Review: ATI Avivo Video Converter Does Not Support Stream
◆ Avivo Video Converter supporting Stream technology proves to be a lie
Someone ever asked that why reviewers see so little GPU processing during transcoding. AMD explained that,”The ATI Video Converter uses the GPU for only a portion of the video encoding. Specifically, the GPU currently offloads only the motion estimation portion of the encoding pipeline which is the most compute intensive part of the encoder. The GPU is particularly well-suited for this task. Given that a fixed workload is being offloaded to the GPU the load on the GPU may be relatively low or high based on the specific model of GPU.”
If this is true, then Radeon HD 4870 should have outperformed Radeon HD 4670 during transcoding. But in fact, they took almost the same amount of time. We know that Radeon HD 4870 is over 3 times more expensive than HD 4670. According to our test, the conversion speed of Avivo VC depends on CPU’s performance, not GPU’s.
We ever assumed that Avivo Video Converter hasn’t been optimized very well, after all it’s the first version for open downloading. But when we find GeForce graphics cards can also run Avivo VC normally (not slower than AMD Radeon cards), the fact is uncontestable.
To put this simply, ATI Avivo Video Converter is just a video transcoding tool based on CPU computing. The so-called Stream acceleration is a mere scrap of paper. In another word, AMD is cheating on millions of users of Radeon graphics cards. To be sure, ATI Avivo Video Converter works at acceptable speed, and you can get it free of charge. But considering worse quality of video and other limitations, the users of Radeon cards had better expect more powerful CPU.
On the other hand, Badaboom does bring us good speed and quality. The users can actually enjoy the benefits of GPU acceleration. Anyway, all the manufacturers should have known that, down-to-earth working is always more important than just talking big. We sincerely hope that the to-be-released softwares supporting Stream acceleration such as Cyberlink Power Director 7 and Arcsoft TotalMedia Theater can provide Radeon users with some real benefits.
Page 2: Introduction of ATI Avivo Video Converter
Page 4: Different transcoding speed with different GPUs?
Page 5: Quite Different transcoding speed with different CPUs?
Page 6: Avivo Video Converter works with high CPU usage?
Page 7: Avivo Video Converter supports GeForce graphics cards?
Page 8: Speed & quality of conversion
Page 9: AMD Stream is a lie?
January 15th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Your favorite critic here…
Let’s start with the funny stuff…
“The only thing ATI Avivo VC can do is to convert videos.”
Well it’s a damn video encoder and not a popcorn maker, ain’t it?
Don’t mind the slang, it’s just to improve the sarcasm!… will keep it to a minimum… the slang I mean, not the sarcasm!
In the test, you made a statement that what ATi has offered is a fake, no?
You wrote this:
“The so-called Stream acceleration is a mere scrap of paper.”
and
“AMD is cheating on millions of users of Radeon graphics cards”
Can I point you to some mistakes in your assumption? I know I can!
Problem is if you would accept them on your site?!
“Radeon HD 4870 should have outperformed Radeon HD 4670″
This is not accurate on two things…
One, in that statement made by AMD it was never mentioned which models! I’ll get to the relevant part in a moment! For all that matters the ATi Avivo VC can be used by all GPU’s and IGP’s that are stream processing capable if the installer allows the installation! (that’s just a device ID verification… and it can be overcome) So from very-low to high end cards and mainboards and you actually used it with the competition’s product!
Two, the relevant part, neither you nor anyone outside AMD knows how the VC works internally… based on your findings I cannot draw the same conclusions as you did… but I can only think of a possible explanation: it’s using just a limited amount of shader units and it is speed depending. What I’m quoting next has relevance to this.
[GTX being able to run ATi Avivo VC] “not slower than AMD Radeon cards”
That’s because both 4870 and 4670 run their shaders at core speed which is 750 MHz, significantly lower than the GTX which is around 1200 something MHz. So yes, accessing faster shaders will result in faster processing times! Care to contradict?
THIS FACT ALONE PROVES THAT SHADERS ARE BEING USED IN THE PROCESS!
True, not like Badaboom, but far from being “a mere scrap of paper” or “a lie”!
“To put this simply, ATI Avivo Video Converter is just a video transcoding tool based on CPU computing.”
