Another freebie video converter/snipper??

[martint123]

Not used it in anger yet, but looks like it could be promising??

http://www.freemake.com/free_video_converter/

[pBS]

"Freemake.com project is financed by a private sponsor who wants to deliver quality software to the world market. However, Freemake plans to get additional revenue from advertising to be able to provide further software development and support."

[martint123]

"Freemake.com project is financed by a private sponsor who wants to deliver quality software to the world market. However, Freemake plans to get additional revenue from advertising to be able to provide further software development and support."

I didn't think there was anything sinister there? Couldn't that just be web page adverts and the like?? In fact, it could describe most "free" software - even NPVR :eek:

[HarryH3]

I've used it with great success. It doesn't let you create chapters or chapter menus (at least not that I've found!) but it creates DVD's quite well. It will also utilize your GPU to speed up encoding when it finds a compatible GPU installed.

[mian]

I see it supports cuda and dxva. I'm not really familiar with dxva, as an ATI/AMD user, is that what I would be hoping would work?

I use the Catalyst converter right now, and it uses my ATI GPU, but it will only do single pass converting AFAIK. I'd love to find something GPU accelerated that will do multipass conversions.

[HarryH3]

mian, more info on dxva here: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e...celeration

[mian]

It's kind of you to post, but I've read stuff that talks about dxva abstractly before, I was hoping maybe someone here had actually had some experience with it in the context of transcoding. I've found users discussing cuda and the APP-supporting Avivo, but less so for DXVA. The entry you linked to primarily discusses decoding, with only a passing reference to more advanced elements. And even that discussion isn't oriented towards practicality. Usually when I find usable information on the topic, it's from actual users in forums, so this seemed like a good place to ask.

AMD's GPU accelerated encoding solution, APP, is pretty sparsely supported. And no wonder why, I think it's had like 3 different names and the last one tends to bring up a lot of false positives in searches. I did find a couple of premium solutions that supported APP, but I'm not sure they fulfill my other needs, batch processing, divx/xivd multipass encoding, etc. I've been meaning to use their trial periods to figure it out, but I thought if DXVA could do the same, maybe I should be looking at it more closely.

[whurlston]

DXVA is a method of offloading video processing to the GPU thereby freeing up CPU resources. DXVA1 was a one way path and could only be used for presentation processing (de-interlacing, etc). DXVA2 allowed a return path so that you could offload encoding functions as well as decoding.

CUDA/APP differs in that, where DXVA is specifically targeted to video functions, they are designed to allow you to use the GPU to process any type of data you want (distributed computing, cryptography, etc) including video manipulation (decoding/encoding). DXVA is also a Microsoft API implemented by hardware manufactures. CUDA/APP are APIs implemented by each specific manufacturer for their particular products.

If you want to use a free tool that utilizes the AMD APP, you can try A's Video Converter. I haven't used it but it is produced by the same person that created the invaluable DXVA Checker.

You may or may not see any benefit to transcoding via APP vs DXVA

[mian]

Thanks, though I actually already use A's. It's a frontend for the catalyst converter with a few extras: editable profiles and batch converting, and you're right to recommend it, as far as free APP options go, it's the best I could find. No multipass though (I'd be thrilled to be wrong about that, but I haven't found any such option). I mostly only use it when autogk has issues with .ts's, because without multipass, quality/MB suffers heavily.

The main benefit I can think of to DXVA is I think it might be more widely supported in transcoding software than APP, and thus be in software that has all the features I like in one package. AMD seemed to lag behind NVidia/MS in development of GPU acceleration, and I think that's why software support is slim. However, I understand DXVA the least. I don't know what I need to take advantage of it, whether it's as fast as APP/CUDA, or anything else practical. I'll probably grab freemake next weekend, run a file through it, and monitor my GPU to see if there's any activity during the transcode.

[whurlston]

I don't know what I need to take advantage of it.

Your 4670 should be more than sufficient.