PHD vs Elemental Accelerator at DVinfo.net

David Dwyer · December 18th, 2009, 08:03 AM

At the moment I'm a NeoHD user and I'm trying to speed up my export times - Normally hours! I want to reduce them by using my Quadro 3700 or any other means.

When the PHD CS4 engine is done would that be a better overall product than the Elemental Accelerator?

Main exports are YouTube either in H264 or WMVs.

Both are about the same price..

Richard Leadbetter · December 18th, 2009, 10:53 AM

If you are only going to buy it for the speed of exporting as opposed to the benefits elsewhere in the workflow, then I would urge caution. The GPU-accelerated h264 encoding solutions thus far have proven to be fast but hardly of a high-quality. None of the claims I've seen even suggest that the end product is going to offer the same quality at the same bitrate.

Personally all my Premiere work is output either as a lossless AVI or else as a CineForm file. I then encode via x264, which gives me total control over all aspects of the encoding quality.

David Dwyer · December 18th, 2009, 10:56 AM

Would it be worth waiting for the the PHD then? Would I see a increase in rendering and or export times with the PHD?

Leo Baker · December 18th, 2009, 02:14 PM

Also I can encdoe from my master Cineform file such as 1280x720 23.976p and 1080x1920 30p to YouTube preset and it's very fast 4mins of footage takes about 3mins.

Leo Baker · December 18th, 2009, 02:14 PM

Hello,

I have a HP Xw8600, 8 core 3ghz Dual Quad Xeons, with 8gb of Ram running Vista 64bit. I also have the Nvidia Quadro fx 3700 (512mb). I tried exporting sd 720x576 Microsoft dv pal files 3mins files into the h264 on the Ellemental Encoder. It was very slow. it was faster for me to do this with my GPU, a reseller told me that I need to upgrade to the 4800 card and get the software it was about £900+ so it would be cheaper for me to buy the matrox CompressHD card for about £350 which does accelerated h264 encoding.

I believe the accleration on that Ellemental will only wortj with avchd and h264 clips on your timeline.

I am not sure what has chanegd but the Cineform, export to Cineform from Adobe Premiere pro cs4.2 seems faster then it did a while ago. I am using prospect HD, although the Real-time engine is not int he version it seems fine really.

Leo

David Dwyer · December 18th, 2009, 02:26 PM

I've downloaded the trial version so I will do some testing now.

Is it worth looking into the Matrox CompressHD over the Elemental ?

Leo Baker · December 18th, 2009, 02:35 PM

Well, I was told to get the best performance formthe saoftware I need to update the Nvidia Quadro FX graphics cards. So it would work out cheaper for me to buy the matrox hardware. I just rendered these 100+ files using the CPU on my computer it seemed fine to me as the Matrox drievrs for Windows were not ready when i worked on this project a while ago they are available now but the project passed and I dont mind renedering to the CPU to h264 its not that slow.

If I had a project and had to rneder out to loads of h264s then I would buy the Matrox card.

Mike McCarthy · December 18th, 2009, 04:20 PM

This thread wandered some strange places. Regardless of when the CS4 RTE is done, Elemental Encoder will speed up your H264 and MPEG2 exports. The Prospect RTE is unrelated to Elemental's accelerated exports, and Elemental will work with Cineform source files already. So there is no waiting for anything, it is available now, if you want faster encoding, get the Elemental Accelerator. It will NOT speed up exports to Cineform, only exports to H264 and MPEG2.

Dan Herrmann · December 18th, 2009, 04:43 PM

Not sure if you looked at this:
TMPGEnc - Products: TMPGEnc Movie Plug-in SpursEngine

I have been using Leadtek's WinFast PxVC1100 Plus Spurs Engine fwith TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress to encode my Cineform projects and it produces great high quality files for Blu-ray distribution.

This is blazing fast on my dual quad-core Xeon machine and with Nvidia Cuda kicking in too it is a process that I no longer need to get up and take a break from.

Richard Leadbetter · December 19th, 2009, 04:39 AM

The bottom line is that these hardware solutions are extremely fast but inefficient with bandwidth up against conventional encoders like x264. If you're happy with non-efficient encodes, obviously the time-factor is a major boon.

In independent tests both the LeadTek and CUDA solutions have been easily beaten by x264, and sometimes even in speed too, when the resultant stream is analysed and the presets copied within x264. One encoder's definition of h264 is unlikely to be the same as the other - that's why these 5x speed-up comparisons are ultimately meaningless.

However, as I said, if time is more important than bandwidth-efficient encoding, or the results are "good enough", then these solutions are obviously great.

Vaughan Wood · December 21st, 2009, 05:11 AM

Dan,

You're the first person on the forums that i visit to say that they are achieving excellent quality with the WinFast PxVC1100 board.

Could you elaborate a bit more about the quality and work flow?

Cheers,

Vaughan

Dan Herrmann · December 21st, 2009, 09:21 AM

I cut my projects and then color correct master sound and then outout in Cineform AVI.

I import into TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress select spurs engine, max bitrate, output. This has produced as high quality file as any including sorrenson, procoder.

I have been using this since it was released in July.

I edit with a Dual Quad Core Xeon Dell, w/16gb Ram, Nvidia Quadro Cuda enabled machine.

Where did you read that this card and TMPGEnc 4.0 have issues?

David Moody · December 21st, 2009, 02:48 PM

The elemental accelerator seems to have very good quality with the latest version and is very fast. Is anyone else who is using it unhappy with the quality?

David Dwyer · December 21st, 2009, 02:57 PM

Well I downloaded the trial version of Elemental and it seems to stop about 98% of the encode. I've tried it twice now.

December 18th, 2009, 08:03 AM	#1
David Dwyer Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Chester, North West Posts: 565	PHD vs Elemental Accelerator At the moment I'm a NeoHD user and I'm trying to speed up my export times - Normally hours! I want to reduce them by using my Quadro 3700 or any other means. When the PHD CS4 engine is done would that be a better overall product than the Elemental Accelerator? Main exports are YouTube either in H264 or WMVs. Both are about the same price..

December 18th, 2009, 10:53 AM	#2
Richard Leadbetter Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 323	If you are only going to buy it for the speed of exporting as opposed to the benefits elsewhere in the workflow, then I would urge caution. The GPU-accelerated h264 encoding solutions thus far have proven to be fast but hardly of a high-quality. None of the claims I've seen even suggest that the end product is going to offer the same quality at the same bitrate. Personally all my Premiere work is output either as a lossless AVI or else as a CineForm file. I then encode via x264, which gives me total control over all aspects of the encoding quality. __________________ Company Website: Digital Foundry Ltd Video Games HD Blog: Digital Foundry@Eurogamer

December 18th, 2009, 04:20 PM	#8
Mike McCarthy Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Northern California Posts: 517	This thread wandered some strange places. Regardless of when the CS4 RTE is done, Elemental Encoder will speed up your H264 and MPEG2 exports. The Prospect RTE is unrelated to Elemental's accelerated exports, and Elemental will work with Cineform source files already. So there is no waiting for anything, it is available now, if you want faster encoding, get the Elemental Accelerator. It will NOT speed up exports to Cineform, only exports to H264 and MPEG2. __________________ For more information on these topics, check out my tech website at www.hd4pc.com

December 18th, 2009, 04:43 PM	#9
Dan Herrmann Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: villa park CA Posts: 81	Leadtek's WinFast PxVC1100 Plus Spurs Engine Not sure if you looked at this: TMPGEnc - Products: TMPGEnc Movie Plug-in SpursEngine I have been using Leadtek's WinFast PxVC1100 Plus Spurs Engine fwith TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress to encode my Cineform projects and it produces great high quality files for Blu-ray distribution. This is blazing fast on my dual quad-core Xeon machine and with Nvidia Cuda kicking in too it is a process that I no longer need to get up and take a break from.

December 19th, 2009, 04:39 AM	#10
Richard Leadbetter Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 323	The bottom line is that these hardware solutions are extremely fast but inefficient with bandwidth up against conventional encoders like x264. If you're happy with non-efficient encodes, obviously the time-factor is a major boon. In independent tests both the LeadTek and CUDA solutions have been easily beaten by x264, and sometimes even in speed too, when the resultant stream is analysed and the presets copied within x264. One encoder's definition of h264 is unlikely to be the same as the other - that's why these 5x speed-up comparisons are ultimately meaningless. However, as I said, if time is more important than bandwidth-efficient encoding, or the results are "good enough", then these solutions are obviously great. __________________ Company Website: Digital Foundry Ltd Video Games HD Blog: Digital Foundry@Eurogamer

December 18th, 2009, 10:56 AM	#3
David Dwyer Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Chester, North West Posts: 565	Would it be worth waiting for the the PHD then? Would I see a increase in rendering and or export times with the PHD?

December 18th, 2009, 02:14 PM	#4
Leo Baker Regular Crew Join Date: May 2009 Location: London Posts: 147	Also I can encdoe from my master Cineform file such as 1280x720 23.976p and 1080x1920 30p to YouTube preset and it's very fast 4mins of footage takes about 3mins.

December 18th, 2009, 02:26 PM	#6
David Dwyer Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Chester, North West Posts: 565	I've downloaded the trial version so I will do some testing now. Is it worth looking into the Matrox CompressHD over the Elemental ?

December 18th, 2009, 02:35 PM	#7
Leo Baker Regular Crew Join Date: May 2009 Location: London Posts: 147	Well, I was told to get the best performance formthe saoftware I need to update the Nvidia Quadro FX graphics cards. So it would work out cheaper for me to buy the matrox hardware. I just rendered these 100+ files using the CPU on my computer it seemed fine to me as the Matrox drievrs for Windows were not ready when i worked on this project a while ago they are available now but the project passed and I dont mind renedering to the CPU to h264 its not that slow. If I had a project and had to rneder out to loads of h264s then I would buy the Matrox card.

December 21st, 2009, 05:11 AM	#11
Vaughan Wood Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Melbourne Australia Posts: 278	Dan, You're the first person on the forums that i visit to say that they are achieving excellent quality with the WinFast PxVC1100 board. Could you elaborate a bit more about the quality and work flow? Cheers, Vaughan

December 21st, 2009, 09:21 AM	#12
Dan Herrmann Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: villa park CA Posts: 81	WinFast PxVC1100 board I cut my projects and then color correct master sound and then outout in Cineform AVI. I import into TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress select spurs engine, max bitrate, output. This has produced as high quality file as any including sorrenson, procoder. I have been using this since it was released in July. I edit with a Dual Quad Core Xeon Dell, w/16gb Ram, Nvidia Quadro Cuda enabled machine. Where did you read that this card and TMPGEnc 4.0 have issues?

December 21st, 2009, 02:48 PM	#13
David Moody Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 86	The elemental accelerator seems to have very good quality with the latest version and is very fast. Is anyone else who is using it unhappy with the quality?

December 21st, 2009, 02:57 PM	#14
David Dwyer Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Chester, North West Posts: 565	Well I downloaded the trial version of Elemental and it seems to stop about 98% of the encode. I've tried it twice now.