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Please install the ATI Stream Encoder Plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and evaluate it in the course of your video editing projects. We are looking for feedback and recommendations to help us make future versions even better. We want to make modifications as close to real-time as possible, so please keep the feedback coming.

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Has this been tested yet for FirePro cards such as the 3750 or 5700?  Definitely could use this in a DCC workflow.

Also is this using OpenGL for the acceleration via Stream?

Will this plug-in work with intel cpus in the near future?

Any chance the MSI will be a bit less restrictive and permit Windows 7 users to test this out?  I just got a "Needs Vista SP1" error!

I second this, no reason for just Vista SP1 users to benefit from this.  Open it to everyone, or release just the plugin file and no installer.  I'm sure we can all figure out which folder to copy it to.

Okay I don't know if mentioning workarounds using Orca is ok on here?If not let me know and I'll understand for the future.

I'm on XP x64 SP2

with the following hardware:

AMD Athlon 64 x2 4600+ (2.4GHZ stock)

4GB RAM

80 SATAII HDD

750GB SATAII HDD

300GB HDD (IDE)

ATI Radeon HD4670

If any of u r running a Non vista SP1 OS:use the following work around:

Load ORCA with the MSI,

Go to launch condition or something along those lines, remove the OS check line:

"{\TimesRed16}This plug-in can not be installed on this version of Windows; installation requires Windows Vista with SP1"which is next to "VersionNT = 600" and u should be able to run it, (Tell developers to improve compatibility with ALL recent OSes especially Windows 64bit based OSes)

if not you also need to remove something else in that category. This helped fix the problem  due to this error on my system even though my hardware was an ATI card HD4670. Tell developers to add compatibility with more cards.

"SYSCHECK1="yes"   OR installed""{\TimesRed16}AMDAdobePlugin: Could not be installed on this system because of missing hardware features.  See Release Notes for support details."

leave the Authentic AMD line alone! as you'll make things worse as this is only designed for AMD GPUs as well as CPUs from the looks of it.

ok when i install it and run it, it gives me an error "...removing plugin support..." or something like that as I cant remember the full message which means that premiere Pro CS4 cannot use it whatsoever.

I only posted the ORCA bits to help u guys and those who've had problems with installation despite having the required hardware and s/w setup.Hopefully the developers can make a better solution to the problems highlighted.

Hope this helps

:-)

Hello,

I have try to install the plugin on my PC:

Operating: Vista x64 Ultimate with SP2

processor: AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+

Motherboard: ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe

Memory: 8GB RAM

Graphic card: ATI Radeon HD4890

I have remove both lines in the msi file with ORCA (thanks to MegaManExtreme5 for this help).

The install's process begin but I receive the error message "Error 2356".

I hope that this plug-in will be avaiable on different operating and different graphic cards.

Windows 7 (failed)

Okay, I did the MSI trick and installed it on Windows 7 64 Ultimate RC. The plugin installed okay, and the plugin option *was* available (File >> Export >> Media). I tried encoding using "AMD Fast MPEG2" and "AMD Fast MPEG2 Blu-ray", however when the jobs were added to the Adobe Media Encoding queue, the "Start Queue" button was greyed out which I suppose suggests there is an incompatability. If anyone else had a different experience I would be willing to hear about it.

System:-

Phenom II x4 810 2.6Ghz

8.00GB DDR2 memory.

ATI 4870HD 1024MB graphics card

Gigabyte GA-M720US3 motherboard (AM2+ with nForce 720D chipset)

RAID 0 array

Vista 64 bit (success)

Next, I wiped the drive and installed Vista Business 64 bit SP1. I ran the Vista updates (still SP1 though), installed the latest ATI Catalyst drivers, installed Premiere Pro CS4, ran the updates, and opened a new HD AVCHD project I had been working on. I tested encoding a 1 minute video in 1080p, 720p, and PAL DV High Quality, first using the standard H.264 encoder, then the AMD Fast H.264 encoder. Here are the results:-

AMD Fast H.264 encoder

1080p - 53 seconds

720p - 55 seconds

standard DV - 55 seconds

Standard H.264 encoder

1080p - 2 mins 5 seconds

720p - 2 mins 3 seconds

standard DV - 2 mins 5 seconds

So I am seeing a 230% speed increase, or in other words, it takes less than half the time to encode video using the GPU.  The videos produced are of high quality and free of artifacts.

