Posted: September 14 2004 at 12:49pm | IP Logged

I would like to stream a live broadcast to the internet using WME9.

If you are using a DV camera with a firewire output, does connecting to a Osprey 500DV provide any benefits over connecting directly to an IEEE1394 port built into the motherboard?

Does the Osprey reduce CPU load and improve the software encoding of WME9?

I just want to make sure I understand the benefits of using one of these cards.

If my Internet broadcast needs are minimal (low resolution, low frame rate), would using a Osprey 210 or 230 with an S-video input be just as good?

Which scenario requires the least amount of computer "horsepower" to 'realtime' broadcast over the internet using WME9? 

1)  DV connected to the motherboard

2)  DV connected to a 500DV

3)  S-video connected to a 210/230

Thanks for all of your help.

Posted: September 15 2004 at 2:30pm | IP Logged

Well, yes, the Osprey-5x0 provides hardware decompression of the DV format, then provides the uncompressed a/v to WME9.  By contrast, the standard IEEE-1394 DV input build into the motherboard relies on the CPU for this same decoding process before the uncompressed data is sent to WME9.  Since WME9 relies heavily on the CPU for the encoding/streaming process then using the Osprey-5x0 frees up cycles for WME9 to encode at the highest quality.

With respect to the Osprey-230 vs the Osprey-560, it is generally considered that digital to digital (as with the DV input on the O-5x0) provides the highest quality.  Having said that, at very low bitrates - say, 80kbps and lower - I would expect the quality of s-video with the Osprey-230 to be comparable to that of DV with the Osprey-560.  The quality differences would, of course, be more noticeable at higher bitrates and resolutions.

The CPU usage using the Osprey-230 and the Osprey-560 would be roughly equivalent as they would both be passing the uncompressed a/v data to WME.  The CPU usage is expected to be much higher using the IEEE-1394 on the motherboard due to the additional task of decoding the DV format on the CPU.