The CS4 applications that will see significant performance gains from hardware acceleration, are After Effects, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro.  The improvements in After Effects and Photoshop will also be evident with any other previous generation high end GPU, while the new hardware accelerated H264 encoding support for Premiere Pro is specifically tied to the new Quadro CX card.  NVidia has also recently announced the Quadro FX 4800, with basically identical hardware specifications to the Quadro CX, and which retails for about $200 cheaper.  The extra cost is buying you access to the CUDA based RapiHD H.264 encoder, that is available in no other form besides in conjunction with the Quadro CX card.  If you have no need for accelerated H.264 encoding, you could consider saving $200 with the FX 4800, but I envision the possibility of NVIDIA releasing more CX-only tools for creative professionals, since that card is targeted towards that specific market.  Not to be overlooked, NVIDIA has also released the Quadro FX 5800, with an incredible 4GB of memory, but that should only be needed by applications with the most intense processing requirements, and is a class above NVIDIA’s previous Quadro products.  The Quadro CX is compatible with the same HD-SDI output daughter card that the previous Quadro FX 4600 and 5600 cards used, for broadcast and post-production applications.  Hopefully we will see more software applications directly supporting that interface card in the near future.  The Quadro CX is based on the same core architecture as the new GTX 200 series of consumer cards, while the Quadro FX 4600 was based on the same technology as the GeForce 8800GTX, which is now two generations out of date.  It is to be expected, that there is an all around performance increase with the new cards in almost any application, but Adobe has been specifically adapting their software to leverage the power of these graphics processors.

Of the many applications in Adobe’s new CS4 Suite, After Effects is the one that most fully and effectively integrates the power of GPU acceleration to increase processing power and application responsiveness.  Many of these features are not new, but by nature of the way they are designed, grow more powerful as GPU performance increases.  OpenGL allows most of the 3D processing required for advance compositing to be offloaded to the GPU for dramatic increases in performance and responsiveness.  There are also many plug-ins and effects that specifically take advantage of GPU power.  Synthetic image generation like noise and fractals, as well as artificial 3D blurring are some of the best fits for effective GPU acceleration in AE.  Many of these improvements are only implemented for faster previews unless the user specifically selects OpenGL exporting, due to a possible loss in quality based on the lack of precision of OpenGL, but certain effects such as the new “Cartoon” vectorizing filter, that experiences dramatic (30x) rendering improvements with GPU processing, utilize GPU acceleration both for rapid previews and for accelerating the final export render.  In most of the synthetic object (Noise, fractals, shapes, blurs, etc.) previewing tests I did in AE, OpenGL acceleration with the Quadro CX provided a ten fold increase in performance over CPU based rendering.  This is the difference between an interactive experience, and a plan-next-move-while-rendering workflow.  While any graphics card with OpenGL support can accelerate processing in After Effects, as compositions and projects become larger and more complex, the benefits of the Quadro CX’s increased memory and processing power will come into play.  Complex projects will experience a greater increase in performance than simpler ones, when upgrading to a higher end GPU.

The next program in the CS4 suite to experience major performance improvements through GPU acceleration is Photoshop CS4.  Most of these improvements come from newly added implementation of OpenGL processing, and therefore, like After Effects, they are not specifically tied to the new Quadro CX.  But the power of the new Quadro CX makes the benefits of these improvements more dramatically obvious, especially on larger images.  These improvements in Photoshop are fairly extensive, and I will review them in detail in the next posting in this series.  As far as the Quadro CX is concerned, with its large 1.5GB cache of onboard memory, it is more than capable of handling the largest and most complex operations that almost anyone would attempt in Photoshop.

Adobe’s Premiere Pro CS4 also takes advantage of the GPU in a few less significant ways, for basic effects.  The one totally new aspect that the Quadro CX brings to the table is accelerated encoding, specifically encoding to H.264 with the new RapiHD encoder from Elemental Technologies.  This is the primary marketing piece specific to the CX card, and my third and final post in this series on the Quadro CX will be about CUDA and its implementation in this new encoder.

