As part of my ‘ultra mobile video editing‘ project I’ve bought myself a second notebook. Previously I worked with the Acer Aspire One 522 based on the AMD Ontario APU. This time I’ve bought a Lenovo S205 notebook based on the E-350 Zacate APU and have moved up a notch in my search for a good-value, low-stress 720p editing and rendering solution.

Watch the unboxing video below.

Like the Toshiba NB550D I tested last week, the Lenovo S205 lightweight laptop feels like solid, a well-built device. I’m sure Lenovo could have shaved 100gm from the plastics but it looks like they’ve adhered to their build quality standards with the S205. The  materials feel good, the finish is nice and the keyboard is a very high quality feature.

Full image set in the gallery

For 399 Euro you get the dual-core Zacate CPU running at 1.6Ghz with the Radeon HD6310 GPU with HD decoders. There’s 4GB of RAM, a useful 500GB hard drive (in two partitions with 400GB free on one, 27GB free on the other intended for ‘One-Touch Recovery’ images) and it’s running Windows Home Premium. The 11.6 inch screen has a useful 1366×768 resolution which, along with the excellent keyboard, reduces stress levels when sat down trying to create any sort of rich document where images, links and other items that need to be pulled together from various sources. Veriface facial recognition software is included which initially quite exciting to use but it’s much slower than typing in a password. One-Touch Recovery is software that can take a snapshot of the operating system drive and save it as am image. This is useful when you’ve got your initial build stable and efficient. A boot optimiser and power management application are included and there’s a DirectShare application which hasn’t been tested yet.

It does weigh 1.47KG though which is a noticeable step up from a 1.2KG netbook. Along with that, there’s a significant increase in battery drain meaning the rather low-end 48Wh 6-cell battery could be drained in 2 hours if you try hard. In a video rendering test with the screen and Wifi on I was seeing 16Watts being used which equates to 3hrs. After removal of McAfee and may Windows 7 effects, a reboot and a settling down period, I’m now seeing an average drain of 6W with Wifi off, screen on a 20% setting and the Livewriter application running. As a typewriter, you’re looking at about 6-7 hours of battery life. That’s quite the dynamic range there. Anything between 2 and 8 hours depending on usage! If only Lenovo had put a high-capacity battery in this. 60Wh would have permitted an ‘up to 10 hours’ marketing statement. 5hrs is the claim and that seems reasonable.

In terms of performance I’m seeing a good step up from AMD C-50 performance although there’s not much of a difference in CPU processing power to what I’ve measured on a dual-core N570 CPU that you’ll find in upcoming netbooks . 3D graphics performance is indeed impressive but not impressive enough to make this a full gaming device. It will certainly boost Google Earth, Cover-Flow and other 3D features in high-end applications though and it boost the UI experience well. Some gaming is possible but don’t expect to use high-end settings. Again, you’ll hit the 2hr mark when gaming so bear that in mind when mobile,

Here’s a comparison of the CrystalMark tests on a stock Asus Aspire One 522 (AMD Ontario C-50 CPU) and the Lenovo (AMD Zacate E-350 CPU)

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Acer Aspire One 522, Left. Lenovo S205, Right. Click to enlarge. You can see 50-60% CPU performance increase (which relates to the 60% clockrate increase) and the disk and memory get a boost too. I’m confused about the open GL scores though. CrystalMark is quite an old test so perhaps the improvements aren’t showing up in this test.

Update: I was right to question the graphic scores. It looks like the ‘Power Play’  feature [available in the Catalyst Control Center] was set to restrict GPU performance. With ‘Power Play’ configured for max performance, the scores are very different:

For comparison, here’s the result from a dual-core N570 Atom CPU with Nvidia Ion platform (Asus 1015PN tested at CeBIT 2011) The results across the board match very closely. (See the update above, The Zacate APU outperforms the ION2 platform by a lot in the GPU tests)

I tried 3D Mark 03 on the Lenovo S205 but it crashed after the first test. 3DMark 06 was tested on the S205 over at Ndevil.com with a result of 1995 points. Interestingly, Netbooknews tested the NB550d, based on the Ontario platform, and saw 1889 points. Again I’m confused about the graphics performance here. Update: The results could have been due to the issue I experienced above.