But not CPU computing alone… the official statement says it all!
[page 5] “Has Avivo VC really used GPU for video conversion???”
Testing two different application for resemblant behavior doesn’t prove your statements! It just proves you’re a bad and biased tester!
Like I said earlier, you don’t know how that app works internally so any statement drawn from that comparison is simply dumb! The CPU might be a bottleneck for the GPU since it shares some tasks as to Badaboom does most of the work on GPU level… but that’s just my speculation where you just make biased opinions!
Next one’s important so take your time!
Wanna care to explain how Badaboom “does bring us good speed and quality” and how “the users can actually enjoy the benefits of (payed) GPU acceleration” when in your tests a video converter that allegedly is based on just CPU computing matched and even beat Badaboom in it’s task?…
If ATi Avivo VC is just based on CPU computing how is it that it’s not significantly slower than Badaboom? as it should be… otherwise how can users “enjoy the benefits of GPU acceleration” if a free CPU based encoder solution (on SP enabled systems, any as you found out) can beat a 400$ + 20$ video converting solution?
Sorry Sue, I looked at the articles author just now… should I expect my comment to be deleted or an honest answer?
January 15th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
do ou work for AMD?
i agree with you, but you so much stressed!
January 15th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Congratulations guys. A great article. Similar article was published by AnandTech before and they got similar results and conclusion too.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3475&p=8
January 15th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
I agree with Emm.
Seriously if a CPU based video converter performs on pair with a GPU based one than AMD made a nice converter. And well it’s free and supports GeForce(pun intended) than I must say AMD did a favor for nVdia users who don’t want to pay for a video converter. Also I think that the performance of the 4670 and the 4870 was so close because the 320 SP of the 4670 are enough for the process. And besides this converter should be optimized fo the las gen cards as well so a comparison between a 3850/3870 and a 4870 might yield different results. If the Avivo convrter doesn’t support hs 3k series than scrap this last part.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Emm, AMD fanboys tend to be the most annoying and the quickest to be ignored. Don’t be that way. Just state your case.
Maybe we could downclock the NV card to match the AMD’s shaders (sad, but necessary). Can shaders be disabled to also give a more level playing field.
Also, did you try the ATI cards with Badaboom?
January 16th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Wao. Please next time try CUDA. Like encoding with TXMPEG with CUDA enable and disable. It use CUDA driver with CUDA apps in my Dell Latitude D630 and it doesn’t give many improvement, neider did Badadoom. Many desktop review that I read seem show the improment, but when I test it in my Notebook (it has support cuda in nvidia official homepage for NVS 135M) I didn’t seem like the one happening in the review
.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Did anyone remember that Ati AVIVO VC has been released few years ago? One of the website has manage to hack in (AVIVO VC Hack) to work on many VGA beside ATI? And they also have the same conclusion that AVIVO VC is work only on CPU. And here is now, few years letter, it still have the same attitude.
January 16th, 2009 at 11:28 am
ChaQra, no dude, I don’t work for AMD… I said it once before, jan and feb are boring months with less work, so I do what I can in the meantime since we have internet access!… stressed? no… bored? a lot!
Alan, you didn’t ignore me and my case: objectivity instead of subjectivity, that means biased opinions (or hatred) on a site that’s supposed to bring NEWS and not discredit one company for a preferred one. Watch the movie Heckler (2007) and in the 2nd half you’ll see what people that write such articles actually care about! And, dude… comment was aimed at Sue… you don’t want to read it? Skip it!
True Hok, the the stream capabilities were only activated in catalyst 8.12.
Still begs the question what “benefits of GPU acceleration”?
No one has answered it!
January 16th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
seems to me that higher quality transcoding to be a huge benefit.
benefits go beyond transcoding (photo editting, dynamic effects w/ Photoshop / After Effects in the CS4 suite are amazing) with features like PhysX and 3D stereoscopic gaming.
all the “proof” is still just speculation as it’s unclear specifically how AVIVO works. one thing is for sure, all of ATI’s recent moves shadowing NVIDIA creates alot of question, doubt, and wonder as to when they’ll help drive the industry forward.
January 16th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
lol emm stop trolling, its quite apparent why the CPU based conversion was so much faster.