After all of the Adobe tests, I had two other programs that utilize the GPU that I wanted to try on this new high end card.  The first was Iridas SpeedgradeDI, which is specifically programmed to run on NVidia’s Quadro cards.  The base version running with DVI or 8bit DisplayPort attached monitors worked great, and nothing I could do with my limited knowledge of the program could even get it to drop a frame.  The real test for that application would involve connecting the optional SDI daughter card for true 10bit output.  Hopefully the 10bit color depth supported by the DisplayPort will eventually allow that level of monitoring without the high priced SDI daughter board.  The highest-end customers will still require an SDI output in order to use SDI interfaced external waveform and vectorscope tools, or live broadcast outputs.

Lastly, I ran my favorite program, Battlefield 2 to test out the card’s 3D rendering capabilities.  BF2 was released over three years ago, and therefore is not a cutting edge test, but it is my most recent high performance game.  With all of the settings maxed out, at maximum resolution on my 30″ LCD, I was able to get 99.9 FPS about 90% of the time, with the occasional dip into the low nineties for complex scenes.  Anyhow, the Quadro CX should be more than up to the task for those late night “stress relief” sessions with any modern 3D “application” if desired.

Once I had thoroughly tested the Quadro CX’s acceleration capabilities, I endeavored to verify the capabilities of it’s newly supported output interface.  I hooked my HP Dreamcolor LCD to the card via the new DisplayPort interface, hoping to get some taste of 10bit color output.  Unfortunately, currently none of the major applications I currently have installed are programmed to take advantage of this capability.  I do have a small utility from NVidia that displays 16bit TIFF files in 10bit color depth, and I can confirm that yes, there is a difference, and yes, the combination of the Quadro CX and the HP Dreamcolor does give you full hardware support for 10bit color display.  Hopefully in the future we will see updates and plug-ins that will unlock this feature in useful ways.  There is a 10bit capable SDI plug-in that NVidia released for After Effects 7 quite a while back, as a simple demonstration of their new SDI capability, and I am hoping to see an equivalent DisplayPort version for both After Effects and Photoshop, especially since NVidia and Adobe seem to be working together more closely these days.

Anyhow, if you are in the market for a new high end GPU, the Quadro CX has all of the processing power that most people could possibly need.  At its currently available price of about $1800, it has directly replaced the Quadro FX 4600, and no question is a superior product.  Now if you already have a 4600, the jump to the CX is not immediately necessary unless you are currently pushing your system to the limits, or you encode a lot of footage to H264.  The Photoshop and After Effects GPU support in CS4 will work nearly as well with a 4600, but there is a difference.  With any other previous generation card, you should see a significant all around performance increase with any application that leverages GPU processing power.

That information should give you a good general idea of what the new Quadro CX card is capable of, and I will be detailing the improvements in Photoshop CS4 and the RapiHD encoder in my upcoming posts.

Originally the only way to generate Cineform AVI files at this resolution was to scan film to DPXs, and then convert those image sequences, presumably in After Effects.  Interestingly, while being at 2K resolution, these files were being downsampled to YUV colorspace, which improved compression rates and performance, at the expense of the quality certain color information.  Eventually the SI-2K camera provided a second root source of Cineform2K imagery, that did not involve converting from an uncompressed source file at any point in the process.  I anticipate we will see 2K data being captured over SDI directly to Cineform files in the near future, if they are not doing so already, as both AJA and BMD have products with the required hardware capability.

The SI-2K brought with it one other new option to the format, which was an alternate pre-debayer RAW ‘colorspace’ instead of the YUV data that was normally being compressed.  CineformRAW video files had even better compression ratios, but the only way to take advantage of the benefits of pre-debayered images was by tapping directly into a single sensor imager, as the SI-2K did.  This eventually led to a third underlying option, with the development of Cineform 444.