A few more notes before we go into the video…

• Fan On most of the time and varies in pitch a lot. Not annoying, but noticeable.
• Screen Good clarity, contrast and brightness. Excellent side-to-side viewing angles. Opening angle not great, Hinges seem OK.
• Mouse and mouse buttons Good quality. Small touchpad area might take some getting used to but it avoids accidental wrist touches.
• Speaker (Mono I believe) OK for the occasional video, skype session.
• Memory and disk not easily accessible
• USB ports are 2.0 only
• Bluetooth is 2.1 + EDR only
• Comes with McAfee pre-installed.
• Hard drive includes movement detection and protection.

Summary

While the AMD platform inside the S205 idles down nicely to show an efficient build, it’s capable of draining battery faster than any netbook I’ve seen. The 7 hour battery life seen when typing a document could drop to 2hrs when gaming. Heavy CPU usage will also push the drain up and the battery life down towards the three hours mark. Average battery life for the normal user looks to be about 20-30% less than on a 10 inch netbook, about 4 hours with the included 48Wh battery. If Lenovo had dropped in a high capacity battery we would be looking at a much more interesting 5hr figure but that’s not the case. I like the build quality and the 1366×768 screen is OK for my eyes at standard settings in this 11.6 inch frame. It’s also good for some applications that require 768 pixels vertically before they install or run.

Performance is good but not in a new league compared to the latest Atom N570 and Ion2 platform. I honestly expected more from the CPU and I’m confused at the 3D test results I’ve seen. In general, it’s a well-balance system and performs most daily tasks well. In my daily routine, a largely web-based office existence, the S205 performs well. The keyboard and mouse are impressive and when combined with the screen, it’s a noticeably less stressful experience than when using a netbook.

For the price, I paid 399 Euros, the Lenovo S205 is a high quality, well balanced and flexible device that offers enough power for everyday computing, some gaming and an impressive show of high-definition playback performance. It’s a sensible choice, almost boring, but one that will keep many happy and provide a good upgrade from a 2-year old netbook.

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Full image set in the gallery

Personal Thoughts.

I was really expecting more from the E-350 CPU and it’s clear from early tests that this isn’t the comfortable, ultra-mobile 720p editing solution that I’m looking for.  3hrs rendering battery life equates to about 45 minutes of 720p video rendering. While that might be enough for a days worth of clips, it’s doesn’t leave enough battery life left for typing the articles (although there’s some scope for typing while rendering here it seems to multitask well.) Like the Dual-core Atom and C-50 devices, this is for 480p only and I’d class it in the high-end netbook performance category.

An SSD is going to boost startup performance nicely but with the disk appearing to perform well anyway, it may not be as noticeable as on some other devices. I love the build quality and want to keep the S205 but I know there are better solutions out there.  Your suggestions for next-in-line on this test series are welcome! I’m looking at Corei3, i5 solutions next.

Don’t panic. I’m not changing the scope of UMPCPortal. We remain focused on ultra mobile computing solutions of 10 inch and below with a target weight of 1KG and under. What I did do today though is to go out of that range to buy in an interesting platform and a potential solution for myself. The Lenovo S205 11.6 inch laptop.

The Lenovo S201 is available now and includes the AMD Fusion platform based on the Zacate 1.6Ghz dual-core CPU. I want to get a feel for the performance / watt ratio of the platform and to think about how small a design could be made around this solution.

I’m also taking the next step in my Ultra Mobile Video Editing project for which 1.4KG of video editing solution is actually very lightweight. If I couple this with the new features I have on the Nokia N8, we’re talking about a 1.6KG 720p recording and editing suite. That’s 400gm lighter than my previous camera and netbook solution!

The other reason I bought it is because of my changing requirements. The Samsung Galaxy Tab has taken away all the social media activity I used to do on my netbook. It’s now my first port of call for email, for news updates and even for short-form blogging, image editing and uploads. I rarely use the netbook now so I can afford to think about optimising for the things I really need out of a laptop.

• Video editing Requiring performance, battery life and screen resolution of 1366×768 minimum (for many applications)
• Long-form typing
• Desktop PC for day-to-day work

1.4KG is about 200gm more than the average netbook and the increased footprint isn’t going to worry me on the few occasions I am out and about with it. As I mentioned above, in my work at expo’s, conferences and events, I’ll actually be better off if I can slot the N8 in as my video camera.

The cost is interesting too. Last week I was upgrading a €299 Acer Aspire One Netbook with about 120 Euros worth of operating system and RAM enhancements that the Lenovo offers for €399 out-of-the-box!

Today I’ll be unboxing the Lenovo S201 and videoing it with the Nokia N8. I will attempt to edit the 720p video on the Lenovo and you’ll hear fairly soon if it was efficient or simply too slow. Watch out for the video and some first-thoughts later.

