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

For the compressionists in the house Matrox just released an impressive board that accelerates the render. In a demo today, a rep showed me a side by side comparision of two Mac Pro's 2.8ghz. Both were about to make a H.264 quicktime from an 1920 HD source. The Mac Pro with the Matrox board compressed 3x faster! I couldn't believe it.
For my line of work, this is huge. I asked to see the CPU meter while the Mac Pro w/ matrox was compressing. Sure enough, virtually no usage - all done on the Hardware from Matrox. The board comes with Compressor presets which tell it to use the Matrox resource - I wasn't exactly sure how this was done.

As an owner of both the MXO 1 and MXO 2, I brought up my biggest frustration to the lead designer. These products do not co-exists. If you have both installed on the same mac, the MXO2 takes priority, rendering the MXO1 useless. He said he didn't expect to see this fixed. Pity.

Anyway, I'm going to get one of these boards as soon as I can. I think he said it was est. at 500.00

More info here: Matrox Compress HD - Key features

-C

I just took a look at the specifications. It looks great. when they start shipping next month I will certainly be buying two (one for me & one for my wife).

Cheers

Nigel

Something else I forgot to mention. The lead dev guy said it also will accelerate MP4 creation / renders. So, maybe they will develop a FCP setting which will help XDCAM users.

I asked him about x.264 - it is not supported and of course you are SOL for MPEGII.

-C

Before shelling out $495 for this new Matrox board I would like to hear exactly what it offers over the Elgato Turbo.264 HD for just $150 Turbo264HD overview

I just took delivery of one of these Elgato gizmos today & it is just fantastic. Creating an 1920x1080p MP4 file is fantastically quick. I reckon creation is about in real time or up to 8-10x faster than without the gizmo.

It has its own little conversion application but most usefully it is integrated into all the applications that can use Quicktime as an output format e.g. MPEGStreamclip, iMovie, FCP etc So you just choose the Elgato. There are load of pre-sets for iPod, YouTube etc but you can create completely customised pre-sets too & specify the bit rate, video resolution, audio etc.

It's so good that I have had to order another so that my wife & I don't have to fight fight over it.

Woah! Terrible USB Memory Key interface but Woah!
When the CompressHD ships I'd love to see a side by side.

Nigel can you confirm there is a compressor preset?
-C

Hey Nigel

Basically Compress HD / Matrox MAX technology is directly targeting the higher end. Heres the low down:

Integrates directly into QuickTime framework via standard QuickTime codec component, so it works off the bat without any stand alone application such as is needed with Elgato's Turbo H.264 line (and without any special SDK required for developers to add support for it within their apps).

PCIe vs USB interface means data handling for HD encoding tasks much faster.

Supports encoding at much higher bitrates (Compress HD offers up to 50 Mbps max versus Elagto's 10 Mbps max).

Integration with professional apps such as Compressor and Qmaster, so lends itself well to Compressor workflows (seem to remember Turbo H.264 doesn't work within Compressor?) and of course the promise of blazingly fast encodes on render farms with multiple Compress HD / Matrox MAX units.

I'm also told it has hardware scaling, deinterlacing and color space conversions ... certainly thats the case in the Matrox MAX tech on the MXO2 series, am not 100% clear if thats also on the Compress HD but it seems so according to the info I was passed.

Directly addresses (aka fixes) the QuickTime H264 gamma issue.


Hope it helps. Looks like an awesome unit ... fwiw I've always loved the Elgato Turbo H.264 and their HD unit is something I've been waiting for a looong time, but they're just a tad too late to market. I'll wait for the Compress HD / Matrox MAX now.

Hope its insightful
Andy

Andy, thanks for the detailed explanation & I am glad to hear that the Matrox board does appear to have some significant advantages over the Elgato Turbo.264 HD to justify the considerably higher price.

It's clear that the Matrox is designed for high end use & the Elgato for consumer level. The Matrox for Blu-Ray mastering & the Elgato for web HD e.g. Vimeo, YouTube etc. I am happy with that differentiation as I am not creating Blu-Ray but am creating video for the web.

The Elgato device appears as just another QT option so can be used directly from FCP with Export>Using QuickTime Conversion. It can be accessed from other applications e.g. iMovie & MPEGStreamclip so thus far I have not used the Elgato application at all. It is however not integrated into Compressor or Qmaster so you cannot use it with those applications so you cannot set up an Elgato powered render farm.

