Badaboom Video Transcoding has been released!! HW Accelerated H264 Encoding!!!

[nekrosoft13]

go here to grab it
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/content/forcewithin/uk/download.asp

[slaWter]

I've been waiting for this! Can't wait to try it.

[tweaked]

ummm, ditto?

[slaWter]

This version doesn't allow to convert HD files :( Max input res is 720x576, petty useless.
I have to wait for final release.

EDIT: Apparently this is the Pro Trail version... so it should be able to convert HD files.

[Revs]

Anyone tried it yet. Is it fast?

[slaWter]

I tried it but it's a bit picky about the formats. HD .mkv files didn't work properly, AAC Audio is only supported as an output format and divx isn't support at input.

It is pretty fast though, 170-196 FPS while converting.

[Butter Bandit]

Cool, but the mkv incompatibility blows. :(

[andrebrait]

I can't play the converted videos to any of the devices. Strange.

[walterman]

I must try this too, but, as Slawter said, without HD support is pretty useless.

[nekrosoft13]

Cool, but the mkv incompatibility blows. :(

try again, use tsmuxer to convert mkv to ts or m2ts

[slaWter]

Cool, but the mkv incompatibility blows. :(

I did try another .mkv file. It was a iPhone video file (iPhone res, MPEG4, AAC audio) that I converted into an .mkv just for testing. Without audio because AAC is not supported as an input audio format in Badaboom. That worked, it was pretty fast as well and image quality was good.
Unfortunately my other HD .mkv didn't work.

walterman, there is HD support even in the trail version. But it's doesn't really work well with the video input format limitations.

[Butter Bandit]

try again, use tsmuxer to convert mkv to ts or m2ts

Bingo. Thanks!

[Richteralan]

Hope future version can support AAC in MKV.

[$n][pErMan]

I tried it but it's a bit picky about the formats. HD .mkv files didn't work properly, AAC Audio is only supported as an output format and divx isn't support at input.

It is pretty fast though, 170-196 FPS while converting.

No divx.... nvm then :( Was going to try it.. I wanted to convert some divx files for use on my ipod. Anyone know of any other free conversion programs?

[slaWter]

try again, use tsmuxer to convert mkv to ts or m2ts

Does that work for you?

Badaboom can handle .ts and .m2ts files better but the video is still not displayed and converted properly. At least not with the file I've tested.

$n][pErMan, there are lots of video conversion tools but this one uses CUDA which makes it special...

[walterman]

Ok, i just did my tests.

It seems to accepts mpeg/ts/m2ts as input. I did not try avi or mkv.

I converted a 1280x720p dvb source, to a 2.5mbit vbr baseline h264 output (modified ps3 profile).

The encoding speed on the 8800GTX (overclocked), was around 37fps.

Also, in the middle of the encoding process, i opened an h264 file in powerdvd (with the purevideo hw acceleration on), and the tool was able to keep the same encoding framerate. This is interesting, cause it confirms that the nvidia cards have dedicated video processors for the video decoding.

Then, i checked the quality, and well, looks ok (but horrible for my personal taste :D)

Ok, then i encoded the same file, with the same profile and bitrate, with the x264 software based encoder. And guess what -> 40 fps !!!

The quality in both encodes is similar. Both look ok (but horrible for my taste :))

I'll try again when i get a faster gfx card.

[-=DVS=-]

Im not impressed its one of those very basic one click apps for clueless people :p

[Bman212121]

Yea I've been playing around with a few other encoders so I'm wondering where all of the settings are. Usually there are too many things to me to want to have to set, this doesn't have enough.

The interface is still a little clunky too, but I'm sure they'll be able to work on that.

I'm doing an encode right now at 100fps. I started on with sli mode disabled and it was doing 100fps. Then I tried with sli enabled, it's also 100fps so obviously it will only use one card atm.

[G-Man]

the retail of this is going to be so ****ing sweet :) can't wait mkv 720p baby!

[SLippe]

Can I convert HD .mov files into .wmv files for Dreamscene? :bleh:

[G-Man]

yeah it doesn't let you convert to a specific file type except to "PS3, XBOX 360, PSP, IPHONE etc" lol so gay

[Video_fiend]

Ok, i just did my tests.

...

Also, in the middle of the encoding process, i opened an h264 file in powerdvd (with the purevideo hw acceleration on), and the tool was able to keep the same encoding framerate. This is interesting, cause it confirms that the nvidia cards have dedicated video processors for the video decoding.

Then, i checked the quality, and well, looks ok (but horrible for my personal taste :D)

Ok, then i encoded the same file, with the same profile and bitrate, with the x264 software based encoder. And guess what -> 40 fps !!!

...

I'll try again when i get a faster gfx card.

Walterman,
Did you try opening powerdvd in the middle of the x264 transcode and playing the file back at that time as well? I'm wondering if with your GPU transcode will let you do other stuff with your PC but the x264 transcode would not.

[Monolyth]

yeah it doesn't let you convert to a specific file type except to "PS3, XBOX 360, PSP, IPHONE etc" lol so gay

Yeah this has nothing on meGUI, it's too bad also CUDA would rule with all those config options. Maybe we'll get lucky and get some opensource encoder builds w/CUDA tech.

[fivefeet8]

Converted a 20 gig HD 1080p MPEG2 video file into a 5 gig HD 1080p h264 MP4 file in about 2 hours(full movie). ;)

[walterman]

Walterman,
Did you try opening powerdvd in the middle of the x264 transcode and playing the file back at that time as well? I'm wondering if with your GPU transcode will let you do other stuff with your PC but the x264 transcode would not.

1st, i started the encoding process with badaboom. CPU load was at 5-10%.

Then, when the encoding was done at 50%, i launched powerdvd, and i opened one my 1080p h264 dvb streams.

Badaboom encoding speed did not change, and the CPU load raised to a 15-20% (usually i only need a 5-10% to decode a 1080p HQ stream thanks to the hw acceleration).

Badaboom uses the shader power of the card, and Purevideo uses the video processor (which is another part of the gpu).

http://techreport.com/articles.x/8466/2
# Purer video capabilities — The NV40 was supposed to have a very nice video processing engine built into it that would accelerate the encoding and decoding of advanced video formats like WMV. However, that first attempt at a video processing engine apparently wasn't up to the task, and the NV40 thus lacked some of the video acceleration capabilities NVIDIA had originally claimed it would have. Later chips in the NV4x series got a revised version of the video processing engine that worked as planned, and NVIDIA packaged these capabilities into a brand it calls PureVideo. With the G70, NVIDIA's high-end cards finally get a proper PureVideo implementation.

Also, because NVIDIA GPUs do load balancing between their video processing engine and their pixel shaders, the G70 should be able to deliver more power for video processing than any other NVIDIA GPU. This additional power could be especially helpful in accelerating the playback of high-definition video formats, including the new H.264 standard.