Matrox - H.264 accelerator board (PCIe 1x)

[Taky Cheung]

I'm interested in such card but I'm on PC platform. Does anybody know if it comes with any standalone program to convert (like Procoder) or does it tie with adobe products?

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Guy Cochran

I was able to spend a little bit of time with the CompressHD card in an old "2008" MacPro. We also happened to have a "2009 Newhalem" MacPro in so I loaded the same clip on both and put the CompressHD in the slower MacPro. Surprisingly enough here are the results of a multipass encode with the "Matrox YouTube 1280x720P" setting in Compressor:

Source Clip 1:31 duration Format: ProRes 1080i60

2008 MacPro Encode Time 1:45 with CompressHD
2009 MacPro Encode Time 2:02 without CompressHD

Guy, do you have the figures for that same clip encoded with the Elgato dongle? On my 2008 Mac Pro I see faster than real time encodes for a 1280x720 5Mbps (YouTube quality) setting.

[Guy Cochran]

I haven't tested the Elgato, just reading through this thread. The Elgato looks like a great value. Can you batch though?
I think for me the biggest reasons to go Matrox Max would be Batch, ability to tell Compressor or DV Kitchen to upload after encode, and also multi-pass, not to mention cropping, preview etc.

[Mark Keck]

Very interesting stuff. But I think I would hold off for a while if I could. The pending Snow Leapord and Quicktime X release is suppose to make much better use of multipue cores, memory, and OpenCL.... When this translates to the new FCP CS3 I would expect to see rendering done inside the GPU which will pretty much make all the add ons look more like door stops. Now of course if you can't wait for Apple's pie-in-the-sky stuff then go for it.

Oh yeah... my ability to predict what Apple does has a 0.03% accuracy rating :-)

Mark

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Mark Keck

When this translates to the new FCP CS3 I would expect to see rendering done inside the GPU which will pretty much make all the add ons look more like door stops.

Not all graphic cards are going to be supported for OpenCL in Snow Leopard. The ATI Radeon 2600HD which was the standard Mac Pro graphics card until recently is one such unsupported card & replacing that with one of the blessed cards will cost rather more than the Elgato dongle at least.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Guy Cochran

I haven't tested the Elgato, just reading through this thread. The Elgato looks like a great value. Can you batch though?

Yes, you can use it from within Compressor.

[Christopher Drews]

Originally Posted by Guy Cochran

...ability to tell Compressor or DV Kitchen to upload after encode, and also multi-pass, not to mention cropping, preview etc.

Keep in mind that DV Kitchen uses the x.264 codec, which is incompatible with both the Matrox CompressHD and the Elgato. Just an FYI.

Multipass is still the largest differentiating factor between these two products (aside from price). I contacted Elgato and they are not planning future implementation at this time, nor do they plan to officially support compressor. Bummer.

-C

[Andy Mees]

Hey Christopher

DV Kitchen does much more than just x.264 ... amongst the supported outputs is H.264 (and it's fully compatible with the Matrox CompressHD card to that end, possibly the Elgato Turbo264 HD too)

Andy

[Christopher Drews]

Originally Posted by Andy Mees

Hey Christopher

DV Kitchen does much more than just x.264 ... amongst the supported outputs is H.264 (and it's fully compatible with the Matrox CompressHD card to that end, possibly the Elgato Turbo264 HD too)

Andy

Please note - I've tested this with Elgato and it doesn't work. Additionally, unless you are able to select the CompressHD resource as a preset in QT Components, it won't work with with that piece of gear also.

Can someone confirm that CompressHD always needs software to prompt the acceleration (from my understanding / reading it does)?
-C

[Guy Cochran]

CompressHD works awesome with DV Kitchen, you will need to custom create your own Settings until DVcreators or Matrox bundles them in the install. DVcreators has been working with Matrox behind the scenes on this for awhile now.

I just bought an Elgato turbo.264HD this morning to test. I'll post back my results.

[Christopher Drews]

How are you getting to that window Guy?
-C

[Guy Cochran]

Originally Posted by Christopher Drews

How are you getting to that window Guy?
-C

Hi Chris,

In DV Kitchen press the green "+" for Create New Recipe > QuickTime Movie > Video Settings

Man, this little turbo.264HD so far is pretty amazing for $149. I'm impressed. Although for some reason in Compressor nothing comes up in the Batch Monitor during the encode but the little light is glowing on the USB unit itself. Could anyone else confirm this? In other words, there is not a progress bar at all if I create a setting using the QuickTime components and Submit the batch then check the Batch Monitor. The encode does indeed take place and the finished movie does work, I'd just like to know the status of the encode as it is processing.

[Christopher Drews]

Originally Posted by Guy Cochran

The encode does indeed take place and the finished movie does work, I'd just like to know the status of the encode as it is processing.

Confirmed.
Just wait until the red light turns off! :)
-C

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Guy Cochran

Although for some reason in Compressor nothing comes up in the Batch Monitor during the encode but the little light is glowing on the USB unit itself. Could anyone else confirm this? In other words, there is not a progress bar at all if I create a setting using the QuickTime components and Submit the batch then check the Batch Monitor.

It works for me. I added a Setting File Format: QuickTime Export Component Encoder Type: ELgato Turbo.264 HD & can view the progress of the encoding in Batch Monitor

[William Hohauser]

The Elgato just arrived and it breezed thru 26 minutes of DV to h.264 web files in 13 minutes on a MacMini! The 640 size file quality was not as good as Compressor but on my G5 system that would have taken a good 2+ hours, the MacMini I have no idea. The 320 file was very close in quality. The footage was not easy footage to work with at all (dark unevenly lit jazz club, grainy, lots of video level boosting) so I'll try again with better footage later.