Cineform444 allows full RGB encoding, processing, and mastering of image data, which is the norm in a digital intermediate environment.  The RAW files of the SI-2K had the required information for RGB processing, but it hadn’t been fully taken advantage of until that point.  DPX filmscans have full RGB info, as do most still images and CGI files.  Only ‘broadcast video’ files and formats are limited to YUV.  While increasing file sizes and processing requirements, this RGB processing brought the “Cineform Intermediate” to the next level quality wise.  Cineform now shows off their format in comparison the the popular HDCam-SR format, which doesn’t directly compare since SR can’t be accessed natively, but it communicates the idea to people who still think in terms of tape formats.  I believe SR tapes that are recorded in 444 RGB can be captured directly to Cineform444 via BMD hardware, but I have not had the opportunity to test that myself.  I have worked on projects where we captured 444 RGB data uncompressed through a BMD Multibridge, and then later converted parts to Cineform444 to work with.  I have also extracted CineformRAW files from the SI-2K directly to full range Cineform444 files.  Either way, this workflow has allowed me to work on visual effects shots at full 2K resolution in RGB, on my system at home without a dedicated RAID, and even on my laptop if I could suffer the 12inch screen size.

Around the same time that the Cineform444 capabilites were being developed, the option to include an imbedded alpha channel was added, and the maximum bit depth was increased from 10bit to 12bit.  I have yet to take advantage of the 12bit capability, but the embedded alpha channel can be useful for everything from animated titles to visual effects.  I find the biggest gains from this development when using Cineform for my After Effects work.

Cineform has also been working to develop a cross-platform solution, so that Cineform compressed media can be easily shared between Macs and PCs.  Their first step was to develop a Quicktime wrapper for their original AVI codec.  Next, they ported the compression codec to OSX, assisted I am sure, by Apple’s switch to Intel processors.  The last steps remaining to be completed are an accelerated CineformRT engine for the new Mac version of PremierePro CS3, and an OSX port of their HDLink conversion tool.  At this point Cineform is the only reliable compressed format for transfering video between Windows and OSX systems, besides saving to a DPX sequence, which has obvious disadvantages.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Cineform has recently released a beta of their next improvement to the capabilities of their format, with support for 4K imagery, or higher.  Although 4K filmscans could be used as source, their immediate target is data from the Red One camera, with 4K output from the RedCine conversion utility.  With wavelet compression for efficient reduced resolution decoding, RGB colorspace, 10 or 12bits of color depth, support for alpha channels, and cross platform compatibilty, Cineform seems well positioned to meet the needs of this emerging market.

3Gb SDI has very little hardware available to support it at this point.  The only real solution on the market at this point is to use Blackmagic’s Multibridge to generate it, and Blackmagic’s HDLink Pro to receive it.  This solution merely converts it DL-DVI, which we will discuss below.  The Multibridge allows fullscreen 2K without depending on the workstation video card.  In the future, I expect that this standard will be widely adopted to replace dual-link SDI.  This is especially beneficial as we move towards more 4K finishes, which currently require 8 HD-SDI links to support full resolution in realtime.

I am not aware of any solutions allowing 2K to be displayed over VGA besides using software to output the signal from a computer graphics card.  Certain older 21-22″ CRT monitors support 2K resolution, but you will need to be able to configure your software and/or your graphics driver to allow you to get fullscreen video output to the monitor.

Dual Link DVI can support 2K, but flat panel LCDs are the only products I am aware of that support this connection interface.  This makes it less than ideal for color grading work, but a great solution for visual effects work.  The excess resolution removes the need for dedicated full screen output, but that can usually be achieved as well.  Both computer graphics cards and the HDLink Pro can output 2K resolution over DL-DVI.  Graphics cards are obviously cheaper, and will likely work better in AE, but an HDLink Pro, with the appropriate hardware to drive it, will probably offer better performance in an NLE, like Premiere Pro.  It really depends on your budget, but if you can afford dual desktop monitors PLUS a full screen monitor, the HDLink Pro enables this configuration.

So those three interfaces dictate most of your actual display options in that regard.  Current 2K projectors are driven by Dual Link SDI, but we will see DL-DVI and 3Gb SDI replacing that in the future.  2K CRT monitors can be driven via VGA connections, and LCD flat panels can support 2K and above using DL-DVI.