One thing worth noting about my spec is that AMD have only tested this using their own 6xx and 7xx chipsets (see the release notes). Mine is an NVIDIA nForce 720D and it seems to be working fine (on Vista 64 bit). 3P, maybe this could be why you are having problems, maybe it is the ATI chipset since nothing else in your spec is unusual unless you have not updated the catalyst drivers or done the Premiere Pro CS4 updates.

The organisation I work for needed a video editing PC, and it just happened that I came across this post the same day I was intending to make a purchase for a PC build, so I went with the ATI card instead of Nvidia. Since an Nvidia Quadro card was out of our budget I am pretty happy with the results. 

I would be interested to see if anyone has got this working with Windows 7, and also a performance comparison between the HD4870 card and HD4870X2. A crossfire v non-crossfire comparison would also be interesting.

I think to assemble a computer for that purpose

what's hardware is better ? it is better to use a nvidia chipset whit vga amd/ati ???

I think this after read your post .

MB MSI KA790GX AM2+ AMD790GX OR M4N78 ASUS

CPU AMD PHENOM II X4 940 QUAD CORE BLACK ED

8 GB DDR2 CORSAIR 5-5-5

150 GB VELC.RAP. WD 10.000

SVGA SAPPHIRE ATI HD4870X2-750 2048D5-1.8G
VISTA 64

anyone tried a PC with nvidia equivalent and  cuda on premiere ?

Although my nForce 720D motherboard worked without any problems I would stick to an AMD chipset since it might be a bit hit and miss at this stage given the lack of testing.

For only ever-so-slightly more money you could get an AM3 DDR3 motherboard, DDR3 memory isn't much (about 10%) more at the moment. The AM3 DDR3 Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P looks good.

Also, regarding the 10,000RPM hard drive, I am not convinced this is good value for money, they are really expensive. I think you would get better performance by buying x2 7200RPM hard drives and having a RAID 0 array. the WD Black 7200 hard drives are nice, they are cheap, and you will need more than 150GB for HD video editing.

Having 8GB+ memory is particularly important if you are planning on editing the AVCHD file format, as is Vista 64 bit.

I would be interested to see the performance you get with such a system, especially HD4870x2. 

Any idea if this plugin will also accelerate the editing process? Meaing will it be able to play AVCHD/H.264 footage in realtime? Assuming you have the correct hardware to follow... (quad core AMD, 8GB ram, HD4870...)

Hope to hear back from AMD or anyone else on the forum who has seen the difference.

Any OpenGL 2.0 graphics card will accelerate playback:-

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/systemreqs/

Pretty much any recent graphics card will handle this no problem. One observation though, when I tested Premiere Pro CS4 in Windows 7 playback was really choppy.

Hi Mike, thanks for the link.

I did my first try last night using Adobe Premiere CS4 with the latest update runing on Vista 64-bit.

Rendering using the AMD fast H.264 plugin was dramatically faster than the stand alone AME. As others mentioned i didn't not see any artifacts or frame drops/freeze, which is very encouraging.

So i jumped from 4min in rendering to almost 1.75min for a 1min clip with a cross dissolve at 30sec.

The only issue i notice was during my editing process in my monitor window, i wasn't getting 30fps in playback, it was kind of choppy. When my scrubber would go over and pass the "need to render for preview" section of the clip, which was the cross dissolve, the video would stop from previewing but audio would still play. I would then need to stop the preview and play it again in order for the video to preview.

I will need to conduct more tests but this is what I got so far. Anyone else experimenting the same issues?

Okay, try this workaround:-

If you set the priority of the ImporterProcessServer to above normal, it seemed to fix the problem (at least on the system I was working on).  To do this, open task manager, right click on the process and click Set Priority -> Above Normal.

I found this on this forum:-

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/415643

Apparently this is a CS4 problem and people have upgraded from CS3 where playback was smooth. I had choppy playback on Windows 7, but Vista 64 was okay for me, although others are suffering this.

I was putting togther a Intel parts list for a box to run CS4 Master Suite.

Stumbled on to this thread and would like to try the plug-in on a older Socket 939 box I have.

DFI nF4 motherboard

AMD 4800+

4 1gig Kingston Value Ram (PC3200)

I have 2 250gig Segate hard drives and a 80gig Hitachi.

Couple of questions on the drive arrangement.

Will putting the 2 Segates in RAID-0 with the 80gig Hitachi as the scratch disk be the best drive setup?

I will go and buy a PCI-express ATI video card at Fry's...Really do not want to spend a bunch of money on a card right now.

