USB 2.0 or Firewire H.264 encoding coprocessor for PC?

[jeffhoward001]

Hello -

I've been encoding my home DVD collection onto my home media center and mobile devices for years. While this takes a while, it was generally using Divx/Xvid MP4 algorithms that didn't take *too* long to encode (maybe 1.5-2x playtime for lossless bitrates on my slower machine).

Then came HDTV recordings via a TV Tuner card, new handy cams that record HD, Blueray, and H.264 encoding. I recently started archiving my videos in the new H.264 format as it actually looks better than Xvid, and had MUCH more reasonable storage capacities for HD. Turns out encoding in H.264 is no trivial task, even for a dual and quad core machines!

Which leads to my question - Consumer-grade HD usage is quickly on the rise, and most end-users have NO CLUE how impressively better HD is than SD, all they know is it looks better, and they'll want to edit and record it just as they did with their old SD content.

Doesn't it seem like the market is ripe for a USB 2.0 or Firewire H.264 coprocessor? I know there's a product like this for Mac, but I heard it's pretty limited (800x600 res). I've looked into the Nivida's "Cuda" technology, but honestly I'd rather decouple by video encoding solution from my graphics card, and many home users won't understand why they need a $200+ graphics card to author their own Blueray disks, and I heard Cuda isn't necessarily that fast (really depends on the software implementation).

Seems like if someone could come up with a dedicate hardware coprocessor in the $99-$150 range that was tied to a codec (not a single piece of software), they'd sell of ton of these. Thoughts?

- Jeff

[jagabo]

Nvidia's CUDA, and ATI's AVIVO HD don't require $200 cards. Even $50 cards now support hardware encoding and decoding. It's software support that's lagging. Hopefully, DirectCompute will eventually take hold.

[jeffhoward001]

Ok, makes sense since the technology's been around for a few years now. But do the sub-$100 cards significantly decrease encoding time? I'm thinking something more purpose-built that could drastically decrease encoding time, and be marketed as such, for any PC (old or new), laptops, netbooks, etc.