Canopus have released a new board designed to speed up MPEG encoding, called FireCoder. The hardware chips on board will encode into standard definition MPEG2 or MPEG 4 at high quality. In addtion it also comes with its own encoding program, Ultracoder, which can encode in to many other formats including High Definition Windows Media and HDV. Canopus' MPEGCraft 3 is also supplied with allows you to edit native MPEG files without re-encoding at the end of the edit and also supports capture and splicing of HDV files, again with minimal encoding.

The FireCoder is a PCI Express 1 card so you will need a modern PC with a spare PCI Express slot to use it.

Use FireCoder to:

• Capture video from DV and HDV cameras
• Edit MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, including native HDV
• Author and burn DVDs
• Convert video into files compatible with Apple iPod® and Sony PSP™
• Export video projects from Grass Valley EDIUS and Adobe® Premiere® Pro 1.x NLE software

FireCoder: Key Features

• MPEG-2/MPEG-4 encoding hardware technology, incorporated into a high-speed PCI Express design
• Faster-than-realtime MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video file creation
• IEEE 1394 OHCI FireWire input for DV and HDV capture
• Cut, stitch and trim MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and HDV video
• Video format conversion software, supporting Windows Media®, DivX®, DV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and more
• DVD authoring, "Watch" folder and batch conversion support
• Timeline export plug-ins for Grass Valley EDIUS, Adobe Premiere 6.5 and Adobe Premiere Pro 1.x

Above is a screen shot of Canopus UltraCoder which allows you to access the FireCoder board and do batch processing of clips. You can also access FireCoder from within Premiere Pro 1 or Canopus Edius 4. Currently the Edius plug-in only works with the software based version of Edius. We are awaiting a plug-in that will work with Canopus Edius NX/SP hardware, and expect it soon.

FireCoder: Specifications

Video Input

• 1 x 6-pin IEEE 1394 FireWire
• 2 x 4-pin IEEE 1394 FireWire (for internal connection)

Video Resolutions

• MPEG-2: 720x480, 720x576, 704x480, 640x480, 480x480, 352x480, 352x576, 352x240, 352x288, 320x480, 320x240, 176x120
• MPEG-4: 720x480, 720x576, 704x480, 640x480, 480x480, 352x480, 352x576, 352x240, 320x240, 176x120

Video Frame Rate

• MPEG-2: 29.97fps (NTSC), 25fps (PAL)
• MPEG-4: 15fps (NTSC), 30fps (NTSC), 25fps (PAL)

Video Compression

• MPEG-2: (ISO/IEC 13818-2) Main Profile @ Main Level (I, B, P frames) I-frame support only
• MPEG-4: (ISO/IEC 14496-14)

Video Bitrate

• MPEG-2: 128kbps - 15Mbps
• MPEG-4: 32kbps - 8Mbps
• Variable (one-pass) and Constant Bitrate support

Audio Sampling Rates

• MPEG-2: 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz
• MPEG-4: 24kHz, 48kHz

Audio Compression

• MPEG-2: MPEG-1 Layer 2
• MPEG-4: AAC

Audio Bitrates

• MPEG-2: 96 to 384kbps
• MPEG-4: 32, 48, 64, 96, 128, 144, 182, 224, 256, 288kbps

Minimum System Requirements:

• Intel® Pentium® 4, Intel Pentium D, Intel Pentium M, Intel Celeron® D, AMD Athlon™ XP Processor or AMD Athlon MP Processor CPU
• 256MB RAM or more (512 recommended)
• 200MB free hard disk space for the applications
• DirectX 9.0c or later
• Windows® XP Home (Service Pack 2 or later), Windows XP Professional (Service Pack 2 or later), or Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
• One free PCI Express x1 slot