Graphic Cards Catalyst 5.13: ATI's Video Domination?

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Firing Squad reports

Introduction
Exactly 10 days ago, we brought you a video quality comparison between the ATI Radeon X800 XL using Catalyst 5.12, the NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT, and the XGI Volari 8300. Using the HQV Benchmark DVD and true analog capture hardware, we showed you how ATI's legendary video quality was just that: a legend.

Nonetheless, FiringSquad's sources brought information of a new driver that would change things for ATI. Not simply a driver that would bring ATI ahead of XGI and NVIDIA and back to the top of the PC video processing world, but a driver that would bring ATI ahead of consumer electronics companies such as Sony, Samsung, Pixelworks, and Faroudja and put ATI hot on the tail of Gennum and Silicon Optix. Seeing that twelve drivers had already been released by ATI in 2005, most readers assumed that the new driver would have to come in January 2006 as Catalyst 6.1. ATI's Secret Santa decided to release this gift earlier to PC enthusiasts with a 13th driver release in 2005 and Oh, how things have changed! ...........
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Conclusion
Catalyst 5.13 represents the greatest leap in video quality technology for ATI since the original Mach64-VT. It brings sophisticated diagonal filtering, basic noise reduction, and the ability to detect unusual cadences. ATI marketing told us about "video dominATIon" and we have to agree that Catalyst 5.13 brings ATI to the top of the PC video world.

Ten days ago, ATI had the worst video quality on the PC. With this new driver, ATI has jumped to the top of the class and then built a nice lead. For Hollywood films, ATI edges out NVIDIA's PureVideo. Although the cadence detection is faster with NVIDIA, ATI has noise reduction will improve the quality of films once the cadence is locked on. In other words, for most Hollywood films, ATI will look better for the 2 hours whereas NVIDIA might look better for the few seconds after a bad-edit, if such a bad edit exists. When it comes to processing interlaced video, ATI now surpasses anything that we've seen on the PC with the best implementation of diagonal filtering we’ve seen yet. When it comes to unusual cadence detection, ATI AVIVO has no peer in its price range.

The video engineers at ATI deserve a big holiday bonus. They've made a big leap in performance and will make Catalyst 5.13 free for download on December 22nd. Perhaps the greatest benefit of AVIVO technology is that for most of FiringSquad's readers, it's an added bonus. Most people aren't buying the X1800XL for video performance alone – they're buying for it for the flagship gaming performance.

Editors Note: The driver we tested for this article is the same driver ATI will be releasing next week, only the final driver will add WHQL-certification. ATI is working with Microsoft on WHQL-certification as we speak, with an ETA of 12/21.

Source and Full Article:FiringSquad.com
 
For elite bastards preview, click here

Conclusions
In our current Radeon X1000-less state here at Elite Bastards, sadly we can't sit down and test any of what we have looked at here today in our system in real-world conditions. But, if proof were needed, this is evidence that ATI are taking the video capabilities of their new product line very seriously indeed, giving it the jab in the arm it needed to show its hand as the current top solution for anyone enthusiastic about video in the PC space - I can almost the see the high-end HTPC enthusiasts drooling from here.
As has been shown several times in the past few months, ATI desperately needed improvements to be made to their MPEG-2 playback quality, and CATALYST 5.13 certainly delivers here, taking the fidelity of DVD playback on the PC to new levels that will be difficult to match, let alone beat.
They have also managed to lead the way by being the first to introduce hardware assisted H.264 decoding in to their drivers, leaving NVIDIA needing to play catch up and introduce their own solution as promised. H.264 playback may not be the must-have feature for this Christmas, but in twelve months time the landscape will undoubtedly look somewhat different, so ATI definitely have the upper hand right now. If you want to wake up Granny by watching an action-packed, 1080i High Definition movie file on Christmas Day, then the only way of doing so in a truly watchable condition will be with a Radeon X1800 and CATALYST 5.13 on board.
Finally, the AVIVO Video Transcoder does what ATI have done so well in their CATALYST drivers in the past - Adding genuinely useful features that add value to the video card-owning experience. As somebody who has been surfing around trying to find a quick and easy transcoder for video in recent weeks (before finally settling on Nero Burning ROM's abilities), my eyes lit up at seeing the AVIVO Transcoder provided with CATALYST 5.13.
Of course, my excitement was soon dimmed by the news that the transcoder would only be enabled for Radeon X1000 users. While I can understand ATI's reasoning for not supporting all ATI users with this application in future to an extent, all I can say is - It's Christmas! Give your X800 users a treat if nothing else! It seems somewhat churlish not to reward loyal ATI users who don't want to break out their wallet for another new board, or make the transition to PCI Express just yet, and I can only imagine that this decision will be more than a little unpopular among the community.
However, put that gripe to one side and it has to be said that CATALYST 5.13 is another landmark driver from ATI, and raises the bar substantially in the realm of PC video - For that, there can only be praise.

