WinFast HPVC1100 is world's first external SpursEngine encoder
by Darren Murph 
posted May 12th 2009 at 8:53AM
[Via Akihabara News]
encoder posts
[Via Akihabara News]
Fixstars CE-10 encoder puts Playstation 3 to work on h.264 video
by Richard Lawler posted Apr 17th 2009 at 2:52PM
Maybe you don't do enough video conversion to make copping a dedicated SpursEngine card a good investment, but that doesn't mean you can't put the Cell processor in your PlayStation 3 to work in between sessions of Killzone 2, (not like it's busy curing cancer or anything.) Fixstars' CE-10 encoder doesn't exactly fit the "Cell Storage" pie in the sky promises of yesterday, but by installing it on a PC it lets users tap into the PS3's number crunching power to achieve professional encoding quality. No word on what an "affordable prosumer price" is, but if ultra fast HD encoding is something you'd be interested in -- those 1080p vids won't compress themselves -- stop by the Broadcast International booth at NAB next week for an early preview before the software launches in June.Sony rolls out $55k professional BAE-VX1000 Blu-ray disc encoding system
by Richard Lawler posted Jul 24th 2008 at 8:25AM
With the aim of putting making Blu-ray accessible for smaller studios, Sony Creative Software has released the BAE-VX1000 encoder for disc authoring. $55,000 buys a system capable of analyzing a film automatically and offering multiple bit rate versions to be compared later, or frame by frame encoding. The finished product comes out in either h.264 or MPEG-2 form (what, no VC-1?) and it works on varying setups from one to many PCs or servers depending on what a studio can afford. Of course, it's the perfect match for Sony's Blu-print software (now up to version 4.3) or other authoring applications, we'll wait for prices to get a bit more affordable before cranking out the next Behind the Scenes at CES boxed set, but for the pros it might be worth it to get the same tools Sony Pictures uses.DTS licenses DTS HD Master Audio technology to ten IC producers
by Darren Murph posted Dec 28th 2006 at 4:05PM
Although Dolby's TrueHD may be a more well-known moniker, it looks like you'll be hearing (quite literally) a lot more of DTS in the coming months. The firm has landed a deal with no less than ten integrated circuit (IC) manufacturers to incorporate its DTS HD Master Audio and / or DTS HD High Resolution Audio technology (not to mention the DTS HD LBR and encoder / transcoder jazz) into forthcoming chips. These microchips -- designed by Analog Devices, Broadcom, Cheertek, LSI, Matsushita, MediaTek, NEC, Renesas, Sigma Designs, and Sunplus Technology -- will contain DTS's high definition audio standards and will eventually find their way into next-generation HD DVD and Blu-ray players, AV receivers, and pre-packaged home theater systems. Additionally, the technology could even slither into the PC and automobile markets. While neither specific end products nor release dates were mentioned, we do know that devices coming out "in 2007" will be sporting the new protocols, and hey, we've got no qualms when it comes to options in audio (or video).Blu-ray MPEG-4, BD-J tools on the way from Matsushita (Panasonic) [Update 1]
by Richard Lawler posted Jun 23rd 2006 at 7:36AM
The early impressions of Sony's initial Blu-ray releases are in and as you may have heard, they aren't so good. Many have pointed the blame at Sony's insistence on using MPEG-2 instead of the newer and more easily compressed MPEG-4. One of the reasons they cited for sticking with the older format was their insistence that the MPEG-4 authoring tools available were not of sufficient quality.Whether that is true or not, Matsushita (Panasonic) has announced their own set of MPEG-4 Blu-ray encoder and authoring tools, which support Java (BD-J) for the interactive features Blu-ray is also capable of. According to what we can interpret of the press release, this will be available July 1st in United States yet Panasonic's (US) web site has no mention of it yet. Also no mention of cost or license fees, although this probably won't be on the shelf at CompUSA anytime soon.
Regardless, considering the apparent state of Blu-ray releases, we can't say for sure how much of the problem is the codec but one has to wonder how many discs will be released using the older technology if they continue to get poor reviews. Rumors have indicated the authoring tools made available by Sony support only MPEG-2 and for that reason all the studios have been using them. It will be interesting to see if there is any release date reshuffling of content in the same way some players have slipped, or if the other studios are able to get better results using Sony's own tools.
[Via AV Watch]
[Update] HDTV UK has more information on the MPEG-4 equipment available soon at the Panasonic Hollywood Library in California.
Stream DivX & Xvid to your Xbox 360: No conversion necessary
by Richard Lawler posted Jan 15th 2006 at 4:05PM
No word yet on whether or not this works
with DivX HD files, but it is possible to stream various non-WMV files to your Xbox 360, by letting Windows Media
Encoder convert on the fly. It's a little bit involved, but once you have everything set up you'll be able to browse
and control movies directly from the 360. Any HDBeat readers want to give it a shot with some 720p files and let us know how it goes?
[Via 360insider.net]
