In Part 4 we looked at a €399 AMD Fusion-based Lenovo S205. Through a number of video editing software tests I managed to get an acceptable 720p rendering speed out of the device which would be OK for short projects. For 480p output, it was good though.  In this article I’m taking it up a notch in processing power to an Intel ‘Sandy Bridge’ based 13” laptop. It’s the lightweight Samsung 900X3A and given the right software, it’s proving to be a fantastic machine for 720p editing, rendering and uploading for YouTube.

Before we start though, a reminder of the aim and parameters set for the project. The parameters I’ve set for the project are shown below and you can read about why these parameters have been set here.

• PC and video editing software to cost less than 600 Euros
• PC to be less than 1.5KG with 12” 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
• Video editing sotware must include watermarking, overlays, crossfades, and multiple audio tracks.

At 1.33KG the Samsung Series 9 (900X3A) is light but with the 13” screen, is bigger than I’d like to see. The screen size (1366×768) does have some advantages at this size though. It’s matt and bright too which means it is good for working outdoors. A 128GB fast SSD helps too. There is an 11” version of the 900X3A available to order if the 13” screen is not to your tastes. If it looks and sounds like an expensive laptop, it is. It’s well outside the target price of 600 Euro. You won’t be able to find the 900X3A for much less than 1400 Euro at the moment but don’t let that put you off because this is a premium device that’s one of the first in the market. Intel are promising sub $1000 devices based on the same platform as the 1.4Ghz Core i5 in the Samsung 900X3A and as time goes on, those prices will drop further and during 2012 I expect devices of this calibre to be coming down fast to 600 Euro.

You’ll find a full review of the Samsung 900X3A over at Ultrabooknews but let’s focus on video production here.

First thing to note is the lack of full-size SD card slot. It’s a big minus in my opinion. A micro-SD card slot is available but I really don’t recommend swapping micro-SD cards about. The full-size adaptor with eventually fail and there’s a high risk of dropping or losing a micro-SD card. The solution is to use a USB adaptor for the SD card or a standard USB connection. High-speed cards are a must for high bitrate videos so make sure your adaptor is a quality one. The Series 9 supports USB3.0 but you shouldn’t need that. One of the ports can be used as a charging port when the device is off too which could be handy.

The excellent SSD in the Series 9 works at up to 220MB/s so for large programs like Power Director 9, there’s no hanging around waiting for it to load up. YOu might find it load faster than on most desktops in fact. Moving files around, duplicating and general file work is quick too which really helps to smooth things along.

The CPU/GPU combination in the Series 9 is known as ‘Sandy Bridge.’ It’s the second-generation Core processor from Intel and makes significant processing power gains over the previous generation. It’s an expensive platform but as well as raw CPU power and acceptable low-end gaming GPU power it also includes a hardware video decoder and hardware video encoder for some formats. Support for the video encoder is not widespread though. HDMI-enables full extended screen working but remember that the audio is routed digitally and you’ll need an audio decoder in your monitor.

As with the Lenovo S205, I’m using 12Mbps 25fps 720p from a Nokia N8 and converting it to 720p at 30fps with  a bitrate of 6mbps. The laptop is set to high-power mode (no mains power.) Remember, this isn’t a comparison of video editing suites, it’s a test to see how much editing and rendering power and time can be had from the Samsung 900X3A (and by definition, from other notebooks based on the same CPU/GPU/Chipset combination.

Video Editing Software

Cyberlink Media Espresso.

Cyberlink Media Espresso does a fantastic job of converting video. A 7 min H.264 video was converted in just over 60 seconds which is exceptional. It matches the frame rate automatically though and despite setting a 6mbps bitrate, the conversion completed with a 4mbps bitrate.  It bodes well for video rendering using Power Director, the video editing tool from the same company. Note that this is a pure video conversion tool and no clip editing or sequencing is possible.

