Developed in partnership with MainConcept, a leading provider of MPEG-2 codec software, Aspex Semiconductor’s High Definition MPEG-2 encoder solution is a PC plug-in board which dramatically accelerates the performance of PC-based MPEG-2 HD video encoding.
Key features
- MPEG-2 Main Profile, High Level video encoder
- Support for Windows and Linux operating systems
- Easy integration using MainConcept encoder API
- Flexible, 100% software-programmable solution with no fixed-function hardware limitations
- Resolution-independent, precision-independent solution
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High Performance platform for High Definition encoding
The hybrid solution consists of high-level encoding software from MainConcept, which runs on a Windows or Linux PC platform, and low-level encoding software from Aspex, which runs on the Linedancer processors on Aspex’s Accelera 3416 PCI/PCI-X plug-in card.
The accelerated solution maintains the same API as MainConcept’s leading MPEG-2 software encoder, allowing existing applications to immediately benefit from a significant uplift in encoding performance.
With more than 16,000 processing elements operating in parallel, the Accelera platform provides acceleration for key processor-intensive encoding tasks, such as motion estimation, DCT/iDCT transforms, quantization and run-length encoding.
Linedancer’s unique scalability means that multiple boards can be added to a system to achieve faster-than-realtime HD encoding performance for demanding applications.
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Advanced, hierarchical motion estimation
Motion Estimation is a highly parallel task, with each macroblock of pixels being compared with hundreds or thousands of other macroblocks to determine the “best fit”.
Aspex ’s parallel implementation of Motion Estimation uses a variety of techniques to achieve significantly higher performance than PC software implementations.
- ± 256 pixel X & Y motion search range
- ± ½ pixel motion search resolution
Profiles and Levels
The Accelera encoder supports the Main, High and 4:2:2* Profiles at all Levels.
GOP structure
The Accelera encoder supports all legal MPEG-2 GOP structures, including I-frame only
and 6/12/15-frame IBBP long-GOP encoding.
Resolutions
The Accelera encoder supports any legal MPEG-2 resolution which is currently supported by the application, including standard HD and SD.
- 1920 x 1080
- 1440 x 1080
- 1280 x 720
- 704/720 x 480/576
Performance
In High Performance mode, the Accelera HD MPEG-2 encoder provides faster-than-realtime HD encoding (1920x1080i60), with CPU loading of around 60% and no loss of quality.
Typical encoding performance in High Performance mode is shown in the following table:
Resolution / format
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Encoding performance
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| 1920 x1080 interlaced |
31 frames / sec |
| 1440 x 1080 interlaced |
35 frames / sec |
| 1280 x 720 progressive |
62 frames / sec |
| 720 x 480 interlaced |
154 frames / sec |
For applications where significant host CPU resources are required, the Accelera encoder can also be run in a Fully Offloaded mode, reducing host CPU loading to 15%-20%.
Quality
Many software solutions for encoding allow the user to trade off speed and quality. With the Accelera solution, users can select the highest quality encoder settings with little loss of performance.
Based on the leading MainConcept MPEG-2 encoder, the Accelera encoding solution generates ultra-high quality encoding results with 1-pass CBR, 1-pass VBR or 2-pass VBR modes.
Multi-channel SD support
Standard Definition encoding is also supported, with each Accelera card capable of concurrently encoding 3-4 streams of content. Note that simultaneous multi-channel encoding requires the encoding application to support multi-channel concurrent encoding.
* 4:2:2 Profile is currently only supported in High Performance mode
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