Which graphics card for HDV NLE system?
 

I'd appreciate opinions on a graphics card for an HDV-NLE (PP) w/AspectHD system. I also plan to get DVRack and Ultra2. I'm building an Athlon64-X2 system.

I don't want to overspend and being able to view ouput on an HDTV is important.

Thanks for your opinions.

I would possibly consider a nVidia 6600GT. The PVP (Programmable Video Processor) works on it and can allow acceleration in playback of MPEG and WMV. It does OpenGL well, but not as good as the workstation cards (Quadro).

PVP does not work on the earlier 6800 silicon (it is broken). The new 7800 is overkill for what you want.

See... This is where the options start to become interesting - and frustrating at the same time!!

If you are after a means to view HD/HDV video on a HDTV, there's now other means to do so besides dedicated multi-head graphics array cards. The problems with the graphics card solution as I see them are: Your computer has to be physically close to the HDTV for the DVI connection. The HDTV may not necessarily end up showing the image you hope at full-screen.

A HD Network Media Player - like the Avel LinkPlayer allows greater flexibility in the hardware setup as well as providing the opportunity to archive HDV projects as HD WMV9 onto standard DVD discs for playback in the unit's DVD drive. Hardwire LAN connection allows access to any multimedia material on any machine connected via a DHCP router (including streaming HD from a PCI HD DVB-t or s card).

I believe it's a much more elegant solution than that offered via a graphics card, and surprisingly affordable.

Today the best card for Aspect HD and component HD output is the Matrox Parhelia APVe.

Can't get a better answer than this... ;)

Does the Matros provide GPU processing
 

Noit sure if I phrased this correctly, but Ultra2 uses the GPU to speed up processing.

Does the Matrox card work offer the type of processing that the NVidia cards do?

Thanks to all who responded.

I am also interested in this question, but for the laptop graphics chip-set.

I've heard that Pentium M 2 GHz is the minimum (for cineform codec) on laptop for 720p. But I am wondering if I can get by with a slower processor (in a smaller laptop) by using software that uses the GPU to accelerate it, but which ones?

Thanks

Wayne,

A 1.7,1.8Ghz Pentium M will run 720p24/30 quite easily using CineForm's Aspect HD. It is the 1080i modes that really needs a 2.13Ghz Pentium M.

For laptops, I think you'd have to have a laptop capable of swappable graphics and get a Quadro laptop card, I think there is only one or two available. No GPU acceleration is available for video purposes on anything else, it's a feature built into the graphics card that must be supported by the software. If I'm not mistaken, only the Quadro's do that. Also, Wayne, I wouldn't recommend a slower processor for anything, you'd be better served getting a capable laptop versus going on the cheap.

That's it for laptops. On the desktop, any current SD realtime cards won't work for HD, at least for realtime performance features, everything else should work okay. So the Matrox RTX10/100 are out and the DVStorm Ultra 2. For HD, you have the Canopus NX and SP boards and the Kona HD cards. The best Quadro cards for video are, unfortunately for your wallet, the more recent ones based on the 6600 and 6800 cores. However, those are the best, not the only capable ones. A quick little look on nVidia's website will show you the capabilities of all of their Quadro line. I saw that only one of them is listed as supporting HDTV output =P. There's solutions for HD acceleration, just have to look for them. =)

Jack,

Thanks for that, sorry, but I meant something else, there is general purpose GPU programming API solutions that will work with any card with more recent direct x hardware shaders units etc. It is so new it is hardly used, maybe somebody else knows something. It can get vastly more processing power on the more recent fully supported direct x hardware.

http://www.gpgpu.org/
http://www.shadertech.com/


David,

Thanks for the advice, I was following Steve Mullen's advice from his testing (which seemed to imply that cineform 1080 was impossible on present laptop processors). So I though I would start out with slowest practical processor (cheap or small laptop) and upgrade that to a suitable processor when released and affordable:

http://www.gyhduser.com/article.php?...t-1-Desktop-Sy
http://www.gyhduser.com/article.php?...Part-2-Laptop-

Steve's articles don't mention CineForm directly, and our performance is higher than the native MPEG NLE we compete against. For Aspect HD a Pentium M 2.13GHz+ is a good 1080 editing systems, and a 1.8Ghz Pentium will be fine for 720p24 -- which is what I believe you are after. In both cases avoid shared graphics memory if you can (although some highend Pentium M systems seem to enough memory bandwidth to handle shared graphics.)

Well if it is 2.13Ghz for 1080i hdv, that's great then. There is couple of announcement threads to the articles on that forum, where Steve mentions he based his recommendations on cineform use, but all told, his information is fairly scant on what was done.

Thanks