[BORIStheBLADE]

While looking at info on the elgato turbo264 HD I was wondering if there was anything for windows computers. After a while of digging around I found out that if you have a Nvidia CUDA gpu and certain software you can use the gpu to speed up the encoding process.

There isn't many programs out,but apparently MotionDSP’s vReveal, Cyberlink’s PowerDirector 7 Ultra, Loilo’s Super Loiloscope, ArcSoft’s TotalMedia Theatre 3 Platinum, and Elemental’s Badaboom use the gpu.

The cards supported .
http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_gpus.html


I was wondering if anyone has tried this out with their setup and if they noticed a difference?

[cowfodder]

I haven't, but a coworker of mine has. He said that he saw about a 40-50% speed increase handbraking DVDs. I'm not sure which card he has.

[magnetik]

Looking around the handbrake forums, I got the impression they felt for encoding the GPU isn't really worth the effort - things are really optimised for decoding. I concluded from the reading around that since h.264 encoding is pretty much a single threaded task, it's hard to throw multiple cores/processes at the task in tandem, which is what using the GPU would be hoping to assist in, many small tasks in parallel.

cowfodder, when you say 'handbraking' do you mean using handbrake? Or just using that as slang, as I wasn't aware handbrake had a build that used the GPU for encoding? If that's the case - do let me know!

[>>X<<]

Yes its faster encoding using the GPU and CUDA but the major difference is your not tying up your CPU while your encoding, it also means you can encode on a systems like the ion or anything with a lower speed CPU and still use the system while encoding

This will give you an idea not the best example but I think your get the point

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C_Pj1Ep4nw

[cowfodder]

Looking around the handbrake forums, I got the impression they felt for encoding the GPU isn't really worth the effort - things are really optimised for decoding. I concluded from the reading around that since h.264 encoding is pretty much a single threaded task, it's hard to throw multiple cores/processes at the task in tandem, which is what using the GPU would be hoping to assist in, many small tasks in parallel.

cowfodder, when you say 'handbraking' do you mean using handbrake? Or just using that as slang, as I wasn't aware handbrake had a build that used the GPU for encoding? If that's the case - do let me know!

I'm just relaying what he told me. I assume he was using it as slang, i.e. "I googled it" meaning "I looked it up online."

[BORIStheBLADE]

Ya I read a couple of articles on it. I saw how it keeps the cpu low so you can still use the pc for other tasks.

I also found that DvdFAB uses it too.

[Riffmaker]

I use Mediacoder(http://www.mediacoderhq.com/) Its free and works great. The only downside is that it launches the website on start up and asks you to visit its sponsor's website every now and then after an encode is completed. It really isnt all that intrusive as you can click it away instantly.

I've only been using it for about 2 weeks now but I have to say it works really well. First off it encodes alot faster than before and second of all I can do other things with no lag at all. When I would encode before with other programs it was frustrating to use the computer at all. Starting, switching or closing programs took forever and everything was just slower. Now I don't even notice it running in the background. The main difference is that it frees up the cpu so you can do other things while its doing it's thing.

[magnetik]

I'm just relaying what he told me. I assume he was using it as slang, i.e. "I googled it" meaning "I looked it up online."

yeah...

Well seems there is some advantage, will have to check it out - but searches on the Handbrake forums didn't seem to show any ability in the near future to do so...