One feature in Media Espresso which could be a real advantage for mobile video creators is the YouTube upload feature. I was able to throw in a 6mbps 720p file for upload which was converted down to 1.8mbps to match YouTube minimum requirements. It results in fast upload speeds and fast conversion speeds at YouTube. A 180MB 1080p file was converted down to low-bitrate 720p and just 33MB in size. Upload speed was obviously 5x faster than the original and the conversion time at YouTube was about 2 mins for 360p and another minute for 720p. Ignoring the video editing tools for a bit, this is one tool that could seriously help beat the clock on uploading YouTube videos. When you’ve got time you can always upload the high-bitrate version at a later time.

Cyberlink Power Director

Over the last 5 years I’ve seen consistent support from Cyberlink for low-level hardware. Early VIA UMPCs had video decoding hardware that was supported by Cyberlink. The recent AMD Fusion platform is well supported and the same is true here with the Intel Quick Sync Video technology.

Despite trying a wide range of settings though, I couldn’t get Power Director to work as fast during standard video clip conversion as Media Espresso. Using a single clip without any affects I was able to achieve a 6:48 conversion time for the original 7:38 clip which is good, about 3 times faster than the Lenovo S205 with the same challenge, but there seems to be a more complex operation going on in Power Director that results slower conversion speeds than with Media Espresso. Using the default hardware acceleration settings (hardware decode only) I only saw a 30% average CPU load. Turning off the hardware decoding though does result in higher CPU load and slower processing (about 2x.) It wasn’t until I spotted the ‘Trial Software’ watermark on the rendered video clip that I realised what might be happening. The Intel Quick Sync encoder can’t work efficiently if there’s an overlay being applied. I’m checking this theory with Cyberlink right now and will update the post when I get new information or am able to test without the text overlay being forced.

Update: Thanks to Cyberlink I was able to test a fully licensed version of Power DIrector. I couldn’t get any more speed or CPU load out of the system so clearly there’s something else that may need optimising. 720p conversion rates remained at just under the 1X real-time mark – about 3x faster than the AMD E-350 based Lenovo S205 and easily 5x faster than a standard Intel Atom netbook.

At this stage we can say that Intel Quick Sync does work in Power Director and this test case, a 720p 12mbps source, gives a 2x increase in rendering speed (with watermarking) but there could be more. Using other clips, 1920×800 at 8mbps for example, I began to see some limits where the hardware encoder wasn’t helping to increase the speed (but was helping to keep CPU usage low and therefore battery drain minimised)

In the best cases (using Intel Quick Sync video) I saw an average of about 18W being used with a peak of 25W, possibly while the Sandy Bridge Turbo feature was being used (until the thermal controls turned it off.) In terms of speed per watt energy consumed, that’s easily the best I’ve seen so far. On a fully loaded battery, the Samsung Series 9 900X3A could encode about 2.5 hours of 720p timeline cuts, fades, titles and sequencing. On the Lenovo S205, you’ll get about 1hr of encoding completed. On a netbook, well, you don’t want to go there with 720p editing and encoding!

Heat and Turbo

Intel’s Turbo Boost technology is interesting and useful in some situations. In video rendering situations though it’s not so useful due to the way it works. Thermal monitoring means that if the CPU core reaches a fixed temperature, the Turbo boost feature will be restricted. In CPU-bound, multicore tasks like video rendering, both cores will reach operating temperature very quickly and Turbo will be turned off. In some cases I saw just 9 seconds of Turbo boost but it depends on ambient temperature and the process being used. For video editing (not final rendering) Turbo boost works well because it’s only need occasionally. It has major advantages but not in video rendering.

SVRT

SVRT is a feature in Power Director that detects if the source and destination file formats, frame rates and bitrates are the same. In they are the same (or similar in some cases) the source file is not re-rendered completely. Only fades, titles and effects will be re-rendered.. In other cases, the file is ‘passed through’ to the output thus vastly increasing rendering speeds. With the N8 source files I was unable to achieve this. Interestingly, by passing the source files through Media Espresso it converted them to a format that was compatible with the SVRT process.

