I really need some help please: which cards can geuinely speed up Video Encoding

[Zak33]

Hi all

Year ago I built my Dad a quad core Intel system and he used software from years ago to make films and encode them. Ulead and so forth.

Then I installed a Geforce 260 GTX (back in the day.. one of the best value gaming and CUDA cards) and we ticked the box on the film editing software (I think he was on Corel Studio Pro....dunno which version) and it was quicker. Notably quicker.

Then over several years he upgraded the software and the OS went to Win7 from XP pro etc.

Now.. He's on Corel Studio Pro 8 and frankly CUDA was doing nothing.

I got him a new GTX570 from Ferral because it was worthy but CUDA seems to do nothing except in moments of additional graphic effects. In short CUDA does little.

And I have spend HOURS downloading patches and fiddling with settings.

----story over -----

What I want to know please is this:
Idf we build him a new rig, which we will, with loads of ram and a Core i7 beasty, and SSD's coming out of every orrifice.....

Does a CUDA card (or indeed an AMD Radeon) DO enough with ANY software to make it a key component?
http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/te...a/applications

this shows Corel Video Studio X3.. I think that's quite old

CUDA went through a change recently and I understand little of it. But I see less chat about it's power for video encoding than I did years ago.

Can someone please, in simple terms, explain whether a quick Corei7 will rip and GPU a new hole and make it effectively redundant? And if not, if CUDA still
rocks.. in WHAT software does it rock please?


I know it's a minefield. But I need to build it right for him AND he might need to learn ALL new software!

Thanks

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You might need to check if the software actually uses CUDA or OpenCL?? OpenCL is being used by more consumer software nowadays.

What is the specifications of the system??

[herulach]

I looked at this a while ago. What codec are you using? The only thing I've found a codec for is H264, and the commercial ones are several hundred quid so I never tried it. I found NVENC (nvidia's propriary H264 codec) marginally faster than my old FX6350, but not a patch on the current i74790. Quality is also pretty meh.

I think most of the openCL encoders are just for filters & resizing.

If you want me to test any particular pieces of software let me know.

[EndlessWaves]

Can someone please, in simple terms, explain whether a quick Corei7 will rip and GPU a new hole and make it effectively redundant? And if not, if CUDA still
rocks.. in WHAT software does it rock please?

I'm not an expert as I don't do a lot of video editing myself but as far as I know it's not a field that has lots calculations that simply aren't suited to a CPU and need a massively parallel processor (i.e. a GPU).

GPUs seem to have been primarily sold in video editing circles for two different processes. Applying effects and encoding (aka rendering).

Encoding using the main GPU doesn't seem to be a particularly big thing these days. Most hardware now comes with dedicated encoding circuitry (quicksync and NVENC) and it seems like a lot of uses either choose that (for maximum speed) or the CPU (for maximum quality and control).

In terms of applying effects and generally manipulating the video before encoding that's going to be highly dependant on the software used.

[Zak33]

well the software he's most likely to WANT to use is Corel Studio, version:whichever is newest as he knows his way round it well enough from years of use.

What I think I have missed is that I want the GPU to do the work and its just not doing it.

are we saying that a CPU does a better QUALITY than a GPU even if it works (which currently it doesn't much) (using GPU Z to watch the GPU being used.. or not)

[AETAaAS]

What is the video for? Uploading, sharing, storing? And what CPU does he have?

As per the title, for the business of encoding, CUDA and OpenCL are very poorly if even implemented at all in most solutions. There are times when they help on the render side but even then, the benefit is in single digit percentages for time saved over a project's run unless you are doing some really intense effects. Home encoding these days is in the obvious camps of software such as x264/265 and hardware, like NVENC and QuickSync. Almost universally hardware encoders work fast, but give poorer compression than their software counterparts, a difference partially attributable to the fact that software encoders have the luxury of more detailed instantaneous and predictive analysis of the content to be encoded. However throw a decent bitrate at it and you will get acceptable results on the hardware side.

So for your dad, you might have to figure out where the limit is. Is it rendering or encoding that is holding the process up? I'd guess the latter in most situations, in which case, you can try rendering a project with a low intensity encoder or none at all onto a drive, and using a separate transcoding program. If you built the system last year, you might have Quicksync. So programs like Handbrake or XMedia Recode can be useful. For NVENC, you will need a 700 series card or later. (Also note you may need to enable the iGPU to use QuickSync if you have a dedicated GPU installed)

I will say however if the intention is to archive videos, I'd stick with the slower software x264/265. If your dad is chucking out Minecraft videos on Youtube on a regular basis, hardware encoding can save a good deal of time.

[scaryjim]

From their website the latest version of Corel VideoStudio (X9) is optimised for hardware encoding on 6th Gen Intel Core i processors. It doesn't look from the specs page like there's much support for GPU offloads at all - the only thing mentioned in the specs is hardware decoding on GPU, and most have dedicated hardware decode blocks now so that should be irrelevant.

From reading up, if that's the software he's going for, I'd dedicate the money to the top Skylake i7 and lots of RAM, and not bother with a dGPU at all.

[Zak33]

Dad films a lot of HD stuff, wildlife and family (same things ) and then edits them and keeps them archived.

So a lot of film clips being trimmed and joined and made into films for his PC that are then burned to DVD etc.

I'm getting the vibe that it's Core i7 all day long, with plenty of ram, SSD's for working on and then some big HDDs for storeage

which is what we have but from oooold tech.

PC is Core 2 Quad and 4gig DDR2, 2 SSD's, loads of HDD storeage and a Geforce570

We both know a new cpu and mobo etc is gonna be a vast step up... but we were both surprised by the lack of CUDA power in the lastest software and you guys have mainly answered it all

thank you all very much.

He's budgeting for a DDR4 Corei7 6 core beast so all is well. I just didn't want to blast all his dough if a good GPU and a mid range Core i 5 would do it better.