- Saturday, 21 November 2009
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They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist... - General John Sedgwick
MotionDSP and Nvidia launch video cleaning software
DIGITAL VIDEO fixer-upper, MotionDSP, today released its Vreveal software, the quick-fix 'plastic surgery' for shoddy video based on technology already used by intelligence agencies like the CIA.
Back in September, Nvidia bought a "significant stake" in the little video software firm, heralding the move as a "strategic partnership" to promote its much-hyped, little promise Cuda.
MotionDSP CEO Sean Varah told the INQ that the software offers a 'magic button' to fix the kind of problems which commonly arise from crappy consumer-generated video, like shake, bad lighting, graininess and pixelation.
Varah also reckons the Windows-only application features patented CSI-style super-resolution technology, adapted from gruesome forensic applications, for use by "regular soccer moms and dads".
The secret sauce in Motion DSP's Vreveal is undoubtedly the firm's patented algorithms, able to analyse and extract information from multiple video frames and reconstruct a single, enhanced frame.
The software automatically locates all videos on a user's hard drive and bungs them into a single gallery where it proceeds to offer the chance to 'Fine Tune' them with enhancement controls, or, for the digital incompetent, a 'one-click touch-up' button.
Vreveal also purportedly allows users to capture printâquality still images from enhanced videos, as well as a feature for rotating sideways videos, trimming vids down to their best moment and easily uploading them to Youtube. So those annoying videos of cats and cute babies? Well... they'll still be crap and annoying, but less grainy and better lit. Yay!
MotionDSP makes the grand claim that Vreveal can enhance videos up to five times faster by porting to the GPU, freeing up the CPU for other tasks.
Varah admits the software only currently ports to Cuda-enabled Nvidia GPUs, but reckons the firm will adapt itself to OpenCL right sharpish, once it becomes available, begging the question 'why is Nvidia still investing so much in Cuda for crying out loud?!'.
Also, Nvidia has made MotionDSP draw up a slide claiming 'Even netbooks can get 5x speed benefit from Nvidia GPUs in the Ion platform', which is just great, except... er, where do you buy a netbook which runs the Ion platform?
As far as we know, the Ion still has no design wins, so good luck accelerating Vreveal on your nonexistent Ion netbooks, folks!
All prodding aside, however, the software does appear really user friendly, with Varah telling us his firm is, "offering the most powerful video enhancement techniques available in an application simple enough for any consumer to use".
The firm is offering a free 30-day trial of Vreveal on its website as well as a full download for $50. µ
See also
Nvidia buys chunk of video enhancing outfit
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Charlie should rewrite this article.
When you have an After Effects / Premiere Pro / Avid Liquid plug-in so it can be used within the NLE and not using a Picasa-like interface then importing the results into the NLE.
And when it goes OpenCL....
* begging the question 'why is Nvidia
* still investing so much in Cuda for
* crying out loud?!
Ignoring the incorrect use of the phrase "begging the question," the answer is obvious: because CUDA is the underlying Unified Device Architecture that allows you to Compute on the GPU. OpenCL, like C, is just a language you can use to write programs for CUDA.
Have a coke and a smile my fellow chums, we have now found a way to SIGNIFICANTLY improve the quality of shoddy CAM releases!!
This is a great day for video, a great day for teenagers with CAM in movie theaters!
No longer will you need to understand anything about video, editing, lighting etc. You can just click the "make my CAM release look Telesynch!" button.
The future is here.
We already have one Charlie and he is doing perfect job.
We don't need another one.
For "Nice ... but call me" -- come see us in NVIDIA's booth at the NAB show in April. I think you'll be happy.
On OpenCL. It's on our roadmap, and we'll support it when the SDK is available (and don't forget driver support). Same for DirectX11 Compute. Believe us, we want cross-platform support as well -- it gives us a bigger market.
For "vReveal is the Future" we hope vReveal lives up to your expectations! Let us know how it works for you.
And, for the record, NVIDIA "doesn't" own a "significant portion" of MotionDSP. They're a small investor and a great partner, but we (the founders/employees) still own the majority of the company.
Thanks,
Sean. CEO, MotionDSP
Is it just me, or does that user interface seem to be a complete rip off of Google Picasa?
Cue the thundering sound of a herd of lawyers (what is the correct collective noun for lawyers? May I suggest Plague?)
http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/25/lenovos-ion-based-s12-makes-netbooks-exciting-again/
Netbook with the ION platform
Nvidia is pushing so much into CUDA because why should the processing power of that $300 video card be put only into 3d rendering?