of encodes in parallel on multiple servers

x264 can easily do 10-20 SD streams on a single Core i7. 2-4 Core i7s are far, far cheaper than any decent hardware solution.

(The original poster in the first thread finds that x264 on an i7-950 can encode between 22 and 40 streams simultaneously at the fastest settings.)

[begui]

Does the x.264 lib transcode mpeg-2 elementary streams? Is there an API for the x264

[tripflex]

You might want to look into x264, a free and excellent H.264 encoder. It's been deployed as a streaming/transcoding solution by a few companies (TV broadcasters, streaming sites, videoconferencing providers), and recently it was upgraded to handle low-latency streams even better. I'd recommend you post your question at the following forum on Doom9:

http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=77

The people there will be able to advise you on what solutions might work and what sort of hardware you'd need. The x264 developer also answers questions there, and he can code any features in x264 that you require for a fee.

I'm not sure how much a server system running x264 works out to (you'd probably want core i7s in each server). The software side should be relatively cheap since x264 is free, but you might have to hire expertise to do the setup.

A few relevant threads from Doom9:
Looking for multi-stream SD H.264 encoding hardware
Running tons of encodes in parallel on multiple servers

x264 can easily do 10-20 SD streams on a single Core i7. 2-4 Core i7s are far, far cheaper than any decent hardware solution.

(The original poster in the first thread finds that x264 on an i7-950 can encode between 22 and 40 streams simultaneously at the fastest settings.)

Ok thanks, the forum says i cant post for five days though

[creamyhorror]

Ok thanks, the forum says i cant post for five days though

Yeah, it's a bit of a pain. I can do an initial post for you if you want.