On2 Technologies Announces New Flix Engine
On2 Technologies, Inc., a leader in video compression software and solutions, announced that it has released a new version of its flagship Flix Engine video encoding software designed for servers with multi-core processors. Through On2's new TrueCore technology, Flix Engine can use multiple processor cores to encode video in parallel, resulting in substantially faster video transcoding speed with a single Flix Engine. With TrueCore technology, a 720P high-definition video file can be encoded at 1.4 times faster than real-time on a processor with eight cores.
The new Flix Engine offers two modes of operation for different video encoding applications. The default mode is targeted at user-generated content (UGC) sites, and other high-volume applications for smaller video files. In this mode, Flix Engine simultaneously encodes multiple videos by automatically spawning a new encoder process on each available core or processor. An eight-core processor can therefore encode eight video files simultaneously.
For high-resolution content, Flix Engine uses the TrueCore technology to encode different sections of a video file simultaneously across multiple processor cores. As a result, large files, such as high-definition video (HD), are encoded significantly faster, and can be encoded faster than real time with suitable number of cores utilized.
"Faster encoding has been a high customer priority, especially as VP6-based Flash based video programming is used at higher, even broadcast quality resolutions," said Bill Joll, president and CEO of On2. "With the increasing availability of multi-core processors in affordable off-the-shelf hardware, our TrueCore technology gives users the ability to fully leverage the benefits of such processors. Our flagship product, the Flix Engine, is the perfect platform to introduce truly affordable and fast encoding with this breakthrough technology."
In either mode, Flix Engine with TrueCore provides marked improvements with each additional processor core. For instance, a four-core instance can encode a video file approximately three times faster than a single-core implementation of Flix Engine, and an eight-core instance can encode a video file approximately five times faster.
"We are pleased to see On2 further innovate their line of video encoding software," said Chris Hock, group product manager, Flash Media Server, for Dynamic Media at Adobe. . "Flash technologies have set the benchmark for web video, and faster encoding with On2's TrueCore technology further pushes the boundaries for how Flash based video can be applied to both high volume and high resolution video applications."