This pre-conversion process may not be the highest-quality way to treat video clips but for our YouTube target, it’s an interesting process and could, for videos over say 5 minutes, could shorten the rendering time. There’s a second advantage to having Media Espresso in the toolchain too because it does a very good job of converting and uploading files for YouTube. There’s also the option of using some simple clean-up tools although that will extend the rendering time by a lot.

Other tools

Again, this article is not meant as a review of video editing software but during the series I’ve mainly been focusing on two software packages. The Cyberlink solutions covered above and the Corel Video Studio Pro X4 solution that I’ll talk about now. The reason? They both offer sub €100 solutions, include support for hardware and specialist libraries like OpenCL and they include enough capability for the average mobile video process. These aren’t pro tools but where speed is important and YouTube is the audience, pro tools are often too much.

Using Corel Video Studio Pro X4 I wasn’t able to get quite the speed of rendering that I saw on Power Director and there was no indication that Intel Quick Sync Video was supported although the ‘hardware encode’ option did appear. I wonder if the Intel Quick Sync technology is actually used. After 20 or 30 different tests I was not satisfied with the speed and efficiency of Video Studio Pro X4 and abandoned this a a choice for the Sandy Bridge platform.

Adobe Premier Elements is another popular mid-range editing suite and it does support Intel Quick Sync technology via an Intel plugin (available here.) In my tests I felt confident that more was being pulled out of the Series 9 that with the other two programs although power usage was higher by about 10% than on Cyberlink Power Director 9. Because of the plugin there are specific settings for using the Intel Quick Sync technology and it’s possible to force the use of the hardware. In an initial test though, the video failed to finish its conversion. In all cases video direct from the N8 was misinterpreted as 500fps video and could not be used until I passed the source video through Media Espresso, process that takes time and obviously will degrade the source material.

By using these ‘cleaned’ files and creating a 1 minute timeline of fades, titles and including a ‘demo software’ the process was completed in nearly 2X real time – 37 seconds for a 60 second video. I had no problem in editing or rendering these pre-converted files.

In a test of a standard bridge camera 720p file I downloaded a sample from a Canon SX30is in 720p at 21mbps. The file was easy to work with in Adobe Premier Elements and rendering speed down to 6mbps with fades and edits was almost as fast as with the ‘converted 6mbps file from the N8. Conversion down to sub-2mbps for YouTube and subsequent upload and availability was

The software is very flexible in creating output formats although the user interface didn’t seem as intuitive to me as Power Director. Given that Intel Quick Sync support will be important for the professional version of Adobe Premier, it’s very likely that the Intel Quick Sync technology will get continued support and end up as a core part of the software. At this stage though, it might not be prudent to rely on this two-part solution for professional use.

For the purposes of this article though, it proves the potential power of the 2nd-generation Core i5 platform.

Summary

Both Adobe Premier Elements and Cyberlink Power Director confirm that a 1.3KG laptop can be used for comfortable and efficient 720p video editing and rendering. The hardware encoding and decoding in the 1.4Ghz Core i5 platform is clearly helping and in comparison with the Lenovo S205 that I previously tested, you can get a lot more done within the duration of a single battery charge. That’s very important for mobile users. Given our requirements, the Samsung 900X3A is a little expensive and with only 100GB of disk free, there are some storage limits that will have to be offset with a USB3 hard drive but as a platform, Sandy Bridge (at a measly 1.4Ghz) proves it can offer 720p editing and rendering in 1.3KG. Of the video editing suites tested, Power Director and Adobe Premier Elements come out on top for performance with Adobe Premier Elements leading the way assuming source files work correctly with the system.  Cyberlink Media Espresso works amazingly fast to convert files down to usable sizes for even faster editing and rendering and also, fast upload times.

In the video below I give you a demo of edit, render, convert, upload and view on YouTube. It’s a 720p 22mbps file from a Canon SX30IS (This sample was used) and the whole process takes 8 minutes.

