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NVidia GPU-accelerated H264-encoder plugin, ready for public testing

Guest
Jun 27, 2013 Jun 27, 2013

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Hi all,

I have written a 'proof-of-concept' GPU-accelerated H264-encoder for Adobe Media Encoder (CS6).  It requires an NVidia 6xx/7xx series "Kepler" GPU (CUDA capability 3.0), and uses the dedicated GPU's builtin hardware-encoder (NVENC) to offload the H264-encoding process from the host-CPU.  This software is "proof-of-concept", so it's missing some critical features (no interlaced-video support, no AAC-audio or Dolby AC-3 audio), and of course, it could be buggy!  But it's free.

!!!! Disclaimer: NVENC-export is third-party software that is not supported by either Adobe or NVidia.  It comes with no warranty -- use at your own risk.

Software/hardware Requirements:

(1)Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 or Media Encoder CS6 (Windows version)

Sorry, MacOSX is not supported. (NVidia NVENC SDK doesn't support MacOSX.)

(1)NVidia Kepler GPU <GKxxx> with 1GB VRAM or more  (GTX650 or above, GT650M or above)

(Sorry, NVidia Fermi <GFxxx> is NOT supported, it doesn't have the NVENC hardware feature)

Note,if you have MPE-acceleration enabled, keep in mind the NVENC-plugin consumes some additional VRAM because it uses your GPU to perform H264-encoding.

Strongly recommend a 2GB card

(2) Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 SP1 x64 redistributables

          (download this from Microsoft's website)

Installation instructions:

     In Adobe Premiere Pro CS6:

     (1)      On your system, locate the installation-directory for Premiere Pro CS6.

               Usually, this is C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Premiere Pro CS6

    (2)     Copy the included file Plug-ins/Common/nvenc_export.prm

               to <installation dir>/Plug-ins/Common/

     -> To choose the NVENC-plugin in Premiere Pro,

          In the format-menu, select <NVENC_export>

     In Adobe Media Encoder CS6:

     (1)    On your system, locate the installation-directory for Media Encoder CS6.

          Usually, this is C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Media Encoder CS6

     (2)     Copy the included file Plug-ins/Common/nvenc_export.prm

          to <installation dir>/Plug-ins/Common/

     -> To choose the NVENC-plugin in Media Encoder,

          in the format-menu, select <NVENC_export>

Performance & quality notes:

(1) How much faster is NVENC-export than Adobe's built-in Mainconcept H264 encoder?

Depends on your PC system.  On my test-system, which is ordinary desktop PC with Intel i5-3570K (4-core 3.4GHz), NVENC-plugin is roughly 4x faster than Mainconcept. On a dual-socket Xeon Ivy Bridge-E system, NVENC would probably only be 2x faster (in Media Encoder.)

(2)How does the video-quality compare?

Comparing similar settings/video-bitrate, Mainconcept performs better at lower-bitrates(less artifacts).  At medium-high bitrates, NVENC is comparable to Mainconcept.

(3) How does NVENC-export encode the video?

The plugin fetches videoFrames from the Adobe application, then converts the frames from YUV420 to NV12 surface-format (using host-CPU.)  Then it passes the converted frames to the NVENC front-end.  From here, NVENC hardware takes over, and handles all aspects of the video compression. When NVENC hardware is done, it calls the plugin to output write the elementary bitstream (to the selected filepath.) NVENC-hardware does NOT encode audio, nor does not multiplex the A/Vbitstreams -- this is still done in software (on the host-CPU)

The NVENC hardware block has very little CPU-overhead.  But since video-encoding is just 1 step in the entire Adobe rendering path, CPU-usage will likely still be quite high when using NVENC-plugin.

(4) What's the maximum-size video NVENC-export can handle?

H264 High-profile @ Level 5.1, which works out to roughly 3840x2160 @ 30fps. (Note the actual encoding-speed will probably be less than 30fps.)

(5) How fast is the NVENC-export hardware in Kepler GPU?

Assuming the Adobe application host is infinitely fast (i.e. can send video to plugin in zero-time), NVENC-hardware will encode High-profile (CABAC, 2 refframes, 1-bframe) 1920x1080p video @ ~100fps. At 3840x2160p (4k video), the hardware encode-speed drops to roughly 20-25fps.  That is still faster than a desktop PC.

NVENC-speed is generally same across the Kepler family - the high-end Geforce GTX Titan (or GTX780) is no faster than the entry-level Geforce GTX650, because all Kepler models share the same NVENC hardware-block, which is totally separate and independent of the GPU's 3D-graphics engine.

In premiere Pro 6, MPE acceleration will greatly affect how quickly Adobe can render video to the exporter.  So a more powerful Kepler GPU will probalby complete projects faster than a less powerful one (up to NVENC's performance ceiling.)  For more info, please refer to NVidia's NVENC whitepaper at their developer website (public)

(6) I have a multi-GPU setup, can I encode with multiple GPUs?

No, NVENC targets and uses only a single physical GPU.  (You can choose which one.)

Known limitations and problems:

NVENC-plugin is a 'proof-of-concept' program -- it is not a finished product.  So it's missing some features, and other things are known to be broken:

    • Interlaced video encdoing does not work at all (not supported in current consumer Geforce drivers)

    • Audio support is very limited: uncompressed PCM)

no AAC or Dolby-Digital

    • Multiplexer support is very limited: MPEG-2 TS only, using an included third-party tool TSMuxer.EXE

no MPEG-4 muxing (*.MP4)

    • When the muxed MPEG-2 TS file in Windows Media Player (WMP), there is no sound.  This is because WMP doesn't recognize PCM-audio in mpeg-2 ts files.  You have 2 choices; you can use a third-party media-player such as MPC-HC or VLC.  Or you can postprocess the audio-WAV file into a compatible format (Dolby Digital/AC-3)

    • in the pop-up plugin User-interface, the <multiplexer> tab is missing or not shown properly.

