Like everyone else, I'm trying to save time when editing and encoding projects. In that in mind I came across these two articles that are slightly dated yet very informative.

AnandTech - The Sandy Bridge Review: Intel Core i7-2600K, i5-2500K and Core i3-2100 Tested (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/9)

and

Intel Quick Sync Hardware Encoding | Brian C. Becker (http://www.briancbecker.com/blog/2011/intel-quick-sync-hardware-encoding/)


After googling, and reading up on it, it seems to me that Intel is targeting the low end APU market with the quick sync hardware engine.

Also, it seems to me in the pro NLE space, the quick sync hardware acceleration can have benefits particularly with h.264 encoding, and particularly with NLEs that are written to be multithreaded.

So, has anyone heard anything more about it? Will any of the big NLEs take advantage of it?

I'm curious about where quick sync hardware acceleration is going and finding out which editors & encoders will have ports to it.

Thanks

Hi Ray

EDIUS uses it, look at this video.
EDIUS 6.03 Fast encoding for Blu-ray using Intel Quicksync - YouTube (http://youtu.be/Nd5Ighxa1JM)
Nothing beats it for multi format real-time editing and rendering out files.

Yes I use Edius and also TMPGEnc - Products: TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress - Product Overview (http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/te4xp.html). Both will use Quick Sync for encoding for Bluray. Both are very fast. My PC is a Gigabyte board with i7-2600k.

Ron Evans

Also, keep in mind that QuickSync will normally not work at all if a discrete graphics card is used as the primary graphics adapter unless you install Lucid Virtu software and configure it to the d-mode.

No that is not completely true. Mine works fine with my GTX560 but for Edius to use the Quicksync encode the on board VGA connector must be connected to a monitor that has power on it. In other words the onboard VGA must see an active monitor present even if it is not used.

The Virtu software allows one to connect the monitor to the on board and use the discrete GPU when it is more powerful than the onboard Intel graphics.

I have two Dell monitors connected to my GTX560 and the onboard VGA connected to my VT2300LED monitors VGA input although it is used for monitoring from my Edius edit using a HDMI input fed from the SParkHD card. In other words the onboard VGA is not used but just connected to a live monitor.

Ron Evans

That's true with most boards. However, what I described assumes that one is using one of certain motherboards that use a supported chipset (such as the Z68) but lack any onboard video out whatsoever yet still claims QuickSync and Virtu support (this means the Asus P8Z68 Deluxe and a couple of motherboards that I don't know off-hand).

Thank Goodness for the rationalization of Asus's Z77 motherboard lineup: All of them (this includes the P8Z77-V Deluxe) except the Maximus V Gene and the Sabertooth Z77 have the full array of onboard video outs (Display Port, HDMI, DVI-D and D-Sub); the Maximus V Gene and the Sabertooth Z77 have only the first two (Display Port and HDMI).

This has been a productive discussion thanks everyone for contributing.

I never heard of Virtu until this discussion.

As a background here are some links I found which explains what it is:

Lucidlogix with the multi gpu solution (http://www.lucidlogix.com/product-virtu-universal.html)

and

AnandTech - Lucid's Virtu Enables Simultaneous Integrated/Discrete GPU on Sandy Bridge Platforms (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4199/lucids-virtu-enables-simultaneous-integrateddiscrete-gpu-on-sandy-bridge-platforms)

Will Virtu unlock intel quick sync for any application transparently?