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Hardware Acceleration for H264 Compression and Conversion
Hi,
I have a job where I have to do a lot of h264 conversions. Some of it’s compressing to h264 for YouTube and similar sites, other times it’s ripping BluRays then converting them to ProRes for projects, Other times it’s converting 5D footage. It takes forever and I have several Mac Pros at my disposal, including 12 core behemoths. These are the pre-trashcan ones. When I’m converting it’s not using all 12 cores much of the time, this is using mpeg Streamclip usually.
– I’ve looked into Matrox CompressHD, but that’s about authoring h264 apparently, and not about converting that into prores.
– El Gato looks interesting, but I can’t tell if they make that anymore, it seems limited, and the results I hear don’t look so good.
– I’ve been thinking what if I got a video card that played well with OpenCL to speed h264 conversion, has anyone tried that?Basically, I know that h264 is a transport stream, it’s not the best source material. I know it’s processor intensive. I also know that for my job I have to convert stuff from 1080p h264 into ProRes 422. A lot. And it’s taking forever, and I’m in no position to change that. So does anyone have any ideas on what I can use to speed this process up? I’ll spend money if it’ll work, but I can’t get the boss to break the bank too badly.
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5 Replies
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So you’re going FROM H.264 TO ProRes?
The H.264 accelerators are generally for going TO H.264.If you have several Mac Pros have you considered making a QMaster Cluster with Compressor?
I’m not sure how fast it is but there’s RedGiant Bullet Proof. You may to download that as a trial.
https://www.redgiant.com/products/all/bulletproof/features/#tabs -
I don’t think mpeg stream clip is multi threaded so it won’t be using all your cores.
Adobe Media Encoder and Apple Compressor do though.
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Thanks both of you for the suggestions. I think I’ll try Adobe Media Encoder. I may try compressor, but I’m going to have to train a non-post person on how to do this and the learning curve on compressor may be too much. I’d love to set up a multi-CPU Qmaster deal, but which Mac Pros are available switches too often, so we gotta stick to one. Thanks for the great ideas.
If anyone has any hardware acceleration options for ProRes or h264 I’m still interested in that.
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Have you tried the Handbrake software?
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Yes, I use that as part of my transcode process from BluRay to ProRes, it’s nice, but I’d like to go faster.
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