(To fix: Select a different codec, then re-select NVENC_export.)

    • Doesn't support older NVidia GPUs (GTX5xx and older, GT630 and lower)

Sorry, NVENC hardware was introduced with NVidia's Kepler family (2012)  Anything older than that will NOT work with the plugin.

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replies 421 Replies 421
New Here ,
Feb 22, 2017 Feb 22, 2017

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This problem does not belong to responsibility range of Adobe or NVIDIA because it is a plug-in. I can not submit this to Adobe. That's the reason why I reported to author to get the solution (not Adobe)

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New Here ,
Jun 23, 2017 Jun 23, 2017

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Anybody know how to fix broken first frame?

br.jpg

Here is url Битва Машин 3 | SDWLK | Снято в 4k on Vimeo

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New Here ,
Jul 15, 2017 Jul 15, 2017

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Unbenannt.PNG

is there a way to fix this? worked fine before, changed nothing(not even driver etc) and now it doesnt anymore...

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Participant ,
Jul 24, 2017 Jul 24, 2017

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I'm also waiting for help for this. Been a time i've uninstalled Pro 2017 because of it's killing update..

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Explorer ,
Sep 14, 2017 Sep 14, 2017

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There is a fix. Follow the instructions of this video. It worked for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErfcTfErtEY

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Participant ,
Sep 30, 2017 Sep 30, 2017

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YES!!!!...Works back again! =D. THANKS!!

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 18, 2017 Oct 18, 2017

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What is the latest version? And works with Adobe CC 2018 application?

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 18, 2017 Oct 18, 2017

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What is the download link? Sorry

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Participant ,
Nov 18, 2017 Nov 18, 2017

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It seems that any possible patch that was given in the CC 2018 version killed the GPU Patch thing in the youtube vid above... Giving me an error. There were no MS-DOS windows showing the progress of the stuff.

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Participant ,
Nov 18, 2017 Nov 18, 2017

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This is the error (Btw, even if i set CC App to English North America, Premiere keeps coming in Spanish.. Why?)

There's a small chance that perhaps Nvidia's newest drivers for DESTINY 2 from this week, perhaps, are the cause of this... That, or we need a new patch etc etc...And it just worked 2 days ago!!!!

7DPgClR4T6OMxlQuqaZ28Q.png

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New Here ,
Nov 19, 2017 Nov 19, 2017

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No pach.. Disable HWEncodeEnable

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Participant ,
Nov 19, 2017 Nov 19, 2017

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And where's that...?

Also, i think it could be Nvidia's drivers, since i rolled back to Premiere Pro CC 2017 and THE SAME ERROR HAPPENS!

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New Here ,
Nov 19, 2017 Nov 19, 2017

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Open timeline , do ctrl F12 >console >Debug>HWEncodeEnable.

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Participant ,
Nov 19, 2017 Nov 19, 2017

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It's not ticked by default..Meaning it was disabled all the time or...?.. Should i tick it?

EDIT: Same error pops up with that option ticked. I still think Nvidia's Drivers messed it up...

Just in case, these are the settings that i use:

cf74c14ec95b4ccb85c2ff802ef4330c.png

3346bf4d6556474f9b1f9e4804f431eb.png

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Advocate ,
Nov 20, 2017 Nov 20, 2017

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josephd92860595  wrote

No pach.. Disable HWEncodeEnable

Not the right solution.  That makes it impossible to use CUDA-accelerated effects.  Everything becomes CPU-bound at that point.

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New Here ,
Nov 20, 2017 Nov 20, 2017

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But is have intel i3 ,i5,i7 better qsv,

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New Here ,
Nov 20, 2017 Nov 20, 2017

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One question, instead of saving the audio in AAC, is it possible to save in AC3 for the file to be compatible with Bluray? I discovered that saving in MKV, when transforming to M2TS with tsMuxerGUI, the file does not interrupt before the end, losing frames, however it would be much easier if it already had the correct audio, however it converts to AAC, which makes it lose a time searching for the correct AC3 audio and encoding it. It would be much better if the program itself converted to AC3 and in the end did MUX in MKV. The mux in TS does not suit me, as it applies two things that make it incompatible with Bluray, which are: 1 - Insert SEI and VUI data if absent 2 - Continualy insert SPS / PPS Two options that I switch OFF in the tsMuxerGUI, and use M2TS and still change the audio through AC3, are many commands to execute, it would be so nice if there was someone who knows programming to make a new version of the Nvenc codec and put these options, file ready for bluray.

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New Here ,
Nov 21, 2017 Nov 21, 2017

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Stop nvenc.... And active intel qsv

Video

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Participant ,
Nov 27, 2017 Nov 27, 2017

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After a format a few days ago and using WSUS Offline's latest version and running the Updater 3 times (Asked for this in order to install most of the WUpdate's updates up to date), somehow the NVENC_Export thing WORKS AGAIN!.. Perhaps it was either a missing update or something wrong

Again, same latest Nvidia drivers etc!

Hope this helps!

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Contributor ,
Apr 26, 2018 Apr 26, 2018

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Installed OBS (streaming broadcast software) and had to update my video driver in order to get it working.

Unfortunately, that broke the nvenc install for Adobe. nvenc is no longer on the export CODEC selection menu.

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New Here ,
May 16, 2018 May 16, 2018

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I would recommend to try this new plugin Releases · Vouk/voukoder · GitHub

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Community Expert ,
May 16, 2018 May 16, 2018

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LATEST

Nice name for an encoder!

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