Badaboom: A Full Test of Elemental's GPU Accelerated H.264 Transcoder
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 18, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Application
Badaboom relies on its interface to be one of its biggest strengths, and admittedly it does look very good. On the left you have your sources: optical drive(s), a VIDEO_TS folder from a ripped DVD or a file. In the middle you’ve got a preview of the video itself and on the right you have your output formats with presets for the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPod Classic, Apple TV, Xbox 360 and PS3. Choose your source, choose your output and hit start - that’s all you really need to do.
DVD support is a bit more elegant than your run of the mill video files. You can choose to transcode individual titles or chapters from the DVD, but do keep in mind that Badaboom won't perform any decryption for you - you'll have to break any security on your own.
The standard version of Badaboom will let you use any of these presets but you can’t adjust things like resolution, the pro version gives you an advanced button that let’s you configure a bit more. The configurable options are limited to resolution, bitrate, audio, 3:2 detect and deinterlacing. You can’t even specify the name or location of the output file, although thankfully you can cancel a transcode in the middle of it.
During a transcode you get a small preview of the video in the center of the application and an instantaneous frame rate as well as estimated time. There’s no summary window after the transcode has completed indicating average frame rate, total completion time or other vitals about the process.
In a nutshell, that’s the application - it transcodes things and doesn’t let you adjust much. Which brings us to its limitations...
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Staples - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
From the introMedical imaging and scientific analysis benefitted tremendously from GPU acceleration, but it's rare that you are a gamer with a $400 GPU is going to be searching for oil deposits in his/her spare time on the same machine.
Dobs - Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - link
Perhaps you can help me understand what Medical Imaging has to do with searching for oil deposits?Staples - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
Or maybe that should be:a typical gamer
Probably the latter.
Doormat - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
"I want a CUDA enabled version of x264"Amen to that. Plus possibly a WPF version of Handbrake to make it look more elegant. I could care less about video preview.
Also, does BadaBoom support reading from ISOs or do I have to mount with DaemonTools?
I have a Q9450 OC'd to 3.2GHz, so I'm pretty happy with my x264 performance. My iPhone movies are usually done in about 3x realtime (90 minute movie in 30 mintues) at 700-900kbit/s, and the PS3/360 movies are done a little bit quicker (since there is no resizing going on, just transcoding).
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - link
Badaboom doesn't support reading from ISOs, you have to mount with DT.-A
Manabu - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
>> "I want a CUDA enabled version of x264"It was already tried: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=139158">http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=139158
Dark Shikari (x264 developer) said:
"Given my experience so far in trying to port the motion search to CUDA, and Avail's hiring of a contractor to attempt to do so, I'd put the quote for porting the whole encoder somewhere on the level of a few million dollars... if you can even find people willing and able to do it."
"GPU encoding has a lot of potential, but it has a lot of weaknesses too. Its a bit like programming for a Cell or an FPGA, except exponentially more of a nightmare."
EvilBob - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
page 6 appears to have the wrong figure - according to the text, it should show energy use information, but the table currently rendering shows the badaboom regular v. pro comparison.sideshow23bob - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
Isn't the product name Badaboom maybe a Fifth Element reference considering the company has the name Elemental in its name. Just a guess. If that's the case it's slightly cooler.