Compressor/XDCam Proxy MXFs

[Mike Weiner]

here’s what I did:

I took Sorrenson Squeeze 7. I took a QuickTime file (I believe it was) and I compressed with the CUDA card to H.264 MP4 using the GFX card. Then, I took the same file, and used Adobe Media Encoder CS5 and the CUDA card. I also used the same file, through it into Premiere Pro CS5 and through Media Encoder. Then, I took Compressor, which doesn’t have a CUDA card but I used the Matrox card/settings and used that same file. I exported to the same file/settings. Premiere/Media Encoder was the fastest, followed by straight Media Encoder, followed by Squeeze, and finally by Compressor last.

I was using the CompressHD H.264 Matrox card I got a year earlier.

Granted, CUDA wasn’t much faster, but it still seemed to be faster. Now I was using something like a 2 minute file, but if you take that data and spread it out to an hour program, etc., it could make a difference.

That was what I found using a 12-core Mac Pro 5,1. It seemed like there was no real advantage to having it in my computer, so I needed the slot anyway so I took out the card. Plus, I found the computer really heating up, and getting in the way of some of the cables on my GFX card.

[Jason Brown]

that’s surprising…I’ve found that using the MAX compression in Compressor BLOWS away every other conversion workflow I’ve tested it against.

I’ll have to look into getting a CUDA enabled GFX card.

[Mike Weiner]

I don’t want to encourage you to spend money, especially if I’m wrong. But, CUDA is FAST. Going HD to SD is still slow, but that’s only to be expected…it is still faster than if you didn’t have the CUDA or Matrox cards. I will say that I have been using CUDA and it is FAST. BUT, Compressor doesn’t support CUDA and that’s why I mostly use Premiere/Adobe Media Encoder or Sorrenson Squeeze…because it is so much faster…though I’d rather use FCP…or even Avid. FCP and Avid don’t utilize CUDA, hopefully future versions will. That being said, I don’t know if that fake FCP X software allows for CUDA integration. And, I don’t know if I used the MAX compression setting, as this was about 8 months ago that I was testing.

So I wanted to warn you about FCP/CUDA before you go and spend money…

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/513

FCP X it seems is supposed to utilize something similar with Lion…but who really wants to use FCP X?!?!