Info for hardware video encoding acceleration

[insidejob]

Hello everyone! Does anyone had experience with hardware video encoding acceleration? I mean, does it really work? How much does it accelerate the process for encoding a video? I'm asking this because I'm considering buying a new video card for myself and I've found out that ATI Radeon 9550 video card has a MPEG1/2/4 decode and encode acceleration feature and I wanted to know how much it accelerates the encoding process. Does anyone ever used this card or any other card that had this feature? Thanks for your help!

[anonymez]

I've found out that ATI Radeon 9550 video card has a MPEG1/2/4 decode and encode acceleration feature

the 9550 only has hardware mpeg2 decoding, not encoding-- the new X1x00 series (avivo) does.

[insidejob]

the 9550 only has hardware mpeg2 decoding, not encoding-- the new X1x00 series (avivo) does.

Weird. At ATI website it's written on 9550 specs:

(http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9550/specs.html)

# MPEG1/2/4 decode and encode acceleration
* DXVA Support
* Hardware Motion Compensation, iDCT, DCT and color space conversion

Anyway, does it make much difference to have this feature on a video card? For example, for encoding MPEG-2 videos using TMPGEnc? Does it make the encoding process faster? Thanks for your help anonymez!

[anonymez]

lol it's a typo

dxva is hardware mpeg2 decoding, will only really see benefits with hdtv streams on lower end pc's

For example, for encoding MPEG-2 videos using TMPGEnc? Does it make the encoding process faster?

nope, gotta upgrade CPU/RAM i'm afraid. but an X1X00 will speed up mpeg2 encoding, with avivoxcode (ati's encoding software)

[insidejob]

thanks for clearing things up anonymez!