Update 1: Rendering out a 720p, 4Mbps video right now and it looks to be using 16.5W (screen-on 30%, wifi on. 14w with radios disabled and screen off ) and taking 4x real time to process. I’m using Windows Live Movie Maker for the first test. Importing 720p into Movie Maker required downconversion for the editing process too. That takes up a long time so i’ll be looking for an alternative software solution that doesn’t have that input conversion stage.

Thanks to Ndevil for the tip on the S201 which was available in my local Conrad Electronics Shop this morning.

In Part 1 of this series we put aside the idea of ARM-based video editing based on the requirement for higher levels of CPU processing power and tight coupling of hardware and software. Two very interesting solutions have just appeared that could dovetail together as an ARM-based solution  and possibly enable 720p video editing on-the-go. Even if you haven’t got an iPad2, some new software for the Nokia N8 will enable netbook-level H.264 editing.

Last week Apple launched the iPad2 and it turns out that it’s quite the performer in terms of rendering 720p videos through the iMovie application. Based on the measurements we can only assume it’s got a hardware H.264 encoder that iMovie is using to speed up the encoding process. Because of the CPU and GPU inprovements, the editing process looks smooth too. You won’t be able to do b-roll cutaways but I bet you’ll see that included in the next iMovie release for iOS.

This morning I’ve also learnt about a new camera application for the Nokia N8 which enables 480p H.264 recording and continuous auto-focus. As I write this I’m rendering a titled, cross-faded 480p video taken with the CameraPro N8 application in Windows Live Movie Maker. It was a smooth editing process which might surprise some of you because I’m using a netbook to do it.

Put the two together and, if iMovie can import and work with Nokia N8 videos (they are .mp4 files containing H.264 videos but there are some interesting advanced settings in the CameraPro app that can teak bitrates, codecs and sizes) then you might have the most flexible, ultra-mobile video camera, editing and posting solution yet. The iPad2 weighs 600gm (possibly 630gm for the 3G version) and the Nokia N8 weighs 135gm. That’s an amazing, seriously amazing sub 800gm, 1.7lbs and the total cost of both, with 3G, is under 1000 Euro. 720p-capable, 480p when on-the-go and direct posting to YouTube.

Ongoing and outstanding: Does the iPad2 import videos from the Nokia N8 and can iMovie work with the imported videos without conversion? One would need to connect the N8 via the camera connection kit either via USB or by removing the Micro-SD card, slotting it into an SD card adaptor. I’m waiting to have this confirmed. I’m hoping that this author has the answer soon.

Even if the Nokia N8 files don’t work with the iPad, it enables netbook usage which opens up the user to more software options. Windows Live Movie Maker can handle the 480p files without re-rendering for editing and output a 480p WMV file at a time ratio of 3.24 mins per minute of video rendered. For clips of 5 mins or less, as are many mobile videos, this is acceptable.

Here’s a 480p video posted directly from the N8 to YouTube via Pixelpipe. It was a 92MB upload and the bitrate was just over 3Mbps. It would make sense to try this at 2.5Mbps and via a service that posts direct to the YouTube API to cut down time and failure-points.

Obviously you should watch this in HQ and at full-frame size.

Here’s the same source video edited in Windows Live Movie Maker with titles and crossfades. The output format from Movie Maker is WMV which means there could be some degradation in quality as the file is converted back to H.264 at YouTube. Update: I see some frame-rate and smoothness issues. You too?

I used the Acer Aspire One 522 for this and the rendering time ratio was 3.24:1 (3 mins 15s per minute of video)

As a camera, the N8 just keeps on getting better and with developers continuing to write specialized apps for it you wonder why there aren’t many other good quality internet and app-enabled cameras around. It’s these sort of enhancements that just aren’t possible on closed-firmware dedicated cameras.

I plan to buy a 3G-enabled iPad2 when they become available here in Europe but I’m sure others are going to test out the N8/iPad2 combo beforehand. When they do, I’ll try and link the information in below. If you know of any articles or videos on the subject, please feel free to link them in the comments below (one URL per comment otherwise the comment is held for approval.)

In Part 1 of this series I covered three strategies for ultra mobile video editing and decided that the traditional, PC-based solution was the only real choice for today. I also set out some parameters.

The solution comes in three parts.

1 The Camera

2 The PC

3 The Editing Software

The parameters I’ve set for the project are:

• PC and software to cost less than 600 Euros
• PC to be less than 1.5KG with 12 inch screen or less.
• Total camera + PC solution to weigh less than 2KG and cost less than 1000 Euro
• Source video should be 720p
• Video sent to YouTube should be 480p minimum
• Editing solution must include watermarking, overlays, crossfades, and multiple audio tracks.

