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apple silicon video converter?

kazmac

kazmac

macrumors G4
Mar 24, 2010
10,103
8,658
Any place but here or there....
I am happy to see that Quick Time and Handbrake are working as converters (and Handbrake will probably be even better once it's Universal).

Perhaps when it comes time for a more powerful Mac Mini with an M chip I'll test this out.
 
labyrinth153

labyrinth153

macrumors regular
Jul 16, 2017
110
74
Pittsburgh, PA
Handbrake as universal app works about 2x or more as fast as the rosetta version. Quicktime definitely uses some kind of specific hardware to encode video. It uses no notable cpu or gpu when encoding.
 
F

Fomalhaut

macrumors 68000
Oct 6, 2020
1,993
1,724
winna said:
Sorry, I just thought it was as common as having a DVD drive
Click to expand...
I've also never owned a Blueray player. Like many people (I imagine) I found myself during a period where replacing existing DVD collections was considered too expensive, and then the need for these was removed by the introduction of streaming services.
 
F

Fomalhaut

macrumors 68000
Oct 6, 2020
1,993
1,724
Does this mean that the "ffmpeg" command line tool has been released for Apple Silicon? Or still running under Rosetta?
 
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Admiral

Admiral

macrumors 6502
Mar 14, 2015
408
991
lederermc said:
I'm interested in knowing if videotoolbox (hardware compression) is supported in FFMPEG and or Handbrake on Apple Silicon.
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VideoToolbox is supported. I don't like VideoToolbox, because of lesser quality (it's fast as blazes, though). If you intend to use VideoToolbox and you already own an Intel Mac with T2 coprocessor, you don't need to upgrade your machine just for Handbrake purposes. There will be zero or negligible difference.

If you're encoding without VideoToolbox, Handbrake 1.4 beta allows the M1 13" MacBook Pro to perform CPU-driven HEVC encodes approximately twice as fast as the 2020 i5 13" MacBook Pro — i.e., on par with or faster than the 16" i9 MacBook Pro. Yikes!

If the rumors about M1X are true, and it will be 70-80% faster than M1, the upcoming 16" MacBook Pro refresh said to be with M1X will make it a no brainer to buy.
 
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J

JimmyjamesEU

Suspended
Jun 28, 2018
397
426
Admiral said:
VideoToolbox is supported. I don't like VideoToolbox, because of lesser quality (it's fast as blazes, though). If you intend to use VideoToolbox and you already own an Intel Mac with T2 coprocessor, you don't need to upgrade your machine just for Handbrake purposes. There will be zero or negligible difference.

If you're encoding without VideoToolbox, Handbrake 1.4 beta allows the M1 13" MacBook Pro to perform CPU-driven HEVC encodes approximately twice as fast as the 2020 i5 13" MacBook Pro — i.e., on par with or faster than the 16" i9 MacBook Pro. Yikes!

If the rumors about M1X are true, and it will be 70-80% faster than M1, the upcoming 16" MacBook Pro refresh said to be with M1X will make it a no brainer to buy.
Click to expand...
It's a shame VideoToolbox isn't faster/better quality. I was hoping it would have improved with the M1. The iPhone uses hardware recording for its video camera and the quality is superb. This is an area where Nvidia is amazing. Extremely fast and very high quality. The idea that cpu encoding will be feasible going forward is wrong I think. Hevc is already very demanding and AV1 or h.266 isn't going to be any easier. High quality hardware encoding will be necessary.
 
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Admiral

Admiral

macrumors 6502
Mar 14, 2015
408
991
JimmyjamesEU said:
It's a shame VideoToolbox isn't faster/better quality. I was hoping it would have improved with the M1. The iPhone uses hardware recording for its video camera and the quality is superb. This is an area where Nvidia is amazing. Extremely fast and very high quality. The idea that cpu encoding will be feasible going forward is wrong I think. Hevc is already very demanding and AV1 or h.266 isn't going to be any easier. High quality hardware encoding will be necessary.
Click to expand...

I cannot disagree with you on any particular point. If hardware encoding for HEVC or AV1 were available and it delivered quality like an iPhone, that would definitely be the way to go. But alas.
 
