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Cell Chip Coming To the PC Via a PCI Express Card
arcticstoat writes with an excerpt from Custom PC: "After developing a brand new CPU architecture from the ground-up, you'd expect that Toshiba, Sony and IBM would have more uses for the Cell architecture than the PlayStation 3, and Toshiba has been quick to make use of the architecture's HD video transcoding abilities in its new Qosimo laptops. However, Leadtek is now taking Toshiba's efforts a step further by putting the chip onto a PCI-E card for desktop PCs. The WinFast PxVC1100 is based on Toshiba's SpursEngine SE1000 processor, which is a cut-down version of the Cell chip. The SpursEngine chip features four SPEs (synergistic processing elements) based on 128-bit RISC cores, along with H.264 and MPEG-2 codecs, but it doesn't contain its own CPU as the chip in the PS3 does. The chip is capable of encoding and decoding H.264, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video streams in hardware."
This spurs engine sounds just like an extra GPU...
Why not just go with CUDA or some other GP-GPU platform and avoid the hassle?
I know nVidia and AMD/ATI are doing H.264 decoding in hardware using their GPUs... I'm sure you can get software for encoders too.
Sigs are for the weak.
As op, it would have to be cheaper than the parts in your computer it negates for it to be worthwhile, and even then, linux support is unlikely. If it was cheap enough to make 1080p x264 decoding not require an ati or nvidia graphics card and a modern processor, it would be good. But my quadcore and onboard nForce video is able to do it, so unless this card + like a celeron could do it, it isn't worthwhile
Most feature hardware DEcoding (such as those you linked to). Few feature hardware ENcoding, as TFA does.
Decoding .264 isn't really such a big deal. The ability to do low-cost multi-pass 1080 h.264 encoding at greater than real-time is something that would be EXTREMELY welcome for my company. We're a video post production house and we burn *LOTS* of CPU cycles encoding video for delivery to clients. A sub $500 card that greatly streamlined that process would be VERY welcome. Especially if it's something you could do as a background process that effectively didn't interfere with the operation of the edit suite.
-Steve http://www.stevennicholson.com
sweet, i can finally have my PVR record programs before they actually air!
but seriously though, how much is this card going to cost? is it just for professional video processing or will there be other uses for it as well? i wouldn't mind having one of these things for a PVR/media center, except for the fact that it needs a one-slot cooler, meaning it probably runs hot and noisy.
i was imagining how cool it'd be to have one of these + VIA EPIA/Eden micro-ATX (what's the smallest form factor that supports PCI-E?) for a HTPC/DVR. that is until i read that the card comes with a one-slot cooler. that would suggest that the processor runs pretty hot, and the slot cooler would probably make a good deal of noise.