ABOUT BENCH FORUMS PODCAST LOGIN REGISTER
PC Components
Smartphones & tablets
Systems
ENTERPRISE & IT
GUIDES

ATI's Avivo Update - H.264 Acceleration & a Special Downloadable Surprise

 by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 16, 2005 3:09 PM EST
39 Comments | Add A Comment
39 Comments
Introducing the Avivo Video Converter

The other item of interest that ATI briefed us on is the ATI Avivo Video Converter.  We mentioned in our previous coverage that ATI was working on GPU accelerated video transcode, to speed up the conversion of videos from one format to another (e.g. MPEG-2 to H.264).  Unfortunately, the GPU accelerated transcode isn't yet ready for debut, but what ATI is making available is the software front end for it.

The Avivo Video Converter is an extremely simple utility that accepts just about any video input and converts it to just about any output (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, VCD, SVCD, DVD, MPEG-4/DivX compatible, WMV9, Portable Media Center, H.264/avi, MPEG-4/PSP and H.264/iPod).  The particularly neat features of the utility are built-in presets for converting video to Sony PSP and iPod Video formats.  However, keep in mind that despite ATI's release of this tool, the video conversion itself is done entirely on the host CPU and not on the GPU.  So why bother?  Well, thanks to ATI's experience in dealing with video, they have optimized a number of the transcoding algorithms so that conversion using the utility is actually faster than on other software solutions. 


Click Start to continue


Select your input file and output format


Next up, select your output quality and hit convert. The tool won't let you convert to an unsupported format (e.g. higher than 768kbps on the Sony PSP setting)

ATI's reference point is Nero's Recode tool, which lets you convert from virtually any format to H.264 and includes a built-in preset for converting to Sony PSP video format.  We chose to also compare to Nero's Recode given their similarities in flexibility, but we will look at other performance comparisons upon request from you all. 

H.264 Decode Acceleration - As Promised Avivo Video Converter Performance
PRINT THIS ARTICLE
Comments Locked

39 Comments

View All Comments

  • ShadowVlican - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    how bout a review on the quality of the transcoded files? we all know that all encoders are not equal, that is why some mpeg2 encoders cost more than my car

  • mongoosesRawesome - Saturday, December 17, 2005 - link

    yea, i agree. speed is all well and good, but if the output sucks then why bother?

  • JustAnAverageGuy - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    quote:
    The other item we didn't touch on that makes its appearance in the Catalyst 5.13 drivers is significantly improved video playback quality. ATI didn't have all of their Avivo ducks in a row when the X1000 series launched, but with Catalyst 5.13 they are looking to improve a number of the issues we noted in our first Avivo video quality article. We will be working on a follow-up to that piece in the near future to take a look at exactly what Catalyst 5.13 brings us in terms of video quality.


    Read the article.

  • PrinceGaz - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    He's talking about ENcoding quality for transcoding purposes, not playback quality.

    If a test is done on MPEG2 encoding quality, I would suggest using CCE SP as the comparison encoder as it is generally considered the best available (though it is a touch expensive to purchase).

  • tfranzese - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link

    Read a different article then. AT isn't the only place to cover this (FiringSquad had some IQ coverage).

  • Andyvan - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    I'm wondering if you have both a cheap ATI card and an NVIDIA card installed in your computer, whether you would be allowed to run the converter.

    -- Andyvan

  • Rys - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    Yes, as long as one of the boards is an X1K, the transcoding tool will run. I currently have a GeForce 7800 GTX as my primary board, and an X1800 XL as the secondary one. The new driver, decoder and transcoding tool all run fine.

  • synic - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    read the article, it says X1000 or greater only

  • Araemo - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    "we will look at other performance comparisons upon request from you all"

    Just one: Compare DVD->Divx against AutoGK(Using the official Divx.com codec?) Does the ATI tool even support ripping from an actual DVD(Or decrypted DVD files) to another format? I am curious.

  • fnord123 - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    Please compare against the Microsoft Windows Media Encoder (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9ser...">http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9ser.... A lot of Media Center Extender and XBox 360 people are using it to recode their .avi files to .wmv (Divx isn't supported by 360/MCExtenders). It is a slow process so if the ATI accelerator speeds it up they will have a bunch of buyers!
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved.
BENCH
TOPICS
FOLLOW
ABOUT

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now