“The ultimate dilemma for entertainment will be the decision whether or not to directly implant the entertainment into the neuro-biological path. The step preceding will bring entertainment directly to the sensory interface, on the eyes, in the ears, and on our skin. The experience will be multi-layered. I will be able to modify my experiences by transposing synthetic images and sounds on top of real ones. I will be able to modify the world I see much like wearing rose-colored glasses. To counter-balance our desire to live in a modified dream-world, society will impose habits and rules which prevent over-indulgence. Until then, I suggest you enjoy your relatively benign home theater and personal media players. They are only a whisper of what is to come.”

-        Inez Drew

I don’t think that we will need to consciously think about converting video in the far future. I expect that PCs and media players will dynamically recognize, convert, shuttle, and play our media with fantastic, automated ease. Today, however, the process does not have the same fully automated ease but thanks to the ATI Video Converter, it’s getting simpler. The tool is a free part of the ATI Catalyst^TM 9.5 driver designed for PC’s with ATI Radeon^TM HD graphics. To see how to use the tool in media workflow, read on. You can also check out my “how-to” video for the ATI Video Converter.

Most people start with video from a few sources and play it back on just a few devices. We start with something and convert (which I have notated with “→”) to something else compatible with our target use. My most frequent conversions are listed below.

Digital Camcorder → DVD | Portable Media Player |  HDTV

Original 720P HD Video → DVD | Portable Media Player | Digital Media Adapter for HDTV

Windows PC Video → Portable Media Player

And here again, this time with the native formats for each:

Digital Camcorder [Standard definition MPEG2] → DVD [MPEG2] | Portable Media Player [DIVX & H.264]|  Home Theater PC for HDTV [720P or 1080P H.264 or MPEG2]

Original 720P HD [MPEG2 and H.264] → DVD [Standard definition MPEG 2] | Portable Media Player [DIVX & H.264] | Digital Media Adapter for HDTV [720P H.264]

Windows PC Video [Windows Media 9] → Portable Media Player [DIVX & H.264]

With the free ATI Video Converter, I can complete all of these conversions by simply stepping through the tool.*  The ATI Video Converter supports my major conversion tasks and more, supporting these and many other format conversions. Customized settings for portable media players such as the PSP and iPod can be selected directly as an output format.  This list is not comprehensive but shows how the capability of the tool maps to my video conversion tasks:

MPEG2 → 720P H.264, 1080P H.264, DIVX and others

720P MPEG2 → DVD Sized MPEG2, DIVX, 720P H.264, 1080P H.264 and others

Windows Media 9 → DIVX,  DVD Sized MPEG2, DIVX, 720P H.264, 1080P H.264 and others

The tool works quickly and in my own tests on an AMD Phenom^TM II X3 or AMD Phenom^TM II X4 based PC kept more than half of the systems resources free for other tasks. On my PC with AMD Phenom^TM II X4 940 with ATI Radeon^TM HD 4870 graphics I was able to convert a 720P MPEG2 video to iPod H.264 format in about half the full length of the video, and I then converted the content to  H.264 video in about the same time as the length of the video, all in the background while my PC had plenty of resources for other tasks.

AMD is working with independent software makers like Cyberlink to implement ATI Stream technology in their tools. ATI Stream technology is the underlying software technology in the ATI Video Converter which helps to balance the video conversion tasks across the central processor and graphics processor to speed performance and keep more system resources free for multitasking. More on ATI Stream technology and these applications in a future entry.

The ATI Video Converter is included in the new ATI Catalyst drivers version 9.5 which can be downloaded at www.amd.com. Also, be sure to check out Nigel’s new blog on ATI Stream technology. If you are interested in more great software from AMD you can read about Fusion Media Explorer here.

*  Use of the ATI Video Converter requires a system containing an ATI Radeon^TM HD 4600 series or ATI Radeon^TM HD 4800 series graphics card

Simon Solotko is a Senior Advanced Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.