hardware MPEG CODEC

[verdomme]

i am looking for a hardware mpeg codec card on PCI.

Note that the Dazzle DVCII is NOT a hardware codec !.

i need a card that can do file in - file out , and the DVC II only does signal in - file out OR file in - signal out.

I have a bunch of DV encoded AVI files ( i shoot underwater video and do NLE in DV format). Now i want to encode it to DVD from the DV file. ( got hp dvd writer ).

I have tried a lot of software mpeg encoders and they are ALL junk. they have compression problems ( artifacts , noise , blockiness ), are terribly slow , or even crash on certain images. ( i have a DV stream that not a single software encoder can compress. they all end up crashing. the image has a particular 'hue jump' that throws off the vectoring of software encoders and they can not recover.( tmpgenc , bbmpeg , ligos , qdesign , panasonic : all crash ) Most software encoders are based on the same algorithm.

This is due to the nature of MPEG compression. The only good software encoder is unaffordable for me.( priced at well over 4000 US$ ) and still too slow.

To compress a native DV movie of about one hour it takes well over 8 hours ( MPEG 2 for DVD ) . in SVCd en VCd this even worsens ( even with PIV - 2.2 Ghz ). Editing in MPEG is really bad. havent found a software tool yet that let's me do what i want, or generates bad transients in mpeg.


Card need to be able to work with adobe premiere from INSIDE premiere !. not using yet another piece of software ...

So i am looking for a hardware card that does MPEG. i know that certain chips can do MPEG encoding faster then real time. So these cards must exist.

Why do i need this : let's say i shoot a movie of people diving in the afternoon. we get out of the water at 4 pm. by 6pm i have the finished result of the shooting. ( i have templates ready and just import the footage i took of them in the template. ) We do a rush preview . If the client likes it i want to click a button , file gets compressed in lets say 10 to 15 minutes. and i burn the DVD or VCd or SVCd (30 mins max here to burn a dvd ) . client leaves at 7pm with disk in hand. i close shop and go home.
sounds fair right ?

so anyone has a solution ?

[Jestorius]

Canopus Amber, MVR1000($670)

[Baldrick]

you may find some info and links here
http://www.tecoltd.com/enctest/enctest.htm
they have both tested software encoders and offline hardware encoders.

Cinemacraft sp($2000) with a dual athlon 1800 encodes faster than realtime if you are gonna believe them...if vbr is not necassary then cinemacraft lite($250) version is also not that bad solution and you can get a trial for it also....and there is premiere plugins avaialbe.

[verdomme]

cinemacraft is a software encoder. i downloaded the trial version and tried to compress my 'special' stream. crashes just like any other convertor i already tried.

i have a 6 second movie that lets any software compressor crash. when sent trough a hardware compressor it compresses fine. ( used the futuretel compression card found in a video conferencing system )
Friend of mine makes MPEG encoder chips and has analysed the file. There is a particular hue jump in it that throws off the vector in the last B step of the IBBP sequence.

canopus system is capture card. i need encoder card. fil in file out remember?. canopus card is video in file out.

[Jestorius]

MVR1000 is a hardware mpeg1 and mpeg2 encoder.

[Mirror_Image]

canopus system is capture card. i need encoder card. fil in file out remember?. canopus card is video in file out.

Looks like an encoder card to me1

http://www.canopuscorp.com/products/amber.php3

Amber Key BenefitsSingle PCI board

MPEG-2 D1, Half-D1 and MPEG1 real-time encoding
Encodes I,P,B frames (MP@ML)
I-frame-only option
Bitrate 1-15Mb/s user adjustable (CBR/VBR)
PAL (720x576)/NTSC(720x480), CCIR-601
Composite and S-video input and output
Video parameter controls
Prefiltering 4:2:2 to 4:2:0
Windows 9x, 2000, and NT4.0 compatible
MPEG Layer II audio encoder
Simultaneous high quality VGA video overlay and
analog video output
Video and audio locked in sync during capture
Amber SpecificationsFormat: Bus mastering PCI card
175mm(w)x107mm(l) PCI half-size
Operating system: Windows NT4.0, Windows 9x, Windows 2000
Video format: PAL (720x576) / NTSC (720x480),
CCIR 601 to square pixel conversion
Video input and output: Composite(RCA) and S-Video (miniDIN)
4.2.2. sampling
Capture resolutions: NTSC 720x480, 352x480, 352x240
PAL 720x576, 352x576, 352x288
(CBR/VBR)
Video compression: MPEG2 (ISO/IEC 13818-2)
Main Profile@ Main Level (I,B,P/MP@ML)
I-frame only support
MPEG1 (ISO/IEC 11172-2)
Filtering: 2D
Audio input: Stereo (RCA)
Audio output: Stereo (mini jack)
Audio sampling rates: 32kHz, 44.1kHz and 48kHz (all 16 bit)
Audio compression: ISO/IEC 11172-3 layer II (software compression)
Audio bit rate: 64,96,112,128,160,192,224,256,320,384 kb/s
Multiplex: ISO/IEC 13818-2 MPEG2 program stream
ISO/IEC 11172-2 MPEG1 system stream
IRQ requirements: Uses one IRQ
Memory address: Uses 512 byte configured by PCI
Power consumption: +5V 1.5A, +12V 160mA, -12V 100mA
Amber Minimum System Requirementsone open PCI V2.1 Slot
Pentium 166 MHz or better
64 MB RAM or more
1024x768x16bb display
VGA overlay DirectDraw compatible
for real-time preview

$2,000, love it or leave it

[verdomme]

nope. called canopus. card can only encode what it is capturing itself. you can not stream an existing file to it.

the MV1000 can do it indeed. but at a price of 1800$ plus 4500$ for the base card this is waaaaaaay too expensive for my budget.

in the mean time i learned some more stuff.

All these chipset should indeed be capable of doing this file to file stuff , except that nobody implements it in their drivers. most of the cards are based on chipsets from c-cube ( now LSI logic )

The DVx chipset used on the 299$ dollar dazzle can handle both DV and MPEG. and it can convert this. but the card driver has nothing implemented for it. Curious ? maybe has something to do with licencing.

i'm looking into writing a generic driver than can use c-cube based cards to cross-encode. should not be that hard. i'll keep you posted

thanks for the help

[Jestorius]

From harddisk to pci buss encoder , wich takes what ever file you have???? I don't know if there is any but Pinnacle 500 and Pro One , Matrox has hardware accelerated encoding. The speed is 1:2.