Since we have Avivo support in nem Intel Imacs.
Does anybody knows if there Ever will be HARDWARE Video Encoding Support for Intel Imac's with ATI X1600
like it has a place in pc market?.

there is pc version of Avivo Video Converter
http://www.ati.com/technology/avivovideoconverter/index.html

its hard to get ati support to ask that question.

Anybody has any Idea??


Thanks

Unfortunately, the avivo video converter doesn't even work in windows yet. The version that is available now is simply a software program that relies on your main cpu, never leveraging the power of the video card's gpu. The program checks to see if you have a x series card, but you can modify it to skip the check and run on any machine with an ati card, and the results are exactly the same as if you did have an avivo-able card. Ati has stated that they are releasing the program to allow developers of other program to integrate the "hooks" so that third party programs (ie nero recode, quicktime, etc) could take advantage of the technology. I'm not sure if that's BS or not. What's more, the program right now is buggy as hell and doesn't have lots of important features, like the ability to encode 480p h264 or deinterlace.

All of that said, it's unclear if the new machines could use it, either within osx or booting windows. One would assume so, given the proper drivers from ati.

You should try the new driver release 6.3, go in the control center (basic) and choose the converter. To me it seems it's working but I can't swear if it's transcoding via processor or video card.

I've used both that version and the old one. Performance is about the same, and no neither use the gpu. There are lots of things it wont do right (like encode an h264 file to an h264 ipod video file). Check the forums over at doom9 for more info about all this.

And is this so even if one gets the CyberLink AVC package?

h264 hardware DECODING works with the Cyberlink package, but encoding is totally separate.

thx for reply
i use also Dual AMD pc
with older AMD cpu 2800MPx2
and i'm getting really great results !!!
i never used early versions except the only one available on ati website 6.3 Catalyst Driver and Avivo Video Converter
and seem to be using all my cpu power but it seems to be really fast .
e.g.
i compressed a concert video rip 1 Hour clip .VOB to Ipod format with Video Converter and i took only 10 Minutes
i tried the same settings on my OSX Intel QuickTime 3.6 Celeron and after 10 Minutes it compressed only about
10 % of the whole video file.. then i stopped it.
i see huge diffrence in speed... i was surprised because QT in my pc XP PRO seems to be 2 times slower (h264) then my OSX Intel Box


i would love to buy imac Intel core if it supported that software in osx but due to limited (none) access to ati support its hard to find out whats going on with mac version of Video Converter.
and just because there is no real advantage of using X1600 in Mac OSX Intel i think i will wait till Apple release a 64 Bit Macs
then i'm gonna get in no matter what ( what a shame 32 bit only )
anyway how can i check the diffrence in quality and speed ?.
could anybody please supply the older version of Avivo Video Converter on RapidShare or alike.

so i could test it..

btw how to check if GPU is used??

Apple didn't put these babies in the new iMacs not to enable hardware acceleration of HD.
Second question, although QT for XP is worse than QT for Mac, how can we know if it uses hardware acceleration or not? Although worse (widgets react poorly, streaming sucks sometimes) I would like to do some testing, to be honest I don't see too much of a difference once the movies start running.
Anyone knows what/how to test this?

The converter program works so good compared to quicktime because it's using way worse quality. Using something like handbrake lite or isquint with all the quality settings turned down you should see pretty similar speeds. The program is fine, just buggy and doesn't use the video card to encode, which is the whole point of the program.

I'm surprised hardware decoding hasn't been implemented yet. I think apple would have anounced it if it had. maybe try turning off one of the cores and se if it can still play 1080p. If the hardware decoding is working, it should be able to.

also, the way most people check to see if the gpu is being used is to monitor the temperature of processor on the card while the encoding program is running. If the temperature doesn't rise, then it likely isn't using the processor.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/avivo_1.html

here i have another issue with X1600 in my PC box
i found somwhere on a webiste some information about x1600 HD Hardware Support Decoding that is built into x1600
and this website claims that it should display HD video up to 720p with no Problem !!!
and here is the funny thing..
i installed Trial Cyberlink H264 HD Decoder for Ati X1600 and other XSeries that should accelerate video playback with that Ati Video Card.

so i downloaded to my pc HD Trailer of The Chronicles of Narnia 720p from apple site and Windows Media Player with Hardware Supported H264 codec played it so bad that i could not look at it !!!! Very Very SLOW !!!drop frames all the time.
why ?? anybody knows??

i played the same clip on Mac Intel Box with GMA900 and played smooth with no drop frames and 80% cpu use.
Ati X1600 is more powerfull then GMA900 !!
whats is going on here (bugy h264 ati decoder ???)

i also played the same clip on my dual amd pc box with VLC 8.4 and the h264 played smooth as well !!! with about 35-40% cpu use !!!! No drop frames !!
But Hardware supported H264 did not play ... any hints how to fix that issue??