I have personal requirements for the camera that mean it also needs to be able to take photographs for the site. It should also include self-shooting (front or swivel viewfinder), built-in stereo microphone. 28mm wide-angle capability. Good low-light performance and long zoom range for close-up to press conference zoom-ins. An external mic input and hot-shoe would be an advantage.

It this stage I have two cameras in mind. The Canon SX20IS and the new (currently unavailable) Fujifilm HS20 EXR which is said to have some good, and very helpful, low-light options. It doesn’t have the self-shooting viewfinder though. I’m still looking at other solutions but for this post I want to refine the choice of PC down to a shortlist.

The current shortlist is shown below. Please feel free to propose alternatives.

• 12 inch Intel Atom solution: Asus 1215N (Intel N550 + Ion2 with 16-core CUDA) 1.45KG
• 12 inch AMD Fusion Solution: Asus 1215B (AMD E-350 APU) 1.4KG or HP DM1Z (AMD E-350)
• Intel Core i3 solutions: Lenovo Edge 11 (Intel Core i3 1.5KG) or Acer Travelmate-8172T (Core i3 1.4KG)
• Netbook solutions (*1): Samsung NC210 (N550 dual-core + 6-cells 1.22Kg) or N350 (N550 + 3 cells 1KG) or NF310 (N550 + 6 cells + 1366×768 screen 1.3KG) or ASUS 1015PN (N550+Ion2 1.25KG)  or ASUS 1015B (AMD C-50) or Toshiba NB550D (AMD C-50) or Acer Aspire One 522 (with AMD C-50)

13 inch devices will remain out of scope because of size. I have to draw the line somewhere and I feel that 13 inch just goes beyond what is acceptable on a seat-back table, in one hand and in a small bag.

(*1) At this stage it seems fairly clear to me that a dual-core Intel Atom alone isn’t going to be enough on its own to process 720P video which means the pure netbook solutions fall away leaving only the Ion2-enhanced Asus 1215N where CUDA could help push the performance. The E-350 CPU performance isn’t a huge step forward from the N550 but with the 3D and HD decoding support, should help the editing experience and, possibly, a 720p-to-480p conversion stage that allows faster editing. Note that the ION2 in the Acer P1015PN doesn’t have the CUDA core required for enhanced video rendering performance. The AMD C-50 based solutions aren’t as powerful as Intel N550 for general purpose computing but do include video decoding support (not hardware encoding) which could help in a 720p to 480p pre-editing conversion process. Due to this, the NB550D and 1215B stay in the shortlist.

Interestingly, the new Intel Oaktrail platform includes 720p encoding and decoding in hardware. Unfortauntely this won’t help much in the video rendering process where almost everything is done in software. It could help with a 720p to 480p conversion process before editing but the CPU and GPU is then unlikely to be strong enough to support a smooth video editing experience.

Am I considering tablets like the Hanvon B10 and the EeePC Slate E121? No, because being lap-capable is critical and inputting text around a video is a requirement for almost everyone. Adding a USB or Bluetooth keyboard is considered a point-of-failure and would bring the weight up by 200gm.

In summary, we have an entry point of 11.1 inch screen and a minimum weight of 1.3KG. I’m surprised that I can’t find anything in the 1.0-1.2KG range. The only solutions available are all close to 1K Euro which puts them out of scope.

Prices of the items on the shortlist range from €300 to just over €600

Note: Why limit the price? I want to come up with a solution that as many people as possible can consider.

Where do we start?

I will say now that I’m looking for someone that can supply these devices for testing because i’m not about to go out and buy 5 laptops so – Free series sponsorship to any reseller that can help us with this project – but I will put my own funds into the pot and start with the smallest, lightest, cheapest option. Later today I will be heading out to pick up the 299 Euro Acer Aspire One 522 with the AMD Fusion CPU and 720p screen. For that price, it would be stupid not to!

Update: Unboxing and first impressions article is now up.

Stay tuned because I’m likely to do a live session with it if I get it. (Follow @chippy on Twitter for  notifications.)

I wrote a few days ago on my personal blog about my mobile video editingI project aims. Soon after I posted that, I had a long talk with @jkkmobile who, like me, is always looking for ways to improve speed and quality while keeping the weight down. We both deeply understand the tech involved, the requirements and challenges and have come up with a set of initial thoughts that we hopebare worth sharing.

