Raycer designed chip for H.264 encode / decode
With all of the rumblings that I'm reading on the demands of H.264 encoding, some approaching 24 HRS for a full movie, in HD, is it possible that Apple has an extra chip in this MB? If this is the year of HD then Apple may want to make the encoding as easy and as efficient as possible. Apple bought a chip design company a few years back that specialized in video chips that were very exotic / expensive, at least for the design. They, Raycer. could have designed a special chip for Apple to handle encode and decode of H.264, as well as handling some core image processing. By including this extra chip Apple would be able to encode HD H.264 much faster. The other chip deal could be for the consumer models going forward. Thoughts?
Comments
With AVC/h.264 there is no way around the number crunching involved. You can tailor a chip to handle this but Raycer wouldn't be that tech.
Originally posted by THT
I would think a Cell style chip would be more apt for encoding and decoding apps; a hypothetical 2 PPE + 4 SPE for instance can, well the programmer and compiler can, partition the job into 4 or 5 streams and cut the time down by 4x. A Cell proper, can possibly run 8 streams for an 8x speed up. Of course, there is dual-core 970MP and 8641D can run it 2x plus be more applicable to 90% of the applications out there.
I can't see Apple saying this is the year for HD and then tell everyone that it will take them 4 to 8 hrs to encode their 1.5hr movie. Not the way to stir the industry. They will almost need to have a special chip for this, or special instructions in VMX but I doubt that. Apple has the talent and has the experience with H.264 to design such a chip or to contract with someone else, my guess would be contract but with Apple who knows.
Originally posted by onlooker
If that's where your speculation is coming from I would say that special chip could be the GPU in your graphics card using Core Image, and Core Video under Tiger.
To encode and decode H.264? So that it could be stored as a file and burned to HD DVD.
Originally posted by Brendon
I can't see Apple saying this is the year for HD and then tell everyone that it will take them 4 to 8 hrs to encode their 1.5hr movie. Not the way to stir the industry. They will almost need to have a special chip for this, or special instructions in VMX but I doubt that. Apple has the talent and has the experience with H.264 to design such a chip or to contract with someone else, my guess would be contract but with Apple who knows.
Apple isn't necessarily coming from the perspective that everyone will be encoding their own HD content. HD cameras still cost upwards of $2k.
I don't see Apple moving to any specialized chips. They generally do not like moving to specialized accelerators. I don't see it happening here either. They'll like want you to purchase a fast Mac or Macs and Xgrid them
Originally posted by THT
I would think a Cell style chip would be more apt for encoding and decoding apps; a hypothetical 2 PPE + 4 SPE for instance can, well the programmer and compiler can, partition the job into 4 or 5 streams and cut the time down by 4x. A Cell proper, can possibly run 8 streams for an 8x speed up.
I think this is the answer. But don't expect anything like that before next year. Perhaps in WWDC 2006.
Thats my 2¢
Originally posted by hmurchison
Apple isn't necessarily coming from the perspective that everyone will be encoding their own HD content. HD cameras still cost upwards of $2k.
I don't see Apple moving to any specialized chips. They generally do not like moving to specialized accelerators. I don't see it happening here either. They'll like want you to purchase a fast Mac or Macs and Xgrid them
Even iLife was upgraded to handle HD. I think that we can take Apple at its word, maybe the camers are high priced but they are within reach Apples market, and those prices will come down.
Originally posted by onlooker
Where did anyone get this information that there there was a chip to encode anything? It can be software encoded using a codec like everything else. Apple probably has no plans to include any such chip in their design.
Thats my 2¢
Yes and as you can see from the times required to crunch the codec it would take upwards of 4 to 8 hrs to encode a HD dvd. How does this time compare with the time required to first encode MPEG-4, I think that it was 1 to 1 on the time of the movie to the time required to encode using a codec. I'm saying that how much value is it to use a codec alone if it will take 4 hours to encode for every hour of movie?
Originally posted by Brendon
Even iLife was upgraded to handle HD. I think that we can take Apple at its word, maybe the camers are high priced but they are within reach Apples market, and those prices will come down.
Originally posted by Brendon
Yes and as you can see from the times required to crunch the codec it would take upwards of 4 to 8 hrs to encode a HD dvd. How does this time compare with the time required to first encode MPEG-4, I think that it was 1 to 1 on the time of the movie to the time required to encode using a codec. I'm saying that how much value is it to use a codec alone if it will take 4 hours to encode for every hour of movie?
How do you know it's going to take 4 hours to encode a half hour? Have you seen it done using Apples codec in Tiger?
Originally posted by onlooker
How do you know it's going to take 4 hours to encode a half hour? Have you seen it done using Apples codec in Tiger?
Well known that AVC at above SD resolutions will take a lot more processing power. ZO has a thread in the "Mac OS" thread that does contrast the encode times.
Wanna bring your G5 to its knees? Encode AVC. I'm predicting it'll become the new benchmark.
Originally posted by Brendon
Yes and as you can see from the times required to crunch the codec it would take upwards of 4 to 8 hrs to encode a HD dvd. How does this time compare with the time required to first encode MPEG-4, I think that it was 1 to 1 on the time of the movie to the time required to encode using a codec. I'm saying that how much value is it to use a codec alone if it will take 4 hours to encode for every hour of movie?
If I recall correctly DVD crunching took two hours per hour of video when it first appeared on the Mac.
Originally posted by neutrino23
If I recall correctly DVD crunching took two hours per hour of video when it first appeared on the Mac.
I wondered that, thanks for the correction.
Originally posted by onlooker
How do you know it's going to take 4 hours to encode a half hour? Have you seen it done using Apples codec in Tiger?
I ripped this from MacOSX forum:
Originally posted by ZO
good ... god... QT7 encoding... is.... slooooooow
I downloaded Yadex and extracted the VOBs to MPEG2 (.m2v).
QT7 Pro includes the MPEG2 decoders (hurrah) so I didnt have to download the MPEG2 Component.
On a Dual G5 2.5GHz it took well over a minute to open the file (!!).
Also there is no audio. Grr.
Im currently saving as an H.264 file (700MB target size, 890kbit/sec, 2-pass) and its just abysmally slow.
Its been going since 18:00 and its 21:00 now and its at about 1/8th of the way. *sigh* The result better be friggen amazing.
Hmm... maybe I should've just encoded a chapter instead of the whole DVD...
ah well... I'll let it run over night and come in the morning and see where it's at.
Originally posted by neutrino23
If I recall correctly DVD crunching took two hours per hour of video when it first appeared on the Mac.
I don't remember it taking me that long. I that # is incorrect.
Originally posted by onlooker
I don't remember it taking me that long. I that # is incorrect.
I do. I remember when you had to buy cards from companies like Wired Inc. to crunch decent MPEG2.
Hell I remember when MP3 encoding took a little grunt and know computers chew through that in no time.
Originally posted by onlooker
I don't remember it taking me that long. I that # is incorrect.
I think neutrino23 is confusing ripping a DVD with burning a DVD... The MacWorld demo Steve did when the superdrive 1st hit the market was reported by Steve to be about 2 hours for 45 minutes of video (something like that). Then again maybe I'm wrong too... but I can't remember a single expo where anyone did any DVD ripping.
Dave