NVIDIA QUADRO Fueling Adobe’s New Mercury Playback Engine

By on Feb 10 2010
In Software, Workstation
16 Comments 16 Comments

UPDATED: 2/12/2010

This past December, Adobe provided a sneak peak of their new Mercury Playback Engine, the driving force behind future versions of Premiere Pro.

Essentially, Adobe has redesigned their entire video rendering and playback engine to harness the NVIDIA CUDA parallel processing architecture of Quadro graphics processing units (GPUs). The result is a fluid, real-time editing experience for adding additional effects, multiple layers, or ultra high resolution content. No more wasting time waiting for things like Encoding and Exporting progress bars to slowly fill the box.


Key things you’ll be able to do real-time with the Quadro GPU-powered Adobe Mercury Playback Engine include:

  • Refine effects-rich sequences
  • Smooth scrubbing and playback of complex projects without waiting for a render
  • Build, edit and experiment with complex video effects
  • Apply multiple color corrections
  • Experiment with effects like Gaussian blur and blend modes
  • Enhanced keying
  • Work with multiple HD video streams, even RED footage

The Mercury Playback Engine allows complex timelines and long-form projects with thousands of clips without having to wait, regardless of whether your projects are standard definition (SD), high definition (HD), 2K resolution, 4K, or beyond. You really can kiss the waiting goodbye.


Given the massive amount of processing required for real-time video editing, and the fact that Adobe wants to ensure the best user experience, they are only certifying high-end graphics solutions with a serious number of CUDA cores, and enough memory to handle complex video projects. And because the Mercury Playback Engine is based on CUDA, it is only accelerated by graphics solutions from NVIDIA. The current list of supported cards selected by Adobe includes the Quadro FX 3800, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX 5800 and Quadro CX, as well as the Quadro FX 4800 for Mac.  For the hobbyist videographer, Adobe has also certified the GeForce GTX 285, and we anticipate that Adobe will also be certifying upcoming GF100-based GeForce GTX products. Of course we’re not stopping there—video professionals need as much horsepower as they can get, so as we develop new high-end solutions, Adobe will be adding more NVIDIA hardware to the list.

If you’re currently using Adobe Creative Suite 4 on any of these Quadro solutions you’re definitely ready for the Mercury Playback Engine. If you aren’t, you can upgrade now to get an immediate boost in performance with your Adobe Creative Suite 4, and be ready for what’s coming next.

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  • tom

    On this site http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production/performance/ is also Quadro CX. What it means ? