Well I think you've answered your own question about doing a transcode at the server from mpeg-4 to mpeg-2. If you're buying video cards to do mpeg-2 HA, then you might as well get one that does mpeg-4 HA as well. All the entry level ATI cards do it now. I thought your point was that you wanted to avoid buying new hardware by doing a transcode at the server.
My point was that I have a laptop that has an onboard graphics chip that doesn't do any HA, and it just won't run mpeg-2 at such high resolutions very well. Ergo, a transcode of the mpeg-4 stream at the server to an mpeg-2 stream buys my situation nothing, and I still need new hardware. Hence I'm not sure it is a valuable feature.
To your initial point, you don't need 3ghz dual core if you get an entry level card that has mpeg-4 HA on it. The ATI 3450 costs $50. Put one of those in, get a DXVA compliant codec like PowerDVD 8, and you can probably run it on a 2ghz P4. |