The HDLink is a small box that converts HD-SDI video signal to DVI or HDMI, for monitoring video signals at full resolution with a computer LCD screen or projector.  It supports regular 1080 and 720 in most variations, and RGB 444 over dual link SDI.  It also has stereo sound output for audio monitoring.

These HDLinks are in widespread use at a number of the facilities I work at, and at under $500, they are within the reach of independent editors or anyone else who needs an economical solution for monitoring SDI.  They do get hot though, so they should be powered down when not in use, and they don’t last forever.

The new HDLink Pro adds 3Gb/s SDI for 2K support on a single SDI cable, but lacks dual link support, which is still the most popular RGB standard.  It also adds 6 Channel Audio de-embedding to analog RCA ports for 5.1 surround sound monitoring.  I have not yet had the opportunity to try one of these out yet, but I look forward to doing so as I find myself doing more 2K work, especially now that I have a 30″ LCD to connect it to.

 Separately but related, Blackmagic’s Workgroup Video Hub is a 12×24 SDI router.  It supports SD and HD, but currently not the 3Gb/s SDI standard that Blackmagic has been rolling out this year.  With a bit of creativity, it can easily support dual link connections, but that lowers the number of devices you can connect by half.  All patching is controlled in software via USB, which is connected to a single system, that hosts a network utility to share control with all users.  Their utility for patching as well designed and fleshed out at this point.  You can also patch through a built-in downconverter to SD, and it has a Still Store, ideal for color bars or logos.

We use these at three facilities I work at, and they bring a dramatic increase to the flexability and efficiency of your workflow.  They are not economical for use by a single individual, but will be well worth it in work areas shared by 3-10 people.  They greatly ease the sharing of high end video equipment.  For example, I can output any edit workstation’s SDI playout to either: a projector on an HDLink, an LCD on an HDLink, an HD CRT, our vectorscope, or any combination thereof.  Using a Video Hub can have a significant effect on your environment if you frequently find yourself reconfiguring your peripherals when switching between different projects.

The original ProspectHD supported compression of 1080p/i 10bit 422 data into a variable bitrate codec that only required around 15MB/s or 1GB/min.  Lowering the datarate had two significant benefits, both related to lowering the cost of disk storage.  Data rates at that level can be supported by a single hard disk drive, removing the need for expensive arrays, and much more HD content can be stored on a given drive.  The catch was that the amount of processing power needed to compress the data required the fastest CPUs, which at the time, meant dual processor AMD Opteron systems.  In the two years since then, processing power has greatly increased, and many more capable options are available.

Capture and playback over HD-SDI is supported in realtime using Premiere Pro.  Motion and opacity effects are realtime, as well as limited color correction and transitions.  The performance of these features scale with the power of the system, with many tasks being multithreaded to utilize multi-core CPUs.

The Cineform codec itself has many inherent advantages.  Wavelet codecs can easily be viewed at lower resolutions in an efficient manner.  As far as quality goes, Cineform is hard to beat, especially for their file size.  Another advantage I find significant is that their files perform well in After Effects, unlike many other compressed formats I have tried.

Cineform also includes a stand alone utility called HDLink.  HDLink can convert capture and convert files into the Cineform format with an efficient multithreaded encoder.  It currently supports HDV, Firewire, HDMI, SDI, P2, XDCAM, and a number of other formats.  The recommended Cineform workflow is to convert all of your footage from different sources into the Cineform Intermediate codec, for realtime online editing in Premiere Pro.  I will include more details on HDLink in a future review, which hopefully will coincide with the release of an OSX compatible version of the utility.

As with any workflow, Cineform is not perfect.  It can capture and playback in realtime, but file exports to and from Cineform compression tend to take much longer than one would expect.  You may also find their default settings in Premiere and AE need a bit of tweaking, and are rarely persistant upon reboot.  Certain systems may experience a color shift between stills and motion video with Nvidia cards, although their recent development of an RGB overlay processing option seems to have largely aleviated that problem.  Another minor frusteration is how they hand AE imports, since their custom importer is not compatible with other AVI formats.

