nMP & video encoding

[cohen777]

Will the new Mac Pro, which sports dual firepro GPU's have significantly faster h.264 encoding than the older Mac Pro?

 

[Gav Mack]

Depends on what apps utilize the GPU's for transcoding, the apps I currently use mostly use the CPU. I would guess FCPX and compressor will get them running toasty at launch though.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

As Gav said it does depend on the applications you use.
Apple have stated that the new version of FCPX will take full advantage of the new Mac Pro, and it's new tech. So I would think that it would be significantly faster.

 

[DJenkins]

I think the codec itself dictates as to how/what resources are used more than the software.

If the codec is not written to take advantage of GPU rendering I don't think the software can make it happen.

This has been the case with other codecs and using multiple CPU cores to transcode/render. Not all codecs use all available CPU cores so I think the gap to GPU rendering will be even bigger.

 

[sunnyj]

From my experience, the CPU plays the biggest roll in video encoding.

 

[echoout]

My understanding is that Adobe Media Encoder uses CUDA but I'm not sure about OpenGL.

 

[derbothaus]

OpenCl should be rolled into Adobe's new offerings. That will be the game changer with those AMD's. But if it is anything like their push into true multi-core support you have a good 6CS versions from now (kidding, sort of) to wait so your Mac Pro will have some insanely great wasted power until SW catches up and/or proprietary strangleholds lessen. I hope we are pleasantly surprised.