new Avivo transcoder?

[bsmith1051]

the latest Catalyst 6.3 is supposed to include the official release of the Avivo transcoder, but it doesn't show-up for me? I've got a Sapphire X1600 Pro (AGP) and I did a proper uninstall of 6.2, then installed 6.3 without any errors. Everything works fine except that when I follow the instructions -- open Catalyst Control Center - Basic, look under Wizards -- there's no mention of "Convert a video".

Anybody else trying to use this?

P.S. The GPU info page lists my X1600 Pro so it *is* recognizing correctly that I have an X1000-series card (which is required for the transcoder function).

[Someotherdude]

I think the transcoder is a separate install. On ATI's page, it's right below the CCC package. I install the separate "AVIVO video converter engine" in addition to cat 6.3 and I can use the trancoder with my x1600pro.

[bsmith1051]

aha! That did it! From all the news I'd read it sounded like it was *packaged* along with the new Catalyst (and I've only been downloading off the ATI homepage for the past several versions)

[bsmith1051]

wow, that was anticlimatic. It still doesn't seem to use the GPU at all. And any improvement in speed I suspect is simply at the expense of quality. It failed to recognize TS files, it claimed to have converted a high-def MPEG2 files even though the output was zero. And I finally found a standard-def MPEG2 to use as a test and the Avivo converted it to MPEG4 in 11 min while VirtualDubMod + Xvid took 14 min, and with a much larger higher-Q output, so the difference is totally explained by the bitrate. oh well !

[Sulik]

What does "much larger higher-Q output mean" ?
Can you give the file size as well as average Q of each converted file ?

[bsmith1051]

What does "much larger higher-Q output mean" ?
Can you give the file size as well as average Q of each converted file ?

Sorry about that -- "Q" is shorthand for "quality".

The Avivo conversion was done at it's default quality setting (half-way on the quality slider) and the resulting file was 75MB. The Xvid conversion was made with single-pass Q=4.0 and resulted in a 230MB file. But it wasn't a very high-quality file to begin with so it's hard to tell if there's much difference between the two conversions. The significant part was that the Xvid file only took about 20% longer, probably as a result of the larger output file. So the Avivo almost certainly isn't using the GPU -- which is supposed to give it a HUGE speed boost. If I'm not getting a GPU-assisted speed boost, I'd rather continue to use Xvid (where I can use 2-pass to precisely control determine the output size).

[Cary]

avivo video conveter 6.3: no sound with ac3 audio

Avivo video converter 6.3 can not convert ac3 audio in vob files into other formats (e.g., wmv) with sound.

Works fine if you convert .vob to mpg with lcm audio.

Any workaround to convert vob files directly?

[Sulik]

bsmith: so your answer is that a 230MB XVid clip looks better than a 75MB AVIVO clip ? I would hope it does, since it's using 3x the bitrate.
You can only compare quality of clips with a similar file size, or else it's meaningless.

[skank]

I checked my GPU temp while running an AVIVO conversion of a wmv file to mpeg 4, it doesn't budge, stays at my standard idle temp of 65degs C so I am pretty certain this is NOT using the GPU, also my CPU was 100% use by CLI.exe during the conversion. All in all I am highly dissappointed by this misleading convertor. There also seems to be a bug with the quality slider, if I slide to the left (lower quality) the bitrate goes down until it is near zero then it jumps up again. (Try sliding with arrow keys to see what happens)

[bsmith1051]

why does everyone keep baggin' on me about the quality and file-size? I was only trying to compare the conversion speed. I already know how to get good quality using traditional methods. My only observation was that the slight speed difference was probably due to the difference in file-sizes. Since the Avivo wizard doesn't give you any quantitative indicators -- e.g. mathematical Q or output bitrate or size -- there was no way for me to compare apples-to-apples without doing a lot of experimenting. To end-up with similar file-sizes I'd probably have to do a single-pass Xvid transcode at Q=12.0 or something.

[kanette]

I agree, it doesnt' show the outcome size in quality slider.

Plus a bug with the quality slider, bitrate shows wrong amount and it freaking crash right after that.

[Agustus]

If I am not mistaken, ATI has stated in interviews that the Avivo transcoder utility currently does NOT use the GPU and that future version will use the GPU for hardware assist.

In other words, its 100% software and CPU (plus X1000 series GPU even though it is not used and stands as an artificial limitation) for now and X1000 assisted later.

This point was illustrated clearly by a hacked and leaked version of the ATI AvivoXCode utility that would work on any system regardless of GPU,…. nVidia or ATI (X1000 series not needed).

[Meestor_X]

ATI claims that this new version of the "Avivo Video Converter" that comes with Catalyst 6.3 DOES use the GPU (or VPU as they call it).

[fanbanlo]

ATI claims that this new version of the "Avivo Video Converter" that comes with Catalyst 6.3 DOES use the GPU (or VPU as they call it).

where?

[Meestor_X]

In a response to my query to ATI (FWIW)...

Type of Inquiry: Pre-sales / Pre-purchase
Graphics Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Product: Radeon X1600
Bus Type: Don't Know
Operating System: WINDOWS XP
Other Operating System:
Driver Version:
Driver Version: CATALYST 6.3
Other Driver Version:
Category: Product Information
Driver Version:
Topic: Specifications, Features, Comparisons
Summary: Avivo Video Converter details
Details: It seems that the ATI "Avivo Video Converter" included in Catalyst 6.3 still does not use any GPU acceleration. Will it in the future?
Attachment: None


Solution
Solved:
(3/24/2006 12:13 PM EDT) The AVIVO converter does use the X1K VPU.

[fanbanlo]

haha... yea right... from a 1st lvl tech support? I think you know more than him.

[Agustus]

Well its not clear to me from that correspondence what was intended.

It could mean that "Avivo Video Converter" officially requires the presence of an X1000 family video card in order to install and function,….but then we already knew of this limitation.

It could also mean that the Catalyst 6.3 drivers were the first to enable hardware assistance from the X1000 series of VPUs but the current "Avivo Video Converter" could still need to be updated to work with hardware assistance,….

BTW, I thought the "Avivo Video Converter" utility was a separate download from the Catalyst 6.3 drivers,….

[Meestor_X]

So now there's a new version with Cat 6.4...

I wish a testing house would run this thing through it's paces - Tom's, Anantech or whoever - somebody who will test this stupid encoder and bring out the truth!

[lewdvig]

Pretty sure I read that it would be a while before true hardware encoding would be present in the encoder. I don't think ATI has been lying about this. I suspect they were getting pressure to announce it early.