VA-API Gets New H.264/MPEG-2 Encoding API Support

[deanjo]

It's not even close. Check Anandtech's tests.

Maybe you should read it yourself.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5771/the-intel-ivy-bridge-core-i7-3770k-review/21

Compared to the output from Quick Sync, NVENC appears to produce a softer image. However, if you compare the NVENC output to what we got from the software/x86 path you'll see that the two are quite similar.

The good news is that NVENC doesn't pose any of the horrible image quality issues that NVIDIA's CUDA transcoding path gave us last year. For getting videos onto your phone, tablet or game console I'd say the output of either of these options, NVENC or Quick Sync, is good enough.

[Aleve Sicofante]

Sigh. I'm tired.

I will concede that my judgment was based on previous NVENC performance (which as the article states was horrible), but even today, if you check the tables just below your quotes, you'll see QuickSync is twice as fast for about the same quality (Core i7 3770K vs GTX 680).

The question is: is it desirable to have QuickSync on Linux or is it irrelevant [even today that Nvidia has got its act together]? That depends on how much free time you have. I have very little. I applaud QuickSync is finally coming to Linux.

Enough.

[deanjo]

Sigh. I'm tired.

I will concede that my judgment was based on previous NVENC performance (which as the article states was horrible), but even today, if you check the tables just below your quotes, you'll see QuickSync is twice as fast for about the same quality (Core i7 3770K vs GTX 680).

The question is: is it desirable to have QuickSync on Linux or is it irrelevant [even today that Nvidia has got its act together]? That depends on how much free time you have. I have very little. I applaud QuickSync is finally coming to Linux.

Enough.

Well NVENC just came about with the Kepler series of cards that incorporated a dedicated h264 encoder like QuickSync. Prior encoders were CUDA encoders which utilized GPGPU encoding and not a dedicated hardware. Yes in those tests QS beats NVENC when scaling down the source to lower resolutions as NVENC does not handle scaling. However, you can use NVENC in unison with CUDA for scaling and filtering which can dramatically increases the encoding speed.

QuickSync and NVENC are still extremely useful for quite a few things, quick and dirty encodes for portable devices where quality isn't as important, live transcoding for web streaming, display mirroring, etc. For archival of video purposes however, you are still better off utilizing software encoding for optimal results.

[YAFU]

It should not matter to us if intel technology is better or not better than nVidia. The important thing would be to have both technologies available in Linux.
Regarding what I said about Optimus, I have found this:

http://mirillis.com/en/products/tutorials/action-tutorial-nvidia-optimus-intel-quick-sync-setup.html

So I guess in some way, Optimus can work like LucidVirtu.

[deanjo]

It should not matter to us if intel technology is better or not better than nVidia. The important thing would be to have both technologies available in Linux.
Regarding what I said about Optimus, I have found this:

http://mirillis.com/en/products/tutorials/action-tutorial-nvidia-optimus-intel-quick-sync-setup.html

So I guess in some way, Optimus can work like LucidVirtu.

Off topic, but thanks for that link. I have been looking for a better (and much cheaper) alternative to camtasia which is dog slow at rendering it's videos.

[TheLexMachine]

What I'm interested in knowing is when Intel will enable Scalable Video Codec support with VA-API or if it's coming with the update referenced in this article.

[Aleve Sicofante]

It should not matter to us if intel technology is better or not better than nVidia. The important thing would be to have both technologies available in Linux.
Regarding what I said about Optimus, I have found this:

http://mirillis.com/en/products/tutorials/action-tutorial-nvidia-optimus-intel-quick-sync-setup.html

So I guess in some way, Optimus can work like LucidVirtu.

Very interesting link (and I agree with your first sentence). That might change my buying decision for a dual graphics laptop.