Availability
CATALYST 5.13 is currently slated for release on December 22nd. Keep your eyes peeled for news of this driver's release at Elite Bastards!
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p.s - hope deejay doesn't mind my adding to the thread.
 
ATI's Gift to X1000 Owners - Get the Avivo Video Converter, Today!

ATI released their Catalyst 5.12 drivers, which offered support for dual core processors, but without any really tangible gains in performance as we found out. ATI had also alluded to the potential of another Catalyst release before the end of the year, and as their predictions would have it, Catalyst 5.13 is due out for release this coming Thursday (12/22/2005).

But Catalyst 5.13 doesn't promise improved gaming performance, better scaling from dual core processors or anything of that sort. Instead, Catalyst 5.13 is a little gift to Radeon X1000 owners from the Avivo team.

Avivo was pretty much a joke of a launch when the X1000 series came out. There were hardly any tangible improvements due to the new platform that we didn't already have, and its fabled improvements in DVD playback turned out to be worse than what NVIDIA had already had out for months beforehand; yet, there was promise of more.

ATI promised us H.264 decode acceleration, offloading some of the most CPU intensive tasks for media PCs today onto their brand new GPUs. ATI also alluded to a transcode utility, which would aid in the conversion between video formats and potentially even accelerating it on the GPU as well.
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Last year, ATI was busy launching a bunch of cards that didn't make it to stores in time for the holidays, but thanks to the Avivo team, things are working a little different this time around. ATI has given us permission to distribute the beta Avivo Video Converter to our readers today under one condition - that we make it very clear that this converter is not supported by ATI, so don't complain if things don't work perfectly.

Despite that warning from ATI, we had fewer problems with the Avivo Video Converter than we did with the beta H.264 decoder - it's actually in amazingly good shape for unsupported, pre-release software.

The download is approximately 2.3MB zipped and you can get it here. Feel free to distribute it as you would like. Remember, it only works on ATI Radeon X1000 cards, but who knows - some of our more creative users may be able to find ways around that.

The other item we didn't touch on that makes its appearance in the Catalyst 5.13 drivers is significantly improved video playback quality. ATI didn't have all of their Avivo ducks in a row when the X1000 series launched, but with Catalyst 5.13 they are looking to improve a number of the issues we noted in our first Avivo video quality article. We will be working on a follow-up to that piece in the near future to take a look at exactly what Catalyst 5.13 brings us in terms of video quality.
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Source
 
http://3dfusion.de/downloads/get.php?grafik/ati/win2kxp/ATI_Catalyst_5.13_Beta_AVIVO.zip
http://www.tweaksrus.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=445&Itemid=41/
http://downloads.guru3d.com/downloadget.php?id=1280&file=7&evp=488974c3b50faf1baac9585d366d70cc
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/get.php?id=127
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:hap2: Remember it's beta :) must try for ati fans.

for 2K/XP/2003

Here's the Beta version of Calalyst 5.13 drivers that are optimized for quality video playback, Avivo, in other words HDTV.

This is Catalyst 5.13 Beta.
Is this beta gonna show a part of the real potential of 5.13 ?Working on 32 and 64bit versions of windows.ATI Catalyst 5.13 Beta There are words that Catalyst 5.13 from ATI is gonna compete pretty well against Nvidia's Pure Video . If what they say is true, than is this beta gonna show at least a part of what Catalyst 5.13 will bring ? Only you can answer that question by downloading and trying out the driver. This driver contains the Control Center, WDM install files . This package works on both 32 and 64 bit versions of windows.
Avivo Video Converter
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/ati/avivo/cat5.13update/AvivoVideoConverter.zip
http://translate.google.com/transla...&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=/language_tools
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:hap2: Remember it's only for x1000 cards right now.

The download is approximately 2.3MB zipped. Feel free to distribute it as you would like. Remember, it only works on ATI Radeon X1000 cards, but who knows - some of our more creative users may be able to find ways around that.

The download is approximately 2.3MB zipped. Feel free to distribute it as you would like. Remember, it only works on ATI Radeon X1000 cards, but who knows - some of our more creative users may be able to find ways around that.
 
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