Fry's has a XFX HD4350 1GB video card for 59.00's...If that is not good enough could you guys recommend a ATI card for no more than 120.00.

I have Vista Ulitimate 64bit and would really like to give the AMD, ATI, Adobe setup for CS4 Master Suite.

Thank you for any and all advice on how I should set up the box using the above hardware.

Offically the nForce chipset has not been tested (only AMD chipsets), but my nForce 720 worked fine.

I think any ATI 4xxx card will work, however one with 1GB memory is a good choice given the large file sizes of HD video, and of course you will get better performance from the higher end processor cards. I think for the money (60-120) you could probably find a better card such as a 4650 (or maybe) an  HD4750 (I am not sure what your currency is); worth shopping around on the web for best value. Also a PCI-Express 2.0 card should work on your motherboard as long as it supports PCI-Express 1.1, worth checking I think.

Would be good to see the results of your test in terms of encoding speed, I have wondered whether having a decent graphics card for encoding now negates the needs for powerful quad core processors and/or a tonne of memory? This would be great news for budget system builders if it were true.

I do not know whether dual RAID + extra scratch disk would give a performance improvement or deficit over just using dual RAID. Perhaps worth trying it out? It wouldn't be hard to test. All you would need to do is setup your system with the 3 drives then encode something with your scratch drive on the Hitachi, then change the scratch folder location to the RAID drive, rerun the tests and see if they are quicker or slower.

Setup:

Windows 7 RC Ultimate Ed 64Bit

AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz Black Edition Deneb

8GB DDR3

2x750GB SataII HDD Raid 0

ATI Radeon HD4870 X2 w/2GB DDR5

Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P

Using MegaManExtreme5 tip for altering the MSI I got this to install just fine on Windows 7 RC Ultimate Edition.

The Problem is I can't see that its actually working. Using Riva Tuner during rendering and encoding leaves the both my GPU's at 0%

Do I need to actually enable it. Or am I just out of luck with Windows 7? Seeing as its officially being released in a few months, this would be mighty helpful to test out.

Hi Rustic,

I tested Windows 7 and the plugin does install correctly but did not function correctly when tested.

To encode you click "File >> "Export" >> "Media". When you click the "Format" drop down list you should see the options for "AMD Fast MPEG2", "AMD Fast MPEG Blu-ray", "AMD Fast H.264", and "AMD Fast H.264 Blu-ray" which have been added since the plugin was installed. When I tried encoding with these options in Windows 7, the process failed after loading Adobe Media Encoder because the "Start Queue" button was greyed out. I presume this is because Adobe Media Encoder is not recognising the encoding job which has been added to the queue. If you try this with Vista 64 bit it should work fine. Hopefully they will fix it soon so it works with Windows 7.

Ah, I didn't even notice the AMD Fast Encoding Options. Interesting though, they work for me.

Even more interesting though are a couple of points:

1. I can't make a complete direct comparison between AMD Fast H.264 and H.264 because with AMD Fast H.264 you don't get an option of CBR, VBR 1 Pass, or VBR 2 Pass. So I'm not sure what it's using.

2. Its working so much faster than H.264 but its only using 1 Core at its fullest and the other 3 Cores are hovering around 30-50%. With H.264 all Cores are at 100% and it takes much longer. So my guess is this is just different encoding of H.264

3. Its still not using my GPU's at all. Maybe this is a Windows 7 thing. But can somebody actually confirm with RivaTuner or some other GPU logging software that its actually using the GPU and not that it just goes faster?

UPDATE:

Just as a sidenote to the developers. I appreciate that you are trying to use the GPU for encoding. But in my opinion where it would benifit most would be in rendering and playback of effects unrendered in the Timeline. Use the GPU to actually playback video, that's what its designed to do.

"Its working so much faster than H.264 but its only using 1 Core at its fullest and the other 3 Cores are hovering around 30-50%. "

"Its still not using my GPU's at all. Maybe this is a Windows 7 thing."

Given what you have said here, I reckon that Riva Tuner is not giving you accurate results for GPU usage for some reason. I would expect that there would be far lower CPU usage if the GPU is being used, so this is logical.

However, these results on there own are very interesting. The only reason people have been using quad core processors for HD video editing is because the encoding takes ages. This really lowers the bar in terms of hardware, it should be possible to have a decent dual-core system system with plenty of memory, stick a half decent ATI card in there and it will edit and encode HD without a hitch.