AVCHD-capable software and video processor accelerate HD nonlinear editing - Technology Trend at CEATEC JAPAN 2008 (2)

AVCHD-capable software and video processor accelerate HD nonlinear editing
Technology Trend at CEATEC JAPAN 2008 (2)

　PCs and audio-visual equipment that treat HD video in Blu-ray or AVCHD format are becoming increasingly popular. Blu-ray and AVCHD formats employ H.264 codec with high compression. Accordingly, video editing software packages supporting those formats are finally showing up.

　At CEATEC JAPAN 2008 also, video editing software venders demonstrated the latest products and technology mainly for the general users. They emphasized their earnest support for AVCHD and practical features for editing HD video (Figure 1).

Bottlenecks: delay in software support for AVCHD and heavy burden on PC

　Since 2006, consumer electronics manufacturers such as Sony, Panasonic, and Canon have released HD video camcorders into the market back to back. However, there were few video editing software packages that supported the AVCHD format until 2007 or so.

　Also, even when a bundled video editing software that support AVCHD was used, it was quite difficult and impractical for the users to edit AVCHD video on a PC unless the PC was equipped with the latest and expensive quad core CPU. Therefore, the users were only able to watch the recorded HD video either on the camcorders per se or AVCHD-capable Blu-ray Disc players as a status quo.

　Those who recognize AVCHD is troublesome to handle HD video data still tend to prefer the HDV format that is based on MPEG-2 codec and nimble to treat or an intermediate format developed originally by a video editing software vendor.

Progress on the software side and support for dedicated video processors

　In 2008, such situation surrounding AVCHD began to change rapidly. Application venders, who offer video editing software, back to back started supporting video input from AVCHD camcorders (Figure 2).

　At CEATEC JAPAN 2008 also, some venders demonstrated AVCHD-capable video editing software, underlining the present situation that the trend towards HD is steadily moving ahead in this field.

　At the booth of Toshiba Semiconductor Company, who offers SpursEngine as a video processing engine, four vendor companies (SpursEngine partners) demonstrated their products around video editing or presented vender seminar sessions.

　First, Corel showed their DVD authoring software, DVD MovieFactory, supporting SpursEngine (figure 3). It has been bundled with a few models of Toshiba's own Qosmio, entertainment notebook PC, equipped with SpursEngine, and already offered on the market. Recently, Taiwan's Leadtek Research, also at present in Toshiba’s booth, has announced that they will offer WinFast PxVC1100, a SpursEngine board, also bundled with DVD MovieFactory (Figure 4).

　CyberLink, although undecided on the product release timing, showed PowerDirector supporting SpursEngine (Figure 5). Also, Mr. Shinichi Bitoh, Managing Director and General Manager of CyberLink Japan, gave a vender presentation on their solutions related to SpursEngine, such as PowerDirector and TrueTheater technology (Figure 6).

Figure 5: CyberLink's exhibit panels on PowerDirector supporting SpursEngine

Figure 6: Presentation by Mr. Bitoh, Managing Director and GM, CyberLink Japan

　Thomson Canopus demonstrated a SpursEngine-powered board, Firecoder Blu (Figure 7 and 8) and EDIUS Pro (Figure 9), video editing software, supporting the processor. Most EDIUS users are professional video editors or creators, and even the amateurs are experienced in video editing. Given Thomson Canopus' adoption of SpursEngine, it is expected that AVCHD-capable software and nonlinear editing systems will spread to business use in addition to prosumers and general users.

Figure 8: FIRECODER Blu installed upside down in the bottom PCI-Express slot

Figure 9: EDIUS Pro, AVCHD-capable video editing software by Thomson Canopus

　CRI Middleware, a middleware developer for entertainment software, demonstrated CRIWARE for SpursEngine: CRI Sofdec Encoding & Decoding Library (Figure 10). The company is planning to release their product as a library or middleware for the software developers. Nonetheless, they say they may plan to commercialize an end-user product by themselves by adding a simple user interface, depending on the customer needs, if any. Shown on CRI Middleware’s roadmap was a plug-in for After Effects, a visual- effects tool by Adobe Systems, as a candidate for specific commercialization (Figure 11).

Figure 10: CRI Sofdec, Encoding & Decoding Library, by CRI Middleware

Figure 11: CRI Middleware's roadmap for CRIWARE for SpursEngine

　Software that applies GPGPU methodology to video editing includes LoiloScope that Loilo, Inc. demonstrated at AMD’s booth (Figure 12). LoiloScope features a unique interface different from conventional video editing software products and easy operation. Loilo said it was developing a version that supports acceleration with AMD/ATI’s GPUs.

Acceleration techniques for HD video editing may split and spread

　As confirmed at CEATEC this time, there is no doubt that video editing software and nonlinear editing system supporting AVCHD will become popular in the future. The current focus is whether utilization of GPU as the video processing engine will become the mainstream or a dedicated video processor such as SpursEngine will spread broadly.

　Application vendors show different attitudes on this matter, and some companies are scrupulous in supporting a particular platform for HD video processing. However, each acceleration technique for HD video editing may coexist with one another and spread. That is because the needs for video editing, such as cost, features, performance, image quality, ease-of-use, and so forth, differ for each user segment.

　For example, Pegasys has immediately expressed their support for video acceleration with GPGPU, given the advantage of processor hardware already available to the users. On the other hand, a vendor employee we met at CEATEC this time had an opinion that "among processor devices currently available, it is only SpursEngine that allows to practically process high-quality editing of H.264 video such as AVCHD or Blu-ray."

　In the medium and long terms, it seems obvious that conventional tape media formats such as DV and HDV will be eventually replaced with nonlinear media formats such as AVCHD or AVC-Intra. During the transition, the existing users will switch over to the nonlinear formats from DV or HDV. Also, there will be new users who begin HD video editing, accompanied by video sharing sites that adopt high-quality HD video. After all, the HD processing market as a whole, such as AVCHD-capable PCs and peripherals, video editing software, nonlinear editing systems, and so forth, is expected to grow.