Is HEVC encoder worth purchasing? (Hardware encoding on Nvidia GPU?)

pmikep wrote on 10/26/2015, 4:28 AM

Update: If you inspect the mx_enc_hevc.vex file, you'll find

ComDll=mx_enc_mpeg_intel.dll

ComDllx64=mx_enc_mpeg_intel_x64.dll

Looks like the HVEC encoder only works with Intel CPUs. Rats.

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Okay, I recently upgraded to MEP 2016 Plus. I notice it has a new encoder just below the H.264/MP4 encoder, HEVC. I tried to export a video using it and find it's a 5 USD purchase.

Well, the price is low enough. I don't do 4K video (and never will). So I don't really need it. But I'm curious if anyone has purchased it and if it does hardware encoding on the latest Nvidia graphics cards with the latest (non-CUDA) Nvidia drivers? That is, does it support NVENC? i'm looking for an answer from somone who has actually registered the encoder and has acutally used it with a non-Intel chip GPU.

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 10/26/2015, 5:46 AM

. . . . I don't do 4K video . . . .

The HEVC codec is not limited to just 4k video - you can use it for 1920*1080 as well.

HEVC is also known as h.265 which is a successor to h.264 - see here

The most likely usage you would have, is for HD video on the web - where you need maximum compression to reduce the file size without losing quality.

At which point comes the obvious question which devices support h.265 - but that is another topic.

HTH

John EB

pmikep wrote on 10/26/2015, 8:50 AM

The highest res I've done (and ever expect to do) is 1280 x 720. I don't expect HEVC to compress any better for that than H.264 does already. I primarily want to get the video encoded on hardware instead of the CPU. According to the Nvidia website, my graphics card, an Nvidia GTX 960 supports both HEVC encoding and HEVC decoding. (Maxwell chip set.) I've already got MPEG set to decode on the GPU - although I haven't done any testing to see if it's doing it and/or if it's any faster than doing it on the quad core, 3.8 GHz CPU.

MEP Plus 2016, v15.0.0.77; Win 7 Home, 64-bit, SP1 + patches.

Hi

. . . . I don't do 4K video . . . .

The HEVC codec is not limited to just 4k video - you can use it for 1920*1080 as well.

...

HEVC is also known as h.265 which is a successor to h.264 - see here

HTH

John EB

johnebaker wrote on 10/26/2015, 10:12 AM

. . . . I don't expect HEVC to compress any better for that than H.264 does already . . .

On the contrary, the compression capabilities are much higher than that of h.264 - on average by a factor of 2 - the file sizes are significantly reduced.

IMHO you have the cart before the horse - it is not a question of whether you want to use the GPU or not, but what your intended target audience is for the video you produce.

If it is for the Internet and you are hosting the video where it does not get converted then HVEC is relevant and the fact that you can encode on the GPU is a bonus.

HTH

John EB