An enormous amount of customisation of the H.264 output can be done (see pages 12-14 of the attached user guide) but the maximum bit rate is 10Mbps at 1920x1080.

Currently for our use the Matrox unit would be overkill so I am glad to have found the Elgato device at less than 1/3 of the price. If in the future our needs change then the Matrox device looks like a great unit too.

Cheers

Nigel

If I heard this right, my main concern for this board is it ties entirely to CS4. So you have to use AME to make use of this board. Then it got me wondered.. if Adobe releases new updates or new version, you will have to be stucked at Matrox slow update on drive to get it to work.

I just wish they will come up it's own API so I can install this on a separate machine that doesn't have CS4.

Any chances it shows up as a QuickTime Component like Flip4Mac does in Compressor?
See attached screenshot to verify.
Thanks,
-C

I just checked & Elgato Turbo.264 HD does appear as an option. I don't know if this means it is fully integrated into Compressor as I somehow doubt whether it is going to work properly with Qmaster & multiple threads. I will check it out later & report back.

I have just done some quick testing with the Elgato Turbo.264 HD & Compressor. It appears to work remarkably well up to a point. I created a custom pre-set specifying the Turbo.264 as QT Export Component. On my 8-core Mac Pro I only see it operating on one file at a time (8 files being processed in one batch batch job but only one active file at a time). Perhaps not surprising as I have just the one device. I was able to use a filter apply a time code to a clip but none of the other filters to do with colour or cropping worked.

This is great news Nigel.. Actually, compressor always has had a "one at a time" job queue.
This is a deal breaker for me for CompressHD - no reason to purchase something for $500.00 when Turbo.264 HD @ $150.00 works in Compressor as a Component.

Just build your custom preset in Compressor and way you go. Honestly, why would I need 50 Mbps for H.264 anyway? That in my mind doesn't necessitate the cost increase of $350.00 - especially in this economy. Just my 2Ç.
-C

True, but when it is just using the CPU of a multi-core Mac it can work on several files at the same time & this can be easily seen in Batch Manager. When you are using the Elgato device device just one file at a time is operated on.
That's my feeling too. Even if the quality weren't quite as good as using the Matrox part or Compressor alone it would still be useful for running off quick 'draft' copies of the final output for review. I haven't compared the quality side by side between Compressor created H.264 & Elgato create dH.264 but at a casual glance it looks fine.

Just picked one up at The Apple Store today and ran some quick tests on my MPB (2.5, 4GB RAM)

Here's my thoughts:
PROS:
1) Fast! 4x Faster than standard compressor in my test.
2) Works as Preset under QuickTime Components - Saves all settings
3) LED lights up while compressing - Cool!
3) Good Value

CONS:
1) I believe this device is "Single Pass" - see attached screen shot to verify this. There is no setting to choose different like standard H.264. Sizable quality difference between single pass and double pass (of course).
2) Flimsy USB - It just feels like a cheap consumer memory key. It tends to rock in the USB slot.
3) Lastly, and concerning, my CPU is still running full on my MBP during the compression process.

Next, I'll test it in my 8-Core and then my Hackintosh. See attached for customizable settings in Compressor.
-C

This is great info and much appreciated.
Does anyone have any sample encodes posted anywhere that I could download? The Elgato might be an ideal fit for HD newsgathering ... looks like it could be a good recommend.

Here is a short clip from my Canon 5D Mk II (41Mbps & 58.6MB in size) converted, firstly with Compressor & secondly with the Elgato device. The file converted in Compressor is PondQuickTime8Mbps.mov while the one converted with the Elgato Turbo.264 is PondElgato8Mbps.mp4.mpg (I had to add the .mpg suffix so that I could attach it to this posting.). The original file was (41Mbps & 58.6MB in size).

Both files look great. What were the encoding times?

I really can't say that the picture quality of one file is better than the other. I didn't time the conversion times but recall that the Elgato gizmo took less than a minute whereas Compressor took several minutes.

In theory at least but I don't see any difference in quality between video produced by the single-pass Elgato & Compressor multi-pass.
A USB key doesn't waste one of the PCIe slots which are in short supply on the Mac Pro. A couple of graphics cards, an eSATA/RAID card or two & you are out of slots. More importantly it also means that the device can be used on an iMac or MacBook too.