Note on stability

In tests with Adobe Premier Elements, I saw a number of program crashes. This is of major concern as project work was lost as a result. I didn’t experience crashes on the other editing packages.

Note on Quality

The quality parameters for this project are fairly loose. I’m not looking for the best quality codec but I’m looking for an acceptable 720p full-screen experience on YouTube. At 2mbps, 720p videos are going to be lacking in a lot of finer detail but for YouTube, that’s the way it is. Editing in higher bitrates and converting using Media Espresso for a final YouTube upload leaves the original available for use later if required.

Next Step

For me, this ends my work to analyse low-end solutions because I know that in Sandy Bridge-based Ultrabooks I’ve found my solution. The next stage is to buy a device, make a final decision on the software and get to work creating content. Right now the Asus UX21 and Cyberlink Media Espresso and Power Director 9 are at the top of the list due to ease and smoothness of use and acceptable rendering speeds.

Thanks to Samsung Germany and Cyberlink for their help with this article. (Loan hardware and software provided.)

Thanks to Samsung Germany I am now using a rather swish and expensive Series 9 (Model 900X3A) 13″ laptop running the new Sandy Bridge ULV platform. This isn’t a UMPC of-course but it’s not here for ultra-mobile testing, it’s here for two other things. Firstly I want to use it for the next part of my Ultra Mobile Video Editing series and you’ll see that happen here are UMPCPortal. Secondly I want to start tracking the Ultrabook category very closely as I believe it is not only an important low-power platform for laptops but could, in a few generations, drive sub 1KG Windows devices that will range from sub 1W always-on, to 15W power-houses, exactly what I call High Dynamic Range Computing. They will challenge netbooks for size and power utilisation and include premium features like Wireless-Display, Light-Peek and security subsystems that can be used to stream and store high-value content. There will be a price premium of course but that should reduce to hit the top-end of the netbook range meaning Atom has a positioning job to do. You can follow my work with Ultrabooks over at Ultrabooknews.com

Read the full story

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” 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” Intel Atom solution: Asus 1215N (Intel N550 + Ion2 with 16-core CUDA) 1.45KG
• 12” 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” devices will remain out of scope because of size. I have to draw the line somewhere and I feel that 13” 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” 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.

Posted from WordPress for Android with the Galaxy Tab

In podcast 55 we were live at IFA. In podcast 56 we were recorded live in San Francisco at Intel’s AppUp Elements Show.

In the podcast, sponsored by Intel, we talk about the Intel Developer Forum and Intels AppUp program.  Sascha (Netbooknews, Twitter) and JKK (JKKMobile , Twitter) join me (Chippy) at the table.

Audio-only version along with show notes and subscribe links is over here at MeetMobility.

Again, thanks to everyone that joined in with the Viliv N5 [information] Live Open Review session tonight. Through pure perseverance I got my N5 from Fedex at the Cologne airport today [Note: Don't try and pick something up from there unless you have two hours, passport, vehicle registraion docs and want all the posessions in your car to be scanned!] and we did a good 2.5hrs of testing with hundreds of visitors via the live session over Ustream. It was a live unboxing for me so my first impressions will come later this week but in the meantime, here are the live recordings we produced.

Update: All videos now available on YouTube.

Part 1 – Unboxing Overview. (12 mins)

Part 2 – JKK Overview, Video performance, Q&A (30 Mins)

Part 3 – Further testing and Q&A including summary. (43 Mins)

If you haven’t been following the to-and-fro related to video codecs and HTML5, let me give you a quick update. There’s been a fight over whether H.264 or OGG Theora should be used as the video codec and two problems exist. H.264 is currently free to use but it has to be licensed. In 2015, those license may (or may not) cost money. OGG Theora on the other hand is open-source and will remain free. The problem with OGG Theora is that there are questions begin asked about whether it uses patented methods. If those methods are challenged and proven to be patented at a later date, adopters could face problems. Mozilla wants to take the risk with OGG. Apple wants to go the HTML5 route. [Good article here at ARSTechnica goes into more detail.]

