WEBVTT

00:00:00.420 --> 00:00:03.420
foreign

00:00:04.560 --> 00:00:10.080
is an amazing amazing video coding

00:00:07.919 --> 00:00:15.599
format it's faster it's got better quality and it's going to be everywhere

00:00:12.540 --> 00:00:19.560
in a few short years I want to be an

00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:22.680
early adopter of av1 but my GPU

00:00:19.560 --> 00:00:25.380
doesn't support it and NVIDIA's RTX 40

00:00:22.680 --> 00:00:29.099
series is so expensive that it feels completely out of reach and besides I

00:00:27.599 --> 00:00:34.860
don't even need the extra gaming performance Hey kid we got all these Arc gpus nobody

00:00:33.059 --> 00:00:38.700
wants they're cheap as heck and they got the good stuff from behind the wall

00:00:36.180 --> 00:00:43.200
maybe there is a better way to be clear I'm not suggesting that you actually buy

00:00:40.739 --> 00:00:47.700
an A380 for gaming but we spent the last week exploring productivity and

00:00:45.239 --> 00:00:52.800
streaming workloads that could easily justify adding one of these to your

00:00:50.039 --> 00:00:58.140
current GPU it's really really cool almost as cool as this Segway to our

00:00:55.320 --> 00:01:02.879
sponsor iFixit is your battery beginning to bulge looking for a new project

00:01:00.260 --> 00:01:06.720
iFixit has you covered stay tuned to the end of the video to learn more about

00:01:04.199 --> 00:01:13.080
their battery replacement kits it sounds like Madness buy a GPU only to never

00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:19.500
play games on it but let me explain the problem perhaps unsurprisingly is NVIDIA

00:01:16.260 --> 00:01:21.360
their new RTX 4000 series cards are

00:01:19.500 --> 00:01:25.799
staggeringly fast and come loaded with all the latest bells and whistles DLS S3

00:01:23.880 --> 00:01:33.360
Hardware assisted av1 encoding and decoding except they start at 900 US

00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:35.880
dollars meaning that until AMD's rx7000

00:01:33.360 --> 00:01:41.820
cards may be ride in and save the day almost no one can afford to go next gen

00:01:39.240 --> 00:01:46.560
bringing us to our unconventional proposal adding an arc GPU to your

00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:51.000
existing setup isn't going to close the gap in terms of gaming performance but

00:01:48.659 --> 00:01:54.659
what it can do is modernize the features that your PC supports enabling you to

00:01:53.280 --> 00:02:00.119
get the most out of Next Generation DisplayPort 2.0 monitors and more

00:01:57.180 --> 00:02:06.479
importantly properly handle av1 media now I know I know Hardware support for

00:02:03.240 --> 00:02:08.819
media codex isn't the sexiest topic but

00:02:06.479 --> 00:02:13.200
imagine a world without it if your phone had to use its general purpose CPU

00:02:10.979 --> 00:02:17.879
course for video decoding you might get an hour maybe two hours of screen time

00:02:15.959 --> 00:02:20.819
watching YouTube videos not that you'd want to hold it in your hand for that

00:02:19.020 --> 00:02:25.319
long and without Hardware accelerated encoding your M1 MacBook Air could

00:02:23.160 --> 00:02:30.720
easily take 30 minutes to export a video rather than three the difference in both

00:02:27.900 --> 00:02:35.280
power efficiency and performance really is that Stark which raises the question

00:02:33.180 --> 00:02:40.680
why don't we use Hardware acceleration for everything ah I'm glad you asked all

00:02:38.580 --> 00:02:45.420
other things being equal the cost of a microprocessor is proportional to its

00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:51.900
physical size and while fixed function Hardware like a media decoder or encoder

00:02:48.660 --> 00:02:54.900
is really great at that one thing it is

00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:58.200
basically useless for anything else and

00:02:54.900 --> 00:03:01.019
it adds cost to every single chip so

00:02:58.200 --> 00:03:04.560
unless you are darn sure that every customer is going to use it you'd

00:03:02.580 --> 00:03:08.760
probably be better off leaving out that fixed function hardware and beefing up

00:03:06.780 --> 00:03:14.760
your more versatile general purpose processing course all of which means

00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:17.879
that given that NVIDIA AMD and Intel are