Look at the end results, note how the ones done by badaboom look much crisper and clearer, perhaps because more computational work went into it?
To have a GPU accellerated task rely so much on the CPU defeats the purpose, which begs the question (for ati) why bother?
I’d like to see another benchmark run with a 7 series geforce or something, to see if avivo actually uses the GPU AT ALL.
I’d really put money on it not doing so, ATI is Terrible with their drivers, let alone software thats supposed to work with them..
January 16th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Man , when expreview.com get so pro nVidia and so anti ATI? . ATI avivo is a great video comverter and its free to .
January 16th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Im suspecting that ATI AVIVO VC code uses the beta of openCL if it is able to run the Geforce cards…hmmmpp…why not? right?
January 16th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
fuck has expreview gone down hill,
do you realize that ATI Avivo converter is still highly in beta stage? it’s not taking full advantage of the GPU yet, ATI also admitted this.
the article is highly biased so thanks for wasting 5 minutes of my time, did you get sued by ATI or something that’s why expreview has gone so pro-nvidia lately?
no I’m not an ATI fan, I have an Nvidia GPU right now in fact. It’s just stupid articles like these tend to lead some gullible people to the wrong conclusion… especially the Nvidia fanbois
January 16th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
ONE MORE BIASED REVIEW AND IM TAKING EXPREVIEW OFF MY FAVORITES
January 16th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
ok, just for the record, even badaboom uses cpu decoding for some formats
January 16th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Can i point something out?
AMD say: “Given that a fixed workload is being offloaded to the GPU the load on the GPU may be relatively low or high based on the specific model of GPU.
this doesnt mean faster gpu=faster encode.
it means that a faster gpu will show a lower loading than a slower one on the same system because in both cases your waiting for the cpu a lot of the time – thik cars.
70mph speed limit (cpu) 6l turbocharged car can still only travel at 70mph – thats the limit. it may well have a vastly superior engine to a 1.2l fiesta but both can drive along at 70 just fine. but raise the speed limit (overclock the cpu – please someone validate??) and the 1.2l gives up at 85 the 6l turbo does 200+
consider alternatively, in a hugely CPU limited game, running a mid range or high range gpu wont make any difference to frame rate so long as your cpu limited…
do a compair against a totaly miserable gpu on a hugely fast cpu and a fast gpu on fast cpu, should show a good change then (or not) proving (or disproving) amd’s offload
or, just monitor gpu power useage/temperature during encode -.-’ its not hard folks
January 17th, 2009 at 8:09 am
The point is that AMD advertised dishonestly. That’s the issue… It’s not that Clinton shagged an intern, its that he lied. AMD’s marketing department put rims on a KIA Sportage and called it a sports-car. Nothing is wrong with AVIVO or KIA Sportages – just say what they are, that’s all.
January 17th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Agree with ‘poo poo er’… AVIVO VC is great tool but lieing that tool uses STREAM technology of GPU while its actually using the power of CPU is shameful giving wrong impression on customers.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:01 am
To poo poo er and Ranjeet:
How so? What proof was presented in this article to say that the video was not used? Even they said themselves that they don’t know how avivo video coder works. Therefore, I cannot agree with your conclusion because it’s clear you did not properly read their review.
In a nutshell all that was proven is that the program does use the CPU. But haven’t ruled out the possibility that it can use the video card. The former part is obvious. But the latter part of the sentence above comes in when they tested the 260-216 using avivo and it beat the 4870. LOL, to me that proves that the program is using gpu. So to say otherwise is completely false unless it’s proven.
Also, I did not see any pics, etc to show any measurements or programs that the gpu was or was not used.
January 18th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Ok. First, sorry for my poor english,I´m not native speaker at all.
One question.
If the program is running with ATI Stream technology… in some stage of the decodification, little or big…
WHY is the program working with the nvidia card? NO ATI STREAM support at all with this graphic card. And the speed is the same or better than with “ATI STREAM” capable GPUs.
If with this nvidia card “WORKS” AVIVO, the program WORKS in a ALL SOFT MODE, not in a ATI STREAM mode.
Then, or ever this program are running without ATI STREAM, or this program uses ATI STREAM for very weak stage of decodification.