To recap, the three areas of interest are cloud-based processing, arm-based smartphone and tablet processing and traditional x86 laptops. The target for this project is a sub €600 solution that is able to post 16:9 HQ quality (480p) edited content with watermarks, titles, crossfade and other cpu-bound processes. The computer solution should weigh less than 1.5 kg. Trust me, this is quite a challenge as you’ll see below.

We quickly discussed the idea of cloud-based editing but while that might be possible over good cable networks, over 3g networks it is too unreliable and too slow. We’re both interested in this as a future possibility and Clesh is a service we’re watching closely.

As for ARM based editing on smartphones and tablets, again, there are issues. While the technology is maturing quickly and there are some interesting software solutions out there (Reel Director on IOS, Movie Studio on Honeycomb Android) these solutions need tight integration of hardware and software. We’re thinking of future cameras that include camera hardware you just don’t get in ‘general purpose’ smartphones and Tablets. For a smooth and fast editing experience we also need to wait for at least the next generation of ARM platforms. There’s definitely an opportunity for someone to make a niche ARM/ANDROID camera for mobile reporters although we’re not sure that the carriers would be too pleased about the upload usage! Software needs to mature too. Of course, it doesn’t mean you can’t post the occasional 30 second clip from a phone without editing. I plan to do some of that using the Galaxy Tab which, although not a 16:9 solution, records in 720×480 and has some very simple and easy sharing tools.

Todays video editing solutions are very much about traditional computing. X86 processors, desktop operating system, rich software, common file formats and separate devices for the camera and editing parts of the process. Many will actually tell you that you shouldn’t even think about a low cost laptop. As for netbook, people that do video editing for a living often laugh.

Having used a netbook for editing and posting videos at expos’s I know its possible. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it because JKK and I have over 20 million combined YouTube views and most of these were done on-the-go with a netbook but as I mentioned in the last post, the requirements have changed over the last 2 years and 4:3 VGA videos aren’t acceptable to many. Its a trend, it works against the mobile user but I (JKK already produces videos in 16:9) have to play along now if I’m to be taken seriously.

JKK and I agree that there are a number of approaches that can be made in the x86 world.

Firstly we’ve discounted the idea of using Apple Mac products with iMovie for mobile video editing due to the import process which converts video into the AIC format usable by the video editing software. The process simply takes too long. There are other software solutions though which could be interesting on the MacBook Air product, as long as there is no import processing. This needs further research but even if the import problem could be solved, the price of the Apple MBA products is outside our range. I’m focusing this project on low-cost and lightweight solutions.

In our discussion we repeatedly came back to Nvidias CUDA technology which allows a certain amount of general purpose computing to be done on the graphics module. It is truly a game-changing technology but it does require software to be re-written to take advantage of it.

You see, graphics modules (gpu) are very specific processing engines for 2d, 3D and video decoding. In some cases the GPU can also handle encoding but these basic processes are often not what you need for video editing. Consider a fade, an overlay, a watermark or a transition. These processes require general purpose processing on a frame by frame basis. This is why CUDA is so interesting for mobile and low power video editing; it breaks the requirement for pure CPU processing.

CUDA doesn’t just appear in high end graphics solutions because it also appears in the Nvidia ion2 platform that is offered with the netbook-class Pinetrail CPU. Beware though, this ion2 variant doesn’t include the CUDA you need for video processing. The lowest power processing platform that we have found that includes full CUDA capability is the Ion2 12″ Netbook platform. it couples the D525 dual-core, 1.8Ghz Atom with the full 16-core CUDA engine. They are not the best mobile cpus (speedstep is missing) but they are in a processing class that easily outpaced traditional netbook platforms. The ion2 solution also allows the platform to fall back to the embedded graphics thus saving power when the GPU is not needed. The platform also idles down to a very low power drain state. For our purposes, its a very interesting platform.

Examples of devices that use this platform are the Acer EeePC 1215n and the Acer Lamborghini VX6 which even offers a useful 3GB of memory. Both are around 1.5kg in weight.

But what about dropping CUDA and going for a general purpose CPU with a bit more power than Atom? It’s possible. The Lenovo U160 offers CPU options up to core i5. Could a boost in cpu equal the CUDA solution? It would certainly be more useful for general purpose activities and opens up the choice of software to that which isn’t optimized for CUDA. Using a higher-end architecture with faster bus speeds and one well matched to a GPU for more efficiency might bring benefits.

