ATI Avivo video encoder software

[wynand32]

Here's a very early beta release of one of the reasons why I'm so excited about the 8204: the ATI X1000 line of GPU's will be MUCH, MUCH faster at video encoding/transcoding once the software's released. I've seen benchmarks showing an X1000 (can't remember which one) being up to 5 times faster than a very fast desktop system at trancoding from MPEG to AVI, e.g...

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1281

Here's another story:

http://www.chip.de/artikel/c1_artikel_17670022.html?tid1=9227&tid2=0

[wynand32]

An update:

I transcoded an 8.6GB MPEG2 of "Phantom of the Opera" (for my wife!!!) to an MPEG4 AVI, and got the following results:

On my desktop 2.8GHz P4 with 1GB RAM and 7200RPM hard drive, using VirtualDub-MPEG: 1 hour, 41 minutes.

On my 8204 using the Avivo application: 28 minutes

Pretty impressive, I think... And, the 8204 remained responsive. I did some work while the file transcoded. The desktop, however, was locked up pretty tightly.

[markagain1]

wynand...impressive results...

Now I am a little naive when it comes to video stuff...what does it mean to transcode?...you converted an mpeg to avi?

[mak743]

How do you install the vidoe converter after u download

[shiggs]

from http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1281

[quote]
In the installation directory please first click setup.bat and follow the setup procedure before starting up the tool itself.
[\quote]

[wynand32]

For me, it didn't actually do the typical install (e.g., create a program group, etc.). However, I just go to the directory it created and ran the .exe, and it runs fine.

As an update, I use it pretty regularly to transcode files recorded by my Beyond TV tv tuner solution into a format supported on my Archos AV420 PVP. Not only is it very, very quick (my typical 1/2 hour show takes about 20 minutes on my desktop, about 5 minutes on my 8204), but the quality is actually superior and the consistency of results is higher (e.g., I have fewer instances where a transcoded file won't play on my AV420).

I'm very much looking forward to when the application actually starts using the GPU for its work, and for when ATI provides the hooks for other applications to use the GPU. I can only imagine how much faster Premiere will be using the X1600 in this puppy...

[alkerin]

Does it apply to the X1400? Since I was reading the site and it doesn't include x1400 on the list.

[wynand32]

Yes, the X1400 is supported. I used the application on an eval 5672 I was playing with, and it performed well (not as well, of course, as the 8204, but still very quick)...

[alkerin]

great. thanks for the info, I will install it and give it a try.

[alkerin]

I installed the program, however, how do I use it?please help. thx

[wynand32]

I ran setup.bat, which didn't seem to do much. So, I run the application from the folder it was unzipped to... I just double-click on AvivoXCode.exe, hit Start on the initial windows, then select my input file (the file I want to transcode from), select the output format, select the output folder, select the desired output quality, and then hit Convert.

That's it. All the application does at this point is transcode from one format to another. For example, I use it to transcode from the MPEG2 files created by my Beyond TV application to DivX files preferred by my Archos AV420 PVP. Works great, providing even better quality that the program that Archos provides. And, of course, it's fast: in addition to the speeds I mention above, I can transcode a 30-minute video in about 5 minutes, versus the 25 minutes of the Archos utility running on my desktop.

[wynand32]

Has anyone installed the latest Avivo utility available on ATI's site? I installed it, but it doesn't seem to be accessible (note that this is a different version than the one I'm talking about in the message directly proceeding this one).

It's supposed to be accessible from the CCC, but it looks like it's not installing something somewhere. Or, perhaps it's only compatible with the 6.3 version of the CCC... Any ideas would be appreciated. I found a version of the utility in the ATI folder, but it's the same version as I've already installed and doesn't function as indicated on the ATI page that describes using the utility.

One day, this will be a great utility fully supported by that latest Catalyst drivers that include the Mobility X1000 series of GPUs. I can't wait for that day...

[heron]

Those files are sitting in C:\Program Files\Common Files\ATI Technologies\Multimedia\ directory. Module atixcode.dll acts as transcoder and atidvcr.dll is mpeg video decoder. Transcoder is fast but still lacks some flexibility. You can launch Avivo Video Converter from the Basic View of Catalyst 6.3 CC.

[shiggs]

I thought I would point you folks to this thread at doom9.org

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=104157&highlight=avivo

I dont know if the new tool actually makes use of the GPU, but it seems the old one doesn't. Not that it isn't fast, but if you are looking for archival quality its probably better to use something else.