Google have another solution. Back in Feb they acquired ON2 Technologies. ON2 have a codec product called VP8 and Google have today announced that they will open-source the codec and offer it free, along with a new container (a subset of Matroska) and the OGG Vorbis audio codec under a new project called WebM. Naturally the first question that arises is ‘will VP8 stand up to a patent challenge?’ Having a company like Google behind it means that it will be an attractive target but it is likely that Google have done a fair bit of homework here and given that it is coming with wide industry support, someone is going to have to think carefully about how they challenge. The same question is considered in this interesting and detailed post about VP8 performance.

Obviously we won’t see a big change overnight so there’s no need to worry about your hardware video decoder at the moment but over time, everyone in the video game is going to have to think about implementing encoders and decoders in hardware because what just happened today is great for online video and is likely to take root quickly. A major player, the owner of the worlds largest online video archive is putting all it’s weight behind a good quality, open-source, license-free video codec, audio codec and container.

Ti have already announced that VP8 hardware decoding is part of their next-gen OMAP4 platform and I’m sure we’ll see other announcements soon. In the meantime though, we have to think about software decoders. Apparently there’s a Windows DirectShow filter already available, FFMpeg already has patches available and Gstreamer support (used in WebOS, MeeGo and many other Linux-based distributions) is coming soon via Google. [More information at OSNews.] We’re likely to see software support for it in Android (3.0?) and support will be built into Flash too although I expect this will be software-only for the time being meaning it probably won’t come to ARM-based platforms for a while. It could be a few years before we see hardware-decoder support in flash.

In summary then, feel good about the announcement today, don’t worry about hardware decoding support for the time being (H.264 will be around until at least 2015 and following this announcement we could see a counter-move by the MPEG-LA Consortium) but look out for announcements from your favorite platform manufacturers over the next year because decoding video in hardware is critical for battery life on handheld internet and media devices. Intel aren’t included as in the list of supporters but as a company that prides itself on the full internet experience, they’ll have to do something. It will be a good question to ask them at Computex in a few weeks.

Google announcement.

Here is a short demo of chromeTouch, a Google Chrome extension which enables touchscreen and inertia scrolling within Google Chrome. Works great if you’ve been waiting to find an alternative to Firefox and the Grab and Drag addon!

Find chromeTouch here.

I also mentioned another extension that I added to increase the smoothness of the scrolling, that is called Chromium Wheel Smooth Scroller.

Many of you know this already. Restive screens don’t require a conductive path to register an object on the screen which means you can use plastic styli, nails and other objects to write on the screen. Capacitive screens require a conductive area, like a finger, in order to register anything on the screen making handwriting, annotations, mark-ups, photo editing, drawing, sketching, digital painting and the like almost impossible. You can’t use capacitive screens with gloves either so come the next ice age, the iPhone sales are going to suffer

What better way to see what I mean than by watching a video. Here’s a nice, jolly one from Maraderz that demonstrates the effects perfectly.

Of course there are other options. Digitiser screens use a special, active pen and can detect pressure and hovering and eliminate ‘vectoring.’ The LS800 tablet had one and is was cool to use. If you’re interested in this area, also check out multi-touch resistive screens (the Viliv S10 has one) and ‘palm rejection.’ Also remember that resistive layers on can get easily scratched because you can’t cover them with hard glass.

Screens are covered in detail in the Mobile Computing Buyers Guide.

Netbooknews.de has the IdeaPad S10-t3 [Product page] and pops the box open to let us all have a look. This multitouch convertible looks quite slick and comes with a massive battery. They were even kind enough to include an English unboxing (embedded below) in addition to their usual German one.