00:03:14.760 --> 00:03:20.640
all on board av1 must be a pretty big

00:03:17.879 --> 00:03:24.780
deal it is if you use the internet you will eventually benefit from av1 even if

00:03:22.980 --> 00:03:29.099
you don't realize it that's because the biggest users of av1 are going to be

00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:33.420
Mega corporations like Amazon Disney and Google how do I know because it's going

00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:38.640
to save them a lot of money to start with av1 is entirely open source and

00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:43.680
royalty free making it super cheap to implement at scale the ubiquitous h.264

00:03:41.340 --> 00:03:48.200
codec has been outdated for a long time but the reason we're still stuck with it

00:03:45.900 --> 00:03:55.980
is because more modern Alternatives like h.265 cost operators between 20 and 120

00:03:53.340 --> 00:04:01.200
cents per device which for our company with as many users as twitch adds up

00:03:58.379 --> 00:04:03.900
pretty fast of course if twitch's recent actions are anything to go by they

00:04:02.700 --> 00:04:09.060
probably aren't going to be passing the savings along to their creators but this

00:04:06.360 --> 00:04:12.180
is still a win for you the viewer and actually creators brace yourself because

00:04:11.099 --> 00:04:16.320
things are about to get a little technical the general consumer might

00:04:14.099 --> 00:04:21.660
think of video image quality in terms of resolution you know 4K is better than

00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:26.100
1080p which is better than 720p which is better than potato but in reality

00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:32.280
there's another critical Factor at play bit raid at a given resolution a lower

00:04:29.520 --> 00:04:37.320
bit rate results in a fuzzier image with blocking banding and other motion

00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:41.759
artifacts meanwhile a higher bitrate clears everything up at least until you

00:04:40.080 --> 00:04:44.759
reach a point of diminishing returns at which point you'll probably need to

00:04:43.080 --> 00:04:48.360
crank the resolution let's look at an example 4K subscribers on Floatplane.com

00:04:47.160 --> 00:04:52.680
are going to be able to see the difference best thanks to our high quality content delivery pipeline but

00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:57.240
hopefully everyone else will be able to follow along this h.264 game footage was

00:04:55.259 --> 00:05:01.800
captured using open broadcaster software looks pretty bad doesn't it but that's

00:04:59.160 --> 00:05:06.900
not their fault it was encoded at only 3 500 kilobits per second and used the

00:05:04.259 --> 00:05:10.860
default very fast CPU encoding preset that means it takes very little

00:05:08.580 --> 00:05:14.580
bandwidth to stream and it leaves enough CPU resources available to run your game

00:05:12.960 --> 00:05:18.660
that's why some twitch streamers use this option the easiest way to fix this

00:05:16.740 --> 00:05:25.440
quality is to juice up the bit rate here's that same clip at 8 000 kilobits

00:05:22.020 --> 00:05:27.060
per second that's a lot better so why

00:05:25.440 --> 00:05:31.139
doesn't everybody just do this it's because even if you have a great

00:05:29.039 --> 00:05:35.880
internet connection the bandwidth required on twitch's side would cost too

00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:42.180
much so only partners are allowed to stream at this level of quality or are

00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:44.759
they the very fast x264 encoding preset

00:05:42.180 --> 00:05:49.320
cuts a lot of Corners to save on CPU Cycles but if you happen to have a

00:05:47.039 --> 00:05:53.880
roided out threadripper rig or a separate streaming PC you can absolutely

00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:58.979
choose a heavier preset here's what medium looks like instead of very fast

00:05:56.160 --> 00:06:06.120
at that same 3500 kilobit per second that's a huge improvement though it does

00:06:03.479 --> 00:06:11.280
come at the cost of some CPU usage because that's the thing it turns out it

00:06:08.580 --> 00:06:15.780
takes a lot more computing power to preserve this much image quality at the

00:06:13.740 --> 00:06:20.280
same bit rate bringing us back then to why we like Hardware encoders so much

00:06:17.820 --> 00:06:25.440
the nvank encoder that NVIDIA includes on their modern gpus manages to look

00:06:22.440 --> 00:06:28.080
nearly as good as the medium preset and

00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:31.800
under normal circumstances it only has a negligible impact on your gaming

00:06:29.580 --> 00:06:36.800
experience so we're all good then right well no we're not this still looks like

