$200 Mpeg2 encoder card!

[cjyo~]

My friend from Japan sent me a note about this card which is supposed to come out next month in Japan for around $200 (though it currently lists for $450 on the website). Hopefully this is the beginning of the flood of cheap mpeg2 cards...
http://www.pentamedia.com/navis.html

Low Cost Real Time MPEG-1/2 Encoder

NAVIS is cost effective MPEG-1/2 encoding solution for consumer. NAVIS fully integrates MPEG-1/2 Audio and Video encoder on a single board. You can make your high quality video clips, video titles and streaming media.

NAVIS supports real time variable bit rate encoding up to 8Mbps with various stream types(Program stream, Transport stream and Audio Only). Also, NAVIS perfectly matches with none linear editing software such as Video Studio, Adobe Premiere and so on.


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[wkulecz]

In the April 17th "Electronic Design" there is an article on the iTVC15 chip from a company called iCompression.
http://www.icompression.com

Real-Time encoding and decoding of MPEG2 audio and video. Supposedly can encode one program "in the background" while decoding another. Looks like this chip and some SDRAM for frame buffers is it. $29 each in 100K quantities. Supposedly they offer complete software support for the windows environment including the "latest DirectShow filters".

Let the price-war battle begin :-)

--wally.

[paulw]

Looks interesting. But it appears only to have video inputs not video out so I guess that you will have to retain your existing video card or go buy a new one that will support the output. A card that does both would be better.

[Phire]

8mb sounds nice, except for that variable bitrate :P that means a DC10+ at 6 would probably outpreform it in some situations.