Two choices in the low-cost area that I’m looking at are the Lenovo U160 and the Acer Aspire 1830T. Both are available with a low power Core i5 and weigh about 1.4kg. The Acer has the better performance and battery life of the two according to reports I’ve read. Cost is relatively high though and it is going to be tough to find a solution under 600 Euro.

The other interesting thoughts we discussed was that of the keyboard requirement. Could we used Tablet PCs and save weight and space?

Editing movies is largely a mouse operation which means it could be suited to tablet operation. In general though, battery sizes are smaller (and spares more expensive.) I haven’t seen any Tablets with the CUDA 12″ netbook platform and there are only a few low cost options with laptop cpus. The Hanvon B10 is one of them. We see the advantage of the ‘modular’ tablet solution but we’re both wanting to keep or lapping scenario, the keyboard and the protection it brings when folded together.

JKK and I discussed a bunch of other important items too. Fast SSD helps a lot. Using fast SD cards means you can edit from the SD card without having to copy it to the hard drive first.

We also discussed file formats, bitrate and sizes. We’re currently in agreement that h.264 is the format that provides most flexibility but there’s a huge CPU load associated with h.264 that is used to compress files down much further than standard mpeg4 part 2 codecs. The important thing to note is that our initial and most important file transfer is from an SD card in a PC. The bitrate and file size can be large without affecting the transfer time significantly. Final compression into h.264 at 2 or even 3 mbps doesn’t save that much in final file size and its not important to us how YouTube sends the file out so why even bother with h.264?.

It seems to me that a recording format of Mpeg-2 at a bitrate of 10mbps would be acceptable for our sub 10 minute clips. They would be relatively easy to work with. One thing to note on this is that CUDA  might not work with mpeg2 which brings us back to using a general purpose CPU. Testing is needed here. If we can find video editing software that uses CUDA for mpeg-2 editing (note that we also need to choose our output file format carefully too) then mpeg2 could be exactly the right choice of source codec.

There is other slight problem here in that there are very very few cameras that record in mpeg2 now.

Resolution, bitrate and aspect ratio.
16:9 is the ratio we need to aim for with YouTube. The lowest acceptable resolution is 854×480 with a bitrate of around 2mbps. This triggers HQ encoding in YouTube although I’ve had no problems with my 640×480 resolutions showing as HQ. Another option would be 720×480 which isn’t quite 16:9 but doesn’t look as bad 640×480.

Note: Recording in the resolution you want to output in will save processing.

Recording in 720p (1280×720) is another option but could require re-encoding to 480p before using in an editor because it’s a huge jump in pixels per frame. Ideally the camera will allow 480p and 780p at various bitrates. If you consider the requirement for viewfinder and Mic input you will only really find solutions in the video camera world. Combining a digital camera with these video requirements results in very little choice.

As for bitrates for the final upload file, it will depend on final codec and resolution. To ensure a reasonable chance of using 3g services to upload the file, a bitrate of around 2mbps needs to be used. For a 480p resolution it means you really need an advanced codec like h.264 to preserve the quality.

So in summary, mpeg2 at 854×480  at a relatively high bitrate seems like a good source and editing choice. Output files should be the same resolution but at around 2mbps bitrate in the h.264 codec.

What does jkkmobile use? He currently records in mpeg2 at a 16:9 ratio. Resolution is 960×540, bitrate either 6 or 9mbps. He converts that down to 854×480 which is 480p resolution. I’m not sure what format and bitrate he outputs to send to YouTube. If he has enough cpu power he will be using h.264 but he may be using wmv or something else that it is a little easier on the CPU. He certainly has the optimal settings for source files.  His camera is a Canon FS100 which you can’t buy any more. There are other SD cameras from Canon that also offer 16:9 capture though.

A quick step back to the world of camera products shows that 1080p rules and it’s difficult to know exactly what alternative resolutions a device will offer. In addition, h.264 is the popular codec which at anything bigger than 480p resolution, will be a problem.

Can CUDA do all that we require or are we going to have to rely 100% on a general purpose CPU? From what I have read and been told, most video editing software that is CUDA-enabled is doing so on output to h.264 only. I’ve seen test result with mpeg2 source formats too so mpeg2 again looks like the best source format.

There is only one way to find out. I’m arranging an Asus 1215n loan device for CeBIT next week and I plan to do as much testing as I can. I will use JKKs cam to create some 16:9 mpeg2 source and test it with some CUDA-enabled software. Power Director from Cyberlink looks like a good starting point.

Many thanks to Think4IT Solutions for offering to help us with this project.

Stay tuned for part 2 which should come after CEBIT.

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