14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft recently released the first service pack for Expression Encoder 4, an upgrade which is currently available for download for customers running both the free and the pro versions of the tool. Expression Encoder 4 Service Pack 1 (SP1) represents a step forward in relation to GPU acceleration capabilities when used in concert with NVIDIA CUDA-accelerated graphics processing units.
The “release of the Expression Encoder 4 Service Pack 1 (SP1) can accelerate the encoding process and radically increase the number of streams your PC is capable of delivering through support for NVIDIA CUDA-accelerated GPUs,” revealed a member of the Silverlight team.
But in addition to providing the first upgrade for Expression Encoder 4, the software giant is also offering additional resources to help customers embrace GPU acceleration.
The Redmond company published the “GPU Encoding in Expression Encoder 4 Pro SP1” whitepaper, authored by Eric Juteau, Principal Software Design Engineer in Test on the Microsoft Expression Encoder team and available via this link.
The white paper is designed to explain the importance of GPU encoding. However, the resource is also focused on offering customers step-by-step instructions for leveraging Nvidia CUDA-accelerated GPUs.
Juteau also provides advice on the limitations of GPU capabilities as well as best practices, recommended PC configurations, and troubleshooting techniques.
“While Expression Encoder can take advantage of the GPU's power in the editing phase for decoding, pre-processing and rendering the preview window, it has been idle at encoding time in our earlier versions. Wouldn't it be great to harness its power to encode too?” Juteau asked.
“That is exactly what we introduced in Expression Encoder 4 Pro SP1 by integrating the new Main Concept H.264 CUDA encoder into our encoding pipeline.
“The result: improving encoding performance by a factor of 2-3x over CPU alone for offline cases, and enabling some Live Smooth Streaming scenarios that weren't possible with software-based encoding, like encoding 3 or 4 HD streams in real-time using a high-end laptop.”
Expression Encoder 4 SP1 RTM is available for download here.