00:06:35.160 --> 00:06:42.060
hot garbage compared to the original uncompressed video RTX 4000 might

00:06:40.080 --> 00:06:48.000
improve matters here but as I mentioned before it starts at 900 and besides

00:06:45.539 --> 00:06:54.960
you're a gamer you already have a GPU don't you that is where Intel's Arc A380

00:06:51.660 --> 00:06:57.000
comes in it features both av-1 decoding

00:06:54.960 --> 00:07:03.240
and encoding meaning that it will accelerate both playback and creation of

00:06:59.460 --> 00:07:05.460
av1 media with very low CPU usage and

00:07:03.240 --> 00:07:09.660
all you need to get one is 140 bucks we're gonna have it linked down below

00:07:06.780 --> 00:07:12.600
and a PCIe slot that you're probably not using anyway I mean it feels kind of

00:07:11.580 --> 00:07:17.340
wild to be going back to the co-processor days doesn't it but here we

00:07:15.419 --> 00:07:22.139
are let's take a look at the results at 8 000 kilobit per second the Improvement

00:07:19.440 --> 00:07:25.800
if any is actually pretty hard to spot so you twitch Partners out there

00:07:23.880 --> 00:07:30.599
probably won't be lining up to purchase an rk380 but what about the rest of us

00:07:27.900 --> 00:07:35.639
if I'm on a lower speed connection and I want to stream at 3 500 kilobit per

00:07:32.819 --> 00:07:40.800
second that is a night and day difference next to our original x264

00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:44.880
fast preset and it's even a market Improvement compared to medium and nvank

00:07:43.380 --> 00:07:48.300
the real mind blower in our results though is that after a pixel peeping

00:07:47.039 --> 00:07:53.520
session from our production manager Edsel he found that av1 at 3 500 kilobit

00:07:51.539 --> 00:07:59.220
per second looked almost as good as our other encoders at 6 000 kilobit per

00:07:56.759 --> 00:08:05.580
second it's worth noting that h.265 looked as good or maybe even better than

00:08:02.099 --> 00:08:08.819
av1 but you can only stream using codecs

00:08:05.580 --> 00:08:10.919
that a platform supports and given the

00:08:08.819 --> 00:08:14.880
cost that's never going to happen we also weren't the only ones to be so

00:08:12.660 --> 00:08:19.379
impressed we encountered some anomalous results using Netflix's image comparison

00:08:16.740 --> 00:08:24.000
tool of emath but streaming Guru epos Vox managed to get it to play nicely and

00:08:21.479 --> 00:08:29.400
found that Intel's av1 encoder not only outperformed every other encoder on the

00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:35.159
market at 3500 kilobit per second by a wide margin but also managed to get

00:08:31.919 --> 00:08:37.020
surprisingly close to a score of 90 at 8

00:08:35.159 --> 00:08:40.380
000 kilobit per second which should be nearly indistinguishable from The Source

00:08:38.880 --> 00:08:44.399
thanks for sharing your graphs Addie by the way I probably owe you a Creator edition of the LTT screwdriver for the

00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:48.420
rest of you you can get it at ltdstore.com speaking of creators your

00:08:46.860 --> 00:08:53.040
art card has practical uses Beyond gaming as well remember when I mentioned

00:08:50.580 --> 00:08:56.640
the Apple M1 chip well its excellent timeline performance and Final Cut is at

00:08:55.200 --> 00:09:02.339
least partly thanks to its Hardware decoding for popular codecs including

00:08:58.860 --> 00:09:05.040
prores and with an arc GPU we can expect

00:09:02.339 --> 00:09:10.080
the same kinds of boosts on av1 video editing timelines eventually we hope

00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:14.760
officially today DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere both support av-1 but

00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:19.560
DaVinci had some weird preview window behavior and adobe's implementation well

00:09:18.060 --> 00:09:23.760
didn't seem to work for us at all handbrake supports it though for my

00:09:21.540 --> 00:09:27.660
encoding nerd friends out there and the obvious benefit for you all aside from

00:09:25.860 --> 00:09:32.519
everything we've talked about so far is that file sizes for your locally stored

00:09:29.820 --> 00:09:37.220
media libraries can be much smaller pretty cool but it's worth mentioning

00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:42.899
that a lot of what we're saying is forward-looking and there are drawbacks

