PrimeView NS Model 325
On the other end of the MPEG-2 spectrum are products that can encode MPEG-2 content. Last year, products in this exclusive market cost roughly $20,000—and that price included only an MPEG-2 encoding card. FutureTel’s PrimeView NS Model 325 MPEG-2 encoder card offers this costly technology at a significantly lower price.
The PrimeView NS card supports multiple MPEG-2 encoding cards in one system, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 encoding, and the ability to use a DirectShow-compliant reader to simultaneously decode and encode. However, if you want to encode a full-screen MPEG-2 stream and preview your work on the same system, you must install an MPEG-2 decoder, because the PrimeView NS Model 325 can’t decode an MPEG-2 stream.
Installation of the product’s hardware and software is painless. You pop the card into an open PCI slot and perform a normal software installation. On the back of the card are two audio RCA jacks, one RCA video jack, and an S-video input jack. I attached a video cable to the card and a VCR, and two cables to the encoding source for stereo sound. If the source from which you’ll be encoding has only a mono output jack, use a splitter to create two audio feeds from the mono jack to the PrimeView NS card. Although the splitter won’t give you stereo sound, by splitting the mono source into two feeds, you can take advantage of the codecs for stereo sound. These codecs are more advanced than the codecs for mono sound.
To encode MPEG-2 streams, I put a movie into the VCR and pressed play. A 1-minute MPEG-2 clip uses about 40MB of hard disk space, and the PrimeView NS Model 325 card can encode 1.8 Mbps to 15Mbps with constant or variable bit rates.
The product’s Recorder interface is straightforward and lists three available channels for encoding, which you can see in the bottom right corner of Screen 1. Each channel has a preview, record, play, and stop button. The toolbar has only File, Setup, and Help menus. The settings you need ―the Recorder and Parameters options―are in the Setup menu.
The Recorder option lets you Record to file, Record with preview, and select a software (i.e., MPEG-1) DirectShow decoder or hardware decoder. As I stated, if you don’t have an MPEG-2 decoder installed in your system, you can't access the last two options. The Recorder option also offers a Setup Parameters button, which takes you to the same window that the Setup menu’s Parameters option takes you—the Encoder Properties window.
In the Encoder Properties window, you can adjust the bit rate at which you want to encode material, and you can choose between creating MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 content. If you don’t need the full MPEG encoding capability, you can choose audio only content, video only content, or both. In addition, you can determine the reference distance for Group of Pictures (GOPs) parameters, determine the size of GOPs, you can enable automatic-scene change detection, and you can enable the creation of a new GOP if the software detects a scene change. In this window, you choose your input source and the horizontal resolution for which the product optimizes your encoded output. You can also find controls for modifying color, brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, and audio settings.
In addition to creating MPEG-2 content for DVD-ROMs, the PrimeView NS card is compatible with numerous network video distribution platforms, including Cisco’s IP/TV, IBM’s VideoCharger, InfoValue's QVS, FVC.Com’s Icast, and PictureTel’s StarCast. The product’s many options require a minimal learning curve, and the PrimeView NS Model 325 card doesn’t support multiprocessor systems. However, its easy installation, ready compatibility, and reasonable pricing structure make this product an attractive MPEG-encoding solution.