At Computex in June 2009 I had a press meeting with Anand Chandraseker and one thing he mentioned as the press challenged him about netbooks and smartbooks was the fact that Moorestown could make a good platform for smartbooks. If I remember correctly, the words he used were ‘a better smartbook than ARM-based products.’ (Analysis here)

ARM platforms are scaling well and in mid-2010 a multi-core ARM processor will be able to reach processing power levels that are close to what we’re seeing on Atom (with a single core.) The power envelope of a Moorestown-based tablet or smartphone won’t be significantly higher either so when you think about Moblin, its stability, its brand and potential for a lot of Intel-backed marketing, the code-sharing that’s happening with Nokia and its Maemo teams, its ‘appup’ store, its roadmap, and the support it’s getting from leading computer manufacturers you can see a lot of advantages over skinned WinCE, non-existent Chrome OS and re-hashed Android open-source models.

Proof that tablets and ‘smart’ devices are possible was given in the keynote speech and I’ve included the relevant 5-min segment below. You’ll also here a very interesting line in the first 20 seconds. Paul Otellini specifically mentions that Nokia is in partnership with Intel ‘around’ the Moorestown platform. That could be the software development work that’s going on (Nokia and Intel are sharing a lot of software across Moblin and Maemo) but it could be something else too!

Skip to the following segments for specific information on the key elements from the Ultra Mobile section of the keynote.

00:21 ‘We’ve announced partnerships around Moorestown with leaders like LG and Nokia’

02:00 Multipoint (3-way) video conference on Moorestown smartphone. (from Vidyo.com)

03:40 HD movie demo (720p)

04:30 Open Peak tablet demo. (Note e-reader application)

Next stop: Mobile World Congress, Barcelona.

We are actually rather intrigued by the Kohijnsha dual screen DZ series netbook as a pro-focused mobile productivity device and hope to be bringing you some first hand coverage soon. For now you can take a look at some good videos from Wow-pow-blog which has a three part DZ series video review. We’ve got the first embedded below, and you can view the other two parts by jumping over to Wow-pow.

[NewGadgets.de] via [Liliputing]

Here’s an unboxing of the UMPC that might just get an award for ugliest device of the year!

It looks to be more usable than the UMID M1 that we think it is based on which puts it in that category of devices like the WiBrain which sometimes turn out to be very useful devices indeed!

Via

Source: Wow Pow.

A very warm welcome to the HTC Touch HD2 into the MID/Phone crossover category of devices. It coincides nicely with the work I’ve been doing today to update the product database with all the WVGA phones out there. I’m trying to write a summary article too but this unboxing video from Chris at SlashGear is keeping me away from doing that right now!

The HD2 is due to launch this week with availability in the following few days. Pricing is already available in Germany too with latest prices hovering around the very expensive 599 Euro mark.

Clearly though, a multitouch capacitive touchscreen with Opera Mobile 9.7 on a 1Ghz Snapdragon CPU is something rather special and with the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS and Sense UI adding to the experience, I think it adds up to make it of the most exciting ‘Slate’ style high-end phones out there and definitely one that readers here should check out.

Chris will be getting into some more testing with the HD2 over the next few days and it will be interesting to see where he thinks this one fits in. Unlike the (240 Euro) Archos Android Tablet that I use as a secondary device, this (600 Euro) tablet is targeted at being a primary device. Is it really going to slot into the 24/7 usage scenario or is it designed to be used as part of a two-smartphone strategy?

More details on the HD2 here.

Slashgear have written an article that accompanies the video. Check it out here.

I’ve just packed 13 mobile devices for Mobile Dev Camp and uploaded a video that introduces what I’ll be talking about at MDC. Hope you can make it.  If not, stay tuned here for updates from the event tomorrow. More details here.

My MDC coverage is sponsored by the Intel Insider program. Many thanks to Intel.

[As I post, the video is still being processed by YouTube.
If the video doesn't show, please drop back later.]

Sascha Pallenberg from netbooknews and our very own Chippy had a nice little debate about the advantages and disadvantages of the MID vs. the Netbook, and they also touch a bit on the Atom Developer Program which will cross both device groups.