00:09:39.959 --> 00:09:46.980
to this co-processor approach drawbacks that led to the computer industry

00:09:44.100 --> 00:09:51.180
abandoning it many many years ago an extra card in your system means an

00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:55.560
increase power consumption heat and probably noise and while Intel has

00:09:53.880 --> 00:10:00.480
squashed most of the bugs that we documented when Arc debuted we did still

00:09:58.019 --> 00:10:04.800
run into some issues this card only worked in a specific slot on our

00:10:02.459 --> 00:10:08.940
motherboard and if we dared to plug a monitor into our integrated GPU while

00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:13.980
the art card was installed the system would blue screen almost immediately the

00:10:11.459 --> 00:10:17.580
av-1 codec itself is also far from beginner friendly take a look at how

00:10:15.540 --> 00:10:22.740
verbose these configuration settings are and that'll give you some idea now a bit

00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:26.399
of this learning curve can be attributed to the fact that it's still early days

00:10:24.300 --> 00:10:30.120
for the av-1 codec and the communities that will use it haven't gotten around

00:10:27.779 --> 00:10:33.720
to experimenting with all these buttons and dials and sharing their findings

00:10:31.500 --> 00:10:37.860
online we also don't know how well Intel's implementation of av1 will hold

00:10:35.880 --> 00:10:40.980
up compared to the competition we're gonna have to look at them side by side

00:10:39.180 --> 00:10:46.380
but at the time of writing all of our 4000 series cards are tied up in the lab

00:10:42.779 --> 00:10:48.480
and AMD's rx7000s haven't even arrived

00:10:46.380 --> 00:10:55.680
yet but take a step back and look at the big picture regardless of how well these new gpus

00:10:51.839 --> 00:10:58.200
handle av1 140 bucks for an A380 is

00:10:55.680 --> 00:11:02.760
going to be a cheaper option and if the upcoming A310 ends up hitting retail

00:11:00.660 --> 00:11:07.680
instead of being OEM only it could end up being 30 to 40 dollars cheaper than

00:11:04.920 --> 00:11:13.740
this with the same encode and decode capabilities as a bonus all Arc cards

00:11:10.260 --> 00:11:15.120
support DisplayPort 2.0 uhbr10 though I

00:11:13.740 --> 00:11:20.040
don't know that I would actually hook that next-gen high refresh rate monitor

00:11:17.519 --> 00:11:24.420
up to this particular card it's just a nice to have if you want to use one for

00:11:21.959 --> 00:11:29.519
Content creation Bottom Line This is a novel solution for tomorrow's problem

00:11:25.980 --> 00:11:32.519
today but I'm not out here selling your

00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:34.620
Arc gpus you don't need to freak out if

00:11:32.519 --> 00:11:39.120
you don't have Hardware av1 support just yet because you can always lean on your

00:11:36.779 --> 00:11:43.560
CPU for that especially on the desktop fun fact by the way YouTube has already

00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:46.920
rolled it out if you want to try it and platforms like twitch are sure to follow

00:11:45.300 --> 00:11:50.399
suit once they finish work on their implementations just like I'm finished

00:11:48.660 --> 00:11:54.839
implementing this message from our sponsor I fix it iFixit is here to help

00:11:53.220 --> 00:11:58.260
you keep your devices powered like they're brand new they provide an

00:11:56.760 --> 00:12:02.640
expansive range of battery replacement kits for your devices they have kits for

00:12:00.420 --> 00:12:07.380
laptops cell phones tablets smart watches and even Nintendo switches is it

00:12:05.040 --> 00:12:11.940
your first time repairing a device don't worry each kit has a simple to follow

00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:15.660
step-by-step guide with photos to walk you through the process it's like a

00:12:13.560 --> 00:12:20.820
children's book save yourself time and money while getting to explore a new

00:12:17.399 --> 00:12:23.579
hobby check out ifixit.com LTT to find

00:12:20.820 --> 00:12:28.680
fixed kits for your devices today if you enjoyed this video you might also enjoy

00:12:25.560 --> 00:12:30.300
our look at the RTX 4000 launch where we

00:12:28.680 --> 00:12:35.000
were maybe a little too quick to write off Arc turns out it does have at least

00:12:32.279 --> 00:12:35.000
one purpose