Or… The presets and config of the program used by Expreview are RUNNING without ATI STREAM (unsupported), but other presets and configs of the program runs with ATI STREAM (partial support).
Anyway, the speed is fast (and the expected speed for this program) with the Expreview presets, so this case has very weak facts behind it, and the former case, the case of AVIVO VC without ATI STREAM support, has more credibility.
A test of the GPU thermal Stress running this program can give more evidences.
If the GPU thermal stress is slow with the HD4670, by example, this could be a evidence for a “fake ATI STREAM support” with AVIVO VC.
January 18th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Silk says: “LOL, to me that proves that the program is using gpu. So to say otherwise is completely false unless it’s proven. ”
A Lot of LOLs XD…
The nvidia cards, ALL OF THEM, hasn´t ATI STREAM support. This technology DOESN´T RUN with them, NO WAY FOR THIS!!. If this program runs, and runs well with a nvidia card, THIS IS your evidence of the lack of ATI STREAM SUPPORT WITH AVIVO!!!!
January 18th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Page 9, paragraph 4:”The so-called Stream acceleration is a mere scrap of paper. In another word, AMD is cheating on millions of users of Radeon graphics cards.”
I see EXpriview have no problem mocking a company knee deep in dept, while the only thing guilty of is provide a FREE video converter for its valued customers.
This article(and maybe even this site) is so biased, it’s sad…
January 18th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
#22:
The negation of evidences isn´t equal to the lack of evidences:
AVC with nvidia card=AVC with ATI card -> ATI STREAM isn´t running at all.
“the only thing guilty of is provide a FREE video converter for its valued customers.”
No, ATI is guilty of provides a AVC with ¡¡¡FAKE ATI STREAM!!! and ATI “sell it” (yes, is FREE!! oh my god!!, but you need to buy/have ($) a HD4600/4800 fot it) as a transcoder WITH ATI STREAM support.
It´s so sad… if you read something that you dislike it, then you close your eyes..
January 18th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
You need to buy an ATi card to use the FREE encoder… lol
Reverse psychology, uenthywo?
I think it’s the other way around… if you already have an ATi card you can benefit from the free Avivo VC… if you have an nV card, you should buy or Badaboom if you badly need it!
Nice try… at making me laugh!
Check this:
http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_4.html&lang=en_US
The CPU vs GPU comparisons are particularly interesting.
January 19th, 2009 at 3:07 am
Idiots, the graphics cards are fun to play, not to start wars!.
January 28th, 2009 at 5:24 am
ATI offer u more free thing over nv
Like i now Download My lovely Game Half Life2 DeathMatch & Lost coast .
February 6th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Great ! I will add this to my bookmarks. TY
February 8th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
My quick test: AVIVO VC vs Canopus ProCoder3
Hardware: P4 Celleron 3GHz, 1gb RAM, ATI X1650 – 512MB card and Catalyst 8.12 for X1xxx series.
Source: MPG2 from DVD Camcorder, 720×576, 25fps, AC3 256kb/s, 6’17″
To VCD:
AVIVO approx 9′
Canopus 3’45″ (one pass…)
To DVD 720×576, 6000kbps:
AVIVO approx 20′
Canopus 6’50″
To DivX 640×480, 25fps, approx 3000kbps, MP3:
AVIVO approx 14′
Canopus approx 9′
To iPod 320×240, 25fps, approx 200kbps:
AVIVO 5’55″
Canopus 8’32″
To VMW 640×480, 25fps, approx 1000kbps:
AVIVO 8’12″
Canopus 22’24″ (…one pass)
The AVIVO have much poor quality. The AVIVO eat 100% of my CPU. The AVIVO isn’t for old hardware.
February 15th, 2009 at 3:15 am
lame article…should be flushed down
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
AMD AVIVO converter is still beta even though it’s not said so!! they don’t even have a 64bit version available!! At least it doesn’t work on my vista HP 64bit. I really like amd but i can’t use their software due to software compatibility.! This article was good to create a situation but too ofensive!! Try to keep it cool till it’s compatible with all windows versions then we can start a fight again.
April 2nd, 2011 at 3:36 am
This is getting a bit more subjtive, thank you to make me think this way .