QuadroCX card for faster H.264 encoding

A new graphics card has been released, whose main benefit is faster H.264 encoding from Adobe Premiere Pro. What is H264? H264 is one of the three formats you can use to store video on a Blu-ray disc, and the one that is used for most professional discs. Its a variation of MPEG, so the same kind of format as is stored on a DVD but more advanced and cleverer. You can squeeze the video more using H264 and still get the same quality achievable with MPEG2 but in a smaller space. This means you can fit more onto a Blu-ray disc in H264 than MPEG. It is a format for Blu-ray discs not DVDs.

The Quadro CX can encode HD video to H.264 can be nearly twice as fast as an Intel i7 processor can achieve on its own. Its does this by using the special CUDA chip found on high-end nVidia graphic cards - with the CX being the only card that has this enabled for Premiere Pro 4. To encode yuo simply use the Adobe Media Encoder and instead of choosing the regular Adobe presets you chose nVidia's settings.

5.1 Dolby encoding included as standard

The nVidia options don't just include faster H264 encoding - they also include proper 5.1 Dolby Digital encoding. With Premiere, although you can mix Dolby Digital you cannot encode it to the right format for a DVD without paying for the full Surcode plug-in; so by getting the Quadro CX you save yourself a couple of hundred pounds.

Why buy this and not the Grass Valley FireCoder Blu?

The FireCoder Blu is a great device that does excellent quality it has limitattions. The Quadro has more options and is more customisable than the FireCoder Blu. It can do constant bit rate, and one and two pass Variable bitrate - the advantage of the latter exactly the same with Blu-ray discs as it is with DVDs.

Its chief appeal, however, is that it encodes directly from the Premiere Pro timeline. The Firecoder does not - nor will it ever - offer this function, so if you are using it in a Premiere-based system you need to make an AVI or MPEG file and then encode it as a separate process. This would take time and rob the FireCoder Blu of its speed advantage. The Qauadro also works with both Black Magic and Matrox cards. Its a great card to use with a Matrox because the Axio and RT.X2 both use the gfraphic card for thir 3D work, and the Quadro is a high powered 3D graphic card.

So the Quadro CX is ideal for Premiere Pro users who want fast output to Blu-ray, while simultaneously maintaining a high quality of conversion. It won't be for everyone (the price is quite high at present, particularly when compared with the Firecoder Blu), but it will make a valuable addition to professional Blu-ray authoring set-ups.

The card itself is actually quite large and has some big fans included; it will take up the equivelant of two slots in your PC (although this is rapidly becoming the norm for graphic cards). It has on DVI output and two display port outputs - with and adaptor included to turn one of these into a regular DVI port. We were impressed at how quiet it ran in operation.

The Quadro CX card is currently priced at £1,599 +VAT

You can order it from the DVD Webshop.