Introducing the Avivo Video Converter

The other item of interest that ATI briefed us on is the ATI Avivo Video Converter.  We mentioned in our previous coverage that ATI was working on GPU accelerated video transcode, to speed up the conversion of videos from one format to another (e.g. MPEG-2 to H.264).  Unfortunately, the GPU accelerated transcode isn't yet ready for debut, but what ATI is making available is the software front end for it.

The Avivo Video Converter is an extremely simple utility that accepts just about any video input and converts it to just about any output (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, VCD, SVCD, DVD, MPEG-4/DivX compatible, WMV9, Portable Media Center, H.264/avi, MPEG-4/PSP and H.264/iPod).  The particularly neat features of the utility are built-in presets for converting video to Sony PSP and iPod Video formats.  However, keep in mind that despite ATI's release of this tool, the video conversion itself is done entirely on the host CPU and not on the GPU.  So why bother?  Well, thanks to ATI's experience in dealing with video, they have optimized a number of the transcoding algorithms so that conversion using the utility is actually faster than on other software solutions. 


Click Start to continue


Select your input file and output format


Next up, select your output quality and hit convert. The tool won't let you convert to an unsupported format (e.g. higher than 768kbps on the Sony PSP setting)

ATI's reference point is Nero's Recode tool, which lets you convert from virtually any format to H.264 and includes a built-in preset for converting to Sony PSP video format.  We chose to also compare to Nero's Recode given their similarities in flexibility, but we will look at other performance comparisons upon request from you all. 

H.264 Decode Acceleration - As Promised Avivo Video Converter Performance
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  • Pete84 - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    Looks like the AIW series got yet another shit in the multimedia arm. Capture video and then convert it to whichever format you desire, very nice.
  • vijay333 - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    yes...another "shot" indeed :)
  • Pete84 - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    Oops, that is what happens when I rush typing :p
  • RandomFool - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    I'm just waiting for the more creative users to show up. :)
  • ksherman - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    Thanks AT! you guys ROCK! I do a bit of video converting after I finish a movie project, and it seems as though this proggie might work a lot faster than the other ones I have used!
  • ksherman - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    one question though, if this tool is eventually released with GPU assisted recoding, is this going to be an ATI-only product, or will I be able to use it with my 7800??
  • Thalyn - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    Even though it currently uses the CPU to process the transcode, the final product will depend on features present on the X1x00 series and not on the NV4x (6x00/7x00) series. Specifically, it makes use of GPGPU - a function set that allows the graphics card to process more generic code, rather than just graphics, for features such as physics or, in this case, video transcoding.

    It's true that SM3 cards have been used for this purpose before (I recall an audio DSP program written to use a 6800 Ultra, since it could do the task about 5x faster than a P4 3.0e), but this time around it's been designed to work outside of DirectX - ergo, ATi only unless nVidia incorperates GPGPU at a later date.

    -Jack
  • ksherman - Friday, December 16, 2005 - link

    well, it seems I was a little too quick on the draw... doesnt work at all with nVidia cards :(... guess i really shouldnt have expected that, or just read the little two sentence sumary on the main page. alas, I am still saddened :(
  • karoldude - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link

    cool staff ,thannks for sharing.
    This <a href="http://www.best-video-converter.net">video converter</a> is great , i have tried it.

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