(EDIT: As pointed out by David Newman, this seems to have been fixed in CS3.  I just imported CF, CF RAW 2K, Matrox 10bit, BMD444, DPX, HDV, and DV into my my AE project one after the other.  This would have saved me a considerable amount of time a few weeks ago, but I was working in AE7.)

There are newer developments to their codecs, including OSX and Quicktime support, Cineform RAW with the SI-2K,  Cineform Neo, 12bit 444 RGB, 2K, and soon 4K, but I will discuss those in future posts.

The Xena HS is a simple card that only supports single channel HD-SDI (422) and 6 channels of AES audio.  The lack of analog audio options can be a significant hinderance.  Their are sync issue when trying to use the sound card audio and the Xena SDI for picture.  It does allow realtime preview of surround sound which the newer LHe does not.  I recommend get speakers that allow direct connection of AES audio.  I have used ones from Roland and JBL that work well.  Using AES convertors to get analog signal can be a real pain.

 The Xena LHe has many more features, most importantly analog audio and video support.  Component HD video I/O, as well as stereo XLR I/O.  My favorite feature of this card, as well as the HS is that they support realtime capture and encoding of Cineform AVI files, and realtime playback and effects from CineformRT in Adobe Premiere.  The big missing feature missing from the LHe is surround sound support.  I have not found a way to monitor surround in realtime with the LHe without having sync problems.  Keep in mind, this is only with the Cineform RT engine.  I have never tried with native AJA uncompressed files. 

 The Xena 2Ke is a card I have not used, but this is what I know.  It is similar to the LHe and adds support for 8 channel audio I/O, dual link SDI for 444 RGB, and HSDL (High Speed Data Link) mode for 2K.  Xena handles 2048x1080p24 in realtime, and 2048×1556 at 15fps. (not realtime)  In the Apple world, the same basic card is called the Kona3.  The only feature missing that is found on the LHe is analog component HD input.  It does have analog HD output though.

There are a few disadvantages I am aware of compared to the competition.  No conversion capability like a Multibridge, few realtime effects like an AXIO, and no single card has all the I/O you might want.  They have no support for DVI or HDMI out for more economical monitoring solutions.  Their implementation of 2K over HSDL is not as simple or fast as 3Gb/s SDI, but the card was developed before that standard was created.

Another major feature that the Multibridge was the first to offer, was DVI output for monitoring on an LCD in full screen independent of the graphics card.  It was also the first simple solution for monitoring 2K at fullscreen, using the DVI port to drive a 2560×1600 pixel LCD.  This has been replaced by HDMI in the newest revisions, removing integrated 2K monitoring support, but that is now offered through the HDLink Pro.  The most recent version, the Multibridge Pro, can capture or convert to and from HDMI, SDI, and Analog formats.  Their newest feature is support for 3Gb/s SDI, allowing HD 4444 and 2K 444 over a single cable in realtime. (Which allows 2K preview on an 30″ LCD though the HDLink Pro, which is a separate item)

On the PC side, they support three basic editing modes, well really two and a half.  Uncompressed is their primary format, 8 or 10bit, 422 or 444, and now 2K.  They recently added a compressed MotionJPEG codec, but they have not unlocked all of the options to vary the quality yet.  This allows the realtime capture and playback of compressed files through their I/O.  Their MotionJPEG codec is 8bit 422, and from my use, I would class it as a great codec for full rez and frame rate offline editing, if you are finishing to HD or Film.  For Web encodes or SD, it is probably fine for online work, unless you need 10bit for Digibeta.  The last option is a Capture only one, into the Cineform codec.  I know for a fact that this works over HDMI on the Intensity card, but I have heard that all of the Blackmagic products are supported.  Blackmagic products are the only way to capture RGB over dual link SDI in realtime to the new Cineform 444 codec, and possibly even to Cineform2K.

There are a few disadvantages I am aware of.  Low realtime effects or rendering support in their hardware or editing modes.  They don’t support many compression schemes, MotionJPEG being somewhat limited.  The big issue in using it with Cineform is that it seems that realtime monitoring is not available from Cineform RT projects in Premiere.  Lastly, Blackmagic products are known for their reasonable prices, but not their long lifespans.