Thomas Gires
April 24th, 2013, 09:20 AM
Hi folks,
My company is building a VOD distribution system for a local video distributor, and one of the roadblocks I am encountering now is video compression.
The system will be based on adaptive streaming, in other words 4-5 different versions of the videos in different resolutions and bitrates. And as they have over 1,000 titles in all, you can imagine this is a pretty huge undertaking, especially as a good portion are in 1080p HD.
Ideally, we want encoding that is fast yet retaining good quality at relatively low bitrates, as such:
1080p: 8Mbps
720p: 5Mbps
480p: 2Mbps
360p: 512kbps
240p: 256kbps (we'll also have Android and iOS apps)
I've tested a variety of "off-the-shelf" software, my test computer configuration is pretty beefy (i7 3930K 6-core with a mild overclock to 3.8GHz, 8GB RAM and a GeForce GTX660)
Anyway using pure CPU-based encoders (such as x264 through Handbrake, or MainConcept H264 through Sorenson Squeeze), I am just not able to get faster-than-realtime conversion.
And when using CUDA or QuickSync accelerated software options, it is indeed blazing fast (a 2-hour movie compressed to 1080p in 20 minutes!), but the video quality is far from acceptable.
I am curious about hardware solutions like the Matrox MX02 or Winfast's PxVC1100, which, from what I read, give a good compromise of speed and quality. But, this hardware is already several years old, and I am not sure if it might not just end up slower than relying on a high-speed modern CPU?
So, I would be very grateful if someone more experienced in this field has some advice or experiences to share!
Many thanks,
Thomas
My company is building a VOD distribution system for a local video distributor, and one of the roadblocks I am encountering now is video compression.
The system will be based on adaptive streaming, in other words 4-5 different versions of the videos in different resolutions and bitrates. And as they have over 1,000 titles in all, you can imagine this is a pretty huge undertaking, especially as a good portion are in 1080p HD.
Ideally, we want encoding that is fast yet retaining good quality at relatively low bitrates, as such:
1080p: 8Mbps
720p: 5Mbps
480p: 2Mbps
360p: 512kbps
240p: 256kbps (we'll also have Android and iOS apps)
I've tested a variety of "off-the-shelf" software, my test computer configuration is pretty beefy (i7 3930K 6-core with a mild overclock to 3.8GHz, 8GB RAM and a GeForce GTX660)
Anyway using pure CPU-based encoders (such as x264 through Handbrake, or MainConcept H264 through Sorenson Squeeze), I am just not able to get faster-than-realtime conversion.
And when using CUDA or QuickSync accelerated software options, it is indeed blazing fast (a 2-hour movie compressed to 1080p in 20 minutes!), but the video quality is far from acceptable.
I am curious about hardware solutions like the Matrox MX02 or Winfast's PxVC1100, which, from what I read, give a good compromise of speed and quality. But, this hardware is already several years old, and I am not sure if it might not just end up slower than relying on a high-speed modern CPU?
So, I would be very grateful if someone more experienced in this field has some advice or experiences to share!
Many thanks,
Thomas