OpenCL or Cuda?

[dedica]

About to make the purchasing decision, but there's one last thing clinching it.
The only large downfall, for me, is the lack of any GPU acceleration, which puts it
several times slower than other programs. (Video Enhancer's results look MUCH
better, yet this is a very uncompromising factor. I'd say one of the most important.)

I'd guess this kind of acceleration probably needs ground-up reprogramming, and yet
it's probably the single biggest thing holding Enhancer back.
Example: Even though v(crap)Reveal barely does anything to videos, this single speed-
increasing feature gets it praised like gold. It's arguably a much worse program than
Video Enhancer, too. (All their program does is turn blocky videos into blurry ones,
and it can't even currently handle HD, but folks with graphics cards are hooked on
the speed and extra use of their GPU.) I actually don't think it's marketing that's keeping
this program less known than it deserves. (It's a great program, and people know it.)
I think it's the lack of this one feature, at a time when graphics card computing power
is exploding.

In a powerful program like Video Enhancer, where this could finally be USEFUL, it would
be an irresistible deal clencher. Even the upcoming HD-crapReveal couldn't stand a chance.

I'd like to know, are there currently any plans to include either of these technologies
in a VE product, and if so, in a 1.9.x release so current owners could benefit?

[Dee Mon]

You're certainly right.
We're thinking about GPU support for a long time but lack of human resources keeps this subject unexplored. This year we made CPU-based realtime super resolution for youtube-size videos with nice deblocking and scene change detection. It's going to be included in the next release coming this month. GPU was planned for version 2.0 however now it seems like v2.0 will have more UI changes and filter support (think instant preview with Photoshop-like layers), keeping GPU support for later future.

[dedica]

You're certainly right.
We're thinking about GPU support for a long time but lack of human resources keeps this subject unexplored. This year we made CPU-based realtime super resolution for youtube-size videos with nice deblocking and scene change detection. It's going to be included in the next release coming this month. GPU was planned for version 2.0 however now it seems like v2.0 will have more UI changes and filter support (think instant preview with Photoshop-like layers), keeping GPU support for later future.

It's very good to hear GPU support is at least planned.

I have a BIG question to add to that, then:

I still love this program, but GPU support is kind of a clencher for me.
Mainly I wouldn't want to have to buy a different full retail version,
leaving the 1.x.x as a waste, in the trash.

if I were to grab this now, would there be an upgrade option for people with 1.x.x?
(since we're not elligible to update past a 1.x.x) For example, subtracting the purchase
price of 1.x.x from the GPU version? (Or if they're the same price, a small upgrade fee?)

[Dee Mon]

Sure, there'll be upgrading options - either totally free for owners of previous versions or a big discount.
Keep in mind that GPU version development hasn't even started yet and no one guarantees it will succeed, so you may spend too much time waiting for it.

[dedica]

Thanks for the answer, and the assurances.

Well I definitely have high hope that this succeeds, because imho this is the only program that
even deserves such a feature. The couple that have it either have no Super Resolution, or very
minimal (basically useless) versions, and they just don't DO much, although they do it quickly.
They just don't even compare to what VE could do with GPU technology. It seems like
GPUs were almost designed for VE, and it's sad to see them apart.

Nonetheless, the assurance of GPU-version upgrade options if/when it succeeds, is enough to
make me dive in and get this great program. With or without acceleration, the super-res here
is just something you can't find anywhere else.

*One slightly unrelated question, if I may:

I think of youtube videos as being similar to (and sometimes taken with) mobile phone video,
which up until now just hasn't been viable to upgrade, according to the FAQ:
http://www.thedeemon.com/articles/when_super_resolution_doesnt_work.html
Might this upcoming feature help somewhat with mobile phone video, or is it mainly for
other types of youtube video?

[Dee Mon]

Thanks for your compliments! By the way, can you tell the names of products you compared VE with (other than vReveal)?

What's said in that article remains true - highly compressed video shot by mobile phones and low-res youtube video has too much information lost and SR is virtually useless there.
The new SR engine has these features:
1. Scene detection to minimize ugly artifacts present in current SR on cuts.
2. Nice deblocking which can benefit youtube and other highly compressed videos:
  http://stuff.thedeemon.com/deblocking.png
3. It works in YV12 colorspace - native colorspace for many codecs, so it's much faster and when there's no VirtualDub filters in the chain all processing can be done without converting to RGB32 and back, saving a lot of time.
4. It's a bit simplified comparing to current SR modes, which makes it much faster.

So basically it will be just one more mode for SR - the quickest.

[dedica]

Definitely.

The programs I refer to are mainly the ones demo'ed on the Nvidia power pack site.
(Badaboom/vReveal/TMPGENC)

Out of those GPU accelerated programs, only 1 has (crappy) super res, and the
others are just speedy. They process incredibly fast for the kinds of filters used,
although they don't compare to VE's results by any means. It's just a shame
one can't have VE's quality in that kind of acceleration.

[themaster1]

If you can have your algorythm working  with Cuda with a good fps encoding, it'll be a killer i tell you man.

I myself plan to buy a good nvidia card with cuda support..that's the future.
Everybody likes encoding videos, tweak and everything but certainly not the time it cost and not using your computer because "VE is working".
For professionnals it may be otherwise as they got plenty of fast computers at their disposal generally.

The need is here and so is the market.
Cheap price & Cuda support will be the winning combination for the next 5 years.

[Dee Mon]

Thanks!
From what we see there are still not so many videocards supporting CUDA. We were thinking about using more general GPU APIs like HLSL for Pixel Shaders 3 or Cg. That would allow running the task on most modern cards, not only supporting CUDA. But until we try to implement it there's no guarantee it will work.