Elemental Accelerator, Quadro FX 3800 and Cineform files:

[Simon Zimmer]

Anyone using elemental accelerator with one of the quadro graphics card and cineform at the same time?

How does it perform with PPCS4? I am looking at a way to speed up my PPCS4 setup.

I have a HP z600 with dual quads in it with 12 GB of RAM but CS4 is still sluggish for me. However, it is better than CS3 which has major issues handling large projects.

CS5 ready yet? ;)

sighhhh!

Simon

[Robert Brueschke]

I am working with a Qaudro CX and elemental accelerator and cineform. But I don't understand your question. Elemental accelerator has nothing to do with cineform - elemental accelerator is working only with mpeg2 and H264 files!

[Simon Zimmer]

Hello,

Maybe I am not understanding the elemental accelerator concept.

If I have a cineform avi file on a timeline in PPCS4 and I want to export it to H.264 format, will it work?

And if so, is it faster while encoding and rendering?

Also, elemental accelerator is supposed to speed up the overall performance of all your software including of course PPCS4. Do you believe this to be true?

Thanks for the help.

Simon

[Robert Brueschke]

in this described workflow elemental accelarator will help you - cause you are decoding to a supported file format.
For the overall speedup I don't see any enhancements with elemental accelarator, only during decoding.

[Simon Zimmer]

Okay.

thanks for the information.

That is too bad. I guess I have to wait until CS5 comes out!

Take care,

Simon

[Marc de Jesus]

Robert, i have a fx3800... have u done tests with and without the accelerator? Is it night and day. I do a lot of dvd and blu-ray outputs, even vimeo uploads.. and was wondering if spending the 250 worth it... i know they have benchmark speeds on the nvidia website.. but in ure experuience with cineform files to mpeg2 and h264 is it 2x faster? 5x faster? 10xfaster? Thanks

[Robert Brueschke]

No, I haven't done any tests without elemental accelerator, cause its been installed on our editing workstation from beginning. But for me editing is more time extensive then decoding in different file formats - out bottleneck is always editing, composing, colorgrading and authoring. But of course its nice to have but for me not a killer argument (like realtime enginge within cineform ;-((( )!

[Simon Zimmer]

I just bought the FX 3800 with E.A.. I will get it on Tuesday.

Marc de Jesus, I can let you know if there is a major difference. I hope so, because I am tired looking at my progress bar going sooooooooo slow. ;)

Simon

[Simon Zimmer]

Elemental Accelerator H.264: 16 minutes for a 3 minute video at 720p.

Regular H.264: 60 minutes for a 3 minute video at 720p.

The 3 minute video had minimal effects using Cineform 1920 x 1080 clips on my timeline in PPCS4.

The quality of the E.A. H.264 was excellent. I am very impressed!!!!

The render on the timeline is still slow but I know that has nothing to do with the graphics card. CS5 should improve that right? ;)

Simon

[Simon Zimmer]

I also heard Intel is releasing a 6 core version of their Core i7 at 3.3Ghz:

PROVANTAGE: Intel BX80613I7980X Core I7-980X Processor Extreme

Between the FX3800 and this new processor, this is going to be some serious power for video editors!

:)))))

I can't wait to buy it!

Simon

[Marc de Jesus]

hey simon, thanks for the stats.. u got me sold, as I post a lot to vimeo now that i switched to shooting on the 5d&7d. I will definitely get the accelerator now.

btw, whats the best way you've found to get the highest quality h.264 file from cineform in AME??

For some reason, I can't use the standard h.264 setting but have to go to Quicktime, then choose h.264 from the settings tab. If I use the standard h.264 setting all my files start to stutter.

Thanks for any advice!

[Simon Zimmer]

Hi,

Yeah, the card is great for encoding though I can't say I have seen any difference regarding overall performance with CS4.

I also use 3Ds Max so the card is great for that too.

I really like the quality. I never got great results with Adobe Media Encoder. Before Elemental Accelerator, I would export my videos via cineform filmscan 2 and then use Tmpgenc 4.0 express to get a clean h.264 export. Tmpgenc is great for DVd's too. I have not tried the quality of a DVD via Elemental Accelerator yet.

The nice thing is the FX 3800 will take advantage of CS5 whenever it comes out! I am sure we will love the card even more then! :))))

Simon

[Marc de Jesus]

Wow even better, as I as well use 3dsmax.

Seems like you know your products, so i'm probably gonna give tmpgemc a try.. and see if there's difference in quality..

thanks for the tips

[Simon Zimmer]

Hi there,

I am still learning but these forums help a lot.

I am expecting Elemental's DVD version to be very good so I probably won't use Tmpgenc that much anymore. But if I need it, it is available. ;)

Simon

[Tim Kolb]

The only caveat I'd add to the elemental encoding accelerator conversation is that, in my experience, the amount of speed increase depends on the visual content and the file output settings.

I'm not saying it's a problem...I'm just saying that your mileage may vary depending on just what you have for content and output.

I've done some comparative tests with the accelerator on several machines with the CX and the 4800 (basically the same card) and have never come up with a 300%+ speed increase as was quoted in this thread. I suspect those situations exist and I'm not saying that it can't be true, just that in my experience it's not the case across the board.

Always the one who brings the rain to the parade...