J

JimmyjamesEU

Suspended
Jun 28, 2018
397
426
Admiral said:
I cannot disagree with you on any particular point. If hardware encoding for HEVC or AV1 were available and it delivered quality like an iPhone, that would definitely be the way to go. But alas.
Click to expand...
I guess what I am surprised about is:

1) Why is the quality not better? The same encoders are used for video recording on the iPhone, and that is fantastic.
2) Why isn't it faster? As above, the iPhone can easily do 4k60 10bit hevc. It seems like the M1 is struggling to match that.
 
Gnattu

Gnattu

macrumors 65816
Sep 18, 2020
1,107
1,672
JimmyjamesEU said:
Why isn't it faster? As above, the iPhone can easily do 4k60 10bit hevc. It seems like the M1 is struggling to match that.
Click to expand...
The HW encoder is, well, hardware. It is made up with fused logic and the capability of such logic does not increase with the performance of the CPU or GPU, which executes "software". If they are using the same HW encoders like we have on iPhones, then it will be just as fast as iPhones. (And we will have same quality)
 
J

JimmyjamesEU

Suspended
Jun 28, 2018
397
426
Gnattu said:
The HW encoder is, well, hardware. It is made up with fused logic and the capability of such logic does not increase with the performance of the CPU or GPU, which executes "software". If they are using the same HW encoders like we have on iPhones, then it will be just as fast as iPhones. (And we will have same quality)
Click to expand...
Sure, but there seems to be a difference in quality and speed. That's why I'm curious.

Also, I'd love to see if someone has done a comparison between the latest intel mac and the m1 using ffmpeg and pure hardware acceleration.
 
winna

winna

macrumors regular
Nov 28, 2020
123
37
Here are some benchmarks I've ran that might be of interest. I've ordered a Mini M1 but it hasn't arrived yet, will update this post...

DVDFab is WAY FASTER than Handbrake



Benchmarks

iMac 27” 4-core i7 3.4 GHz 32 GB RAM - AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB (2011)
Mac Mini 6-core i7 3.2 GHz 8 GB RAM - Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB (2018)
Mac Mini M1 16 GB RAM (2020)


Lightroom Classic Export 200 RAW files to jpeg

iMac: 5.06:58

Mini: 3.15:89

M1: ?


Geekbench 5

iMac: 773 / 2843

Mini: 1112 / 5100

M1: ?


iBench

iMac: 7.84

Mini: 10.08

M1: ?


Cinebench

iMac: 697 / 3327

Mini: 1145 / 7285

M1: ?


Handbrake - Bluray movie DTS-HD, one chapter 11 min 21 sec >>> H264 MKV 4500 kbps ACC stereo 320kbps

iMac:

H264: 14 min 47 sec
H264 VideoToolbox: 3 min 53 sec

Mini:

H264: 6 min 30 sec
H264 VideoToolbox: 2 min 3 sec

M1:

H264: ?
H264 VideoToolbox: ?


DVDFab 11 - Bluray movie DTS-HD, one chapter 11 min 21 sec >>> H264 MKV 4500 kbps ACC stereo 320kbps

iMac:

H264: 12 min 47 sec
H264 VideoToolbox: no support

Mini:

H264: 2 min 51 sec
H264 VideoToolbox: 1 min 31 sec

M1:

H264: ?
H264 VideoToolbox: ?


Unigine Heaven

iMac:

1920 x 1080 Medium: 613

1920 x 1080 Low: 1119

1280 x 720 Medium: 1265

1280 x 720 Low: 2104


Mini:

1920 x 1080 Medium: 325

1920 x 1080 Low: 549

1280 x 720 Medium: 809

1280 x 720 Low: 1284


M1:

1920 x 1080 Medium: ?

1920 x 1080 Low: ?

1280 x 720 Medium: ?

1280 x 720 Low: ?


Unigine Valley

iMac:

1920 x 1080 Medium: 1126

1920 x 1080 Low: 1580

1280 x 720 Medium: 1997

1280 x 720 Low: 2549


Mini:

1920 x 1080 Medium: 586

1920 x 1080 Low: 776

1280 x 720 Medium: 1319

1280 x 720 Low: 1721


M1:

1920 x 1080 Medium: ?

1920 x 1080 Low: ?

1280 x 720 Medium: ?

1280 x 720 Low: ?
 
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