Cheers

Nigel

Those encodes look excellent Nigel, any chance you could post the original clip too for comparison? Also any chance you could post a second or two of high motion footage with similar settings?

I tried but failed to attach it to a posting here so I have uploaded it to Vimeo. You will need register if you haven't already done so & then login to be able to click on the download link on the lower right hand side of the page By the pond on Vimeo

My Test
 

Here is my test done on my MBP.
Encode times were astoundingly different. I intentionally chose two pass H.264 vs Turbo's single pass. Data rate was set to 1250.

Original was DVCPRO HD, 1080 23.98.

Astounding Time Difference.
Standard took 18:41:991 (min)
Turbo took 22:773 (sec)

The quality difference is evident though.
-C

Chris
I think some of the quality loss you're seeing might be due to some inadvertent distortion? Looking at the Turbo encode there seems to be a significant stretch and subsequent cropping of the image. Also whereas the Compressor encode produced a 459 frame (24fps) movie file, the Turbo encode has given a 573 frame (30fps) movie. Might want to double check your settings.
Andy

Hi Nigel
So I had a good long look at the 3 clips: Elgato, Compressor & Vimeo. The Elgato 8 Mbps encode is really nice, and its very hard visually to tell any difference between it and the Vimeo 40 Mbps encode. Quite a feat. However I will say that both the Elgato and Vimeo encodes seem much more contrasty than the Compressor encode which shows much more detail in the shadows and highlights. Take a look at the very blown out highlights on the grass stems in the foreground at left on the first frame of the Elgato/Vimeo encodes versus the Compressor encode; similarly note the loss of detail in the shadows of the grass in the background at right of the last frame. Admittedly, this higher contrast suits the sample pond image really very well but of course this is something one would really only want to add by choice rather than as a byproduct of the encoding. Would still like to compare against the camera native original for reference though, if we can find a way of sharing that, as I'm thinking the lower contrast evidenced in the Compressor encode might actually be more to do with the Quicktime H.264 gamma shift issue than a better encode.
Thanks again
Andy

The 40Mbps download file on Vimeo is the original file straight off the camera.

Ah, I didn't realize the raw was also AVC/H264 ... just out of interest, what camear are you shooting with?

But I digress ... an edit and update on my earlier post:

To compare the 3 clips I originally transfered each clip to our video server so that I could properly pass the image to our broadcast and technical monitoring equipment but in doing so each clip was passed through an additional transcode to a 75 Mbps MPEG2 HD intraframe codec. The tested results were as formerly posted, with the original (Vimeo) and the Elgato encode being very hard to tell apart, and with the Compressor encode evidencing less contrast and more detail in highlight and shadows.

Well I've since been comparing the original encodes directly within QuickTime (ie without transcode) and that's skewed the results significantly ... a complete reversal in fact.

In Quicktime we actually see it's the Compressor encode rather than the Elgato that is truer to the original Vimeo clip in terms of quality, contrast and detail; the Elgato's encode still evidences the higher contrast, slightly blown out highlights and crushed blacks, and although thats a good look on this footage I'd still rather see such adjustments only when they are intentional. Hmmm .. is it possible to compensate for this in the Elgato's encoding settings?

Thanks again for posting your clips Nigel, interesting stuff. I'll try to get my hands on some CompressHD/Matrox MAX encodes as and when possible for comparison too, but I'm definitely liking the look of the Turbo 264 HD.

Best
Andy

PS if you do get the chance to rerun your tests on this or other clips, it would be great if you could jot down the encoding times. If nothing else they would be good to ogle at! :-)

Not Faster Than Realtime***
 

This week at work I've been putting the ElGato through the ranks.
Just thought I'd mention that it is NOT faster than realtime when compressing to 1080p.
See attached screenshot to verify this.
-C

It's still pretty close at 23fps though. Software methods can be 5 or 10 times real time.

The Matrox CompressHD is now shipping! :-)

H.264 encoding accelerator - Matrox CompressHD now shipping

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


So with an old Mac and $495 you can still encode faster than a brand new $6599 machine.

I screen captured the encode over a VGA mixer switcher and chromakeyed me in. Here's the
Video

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

Yes, you can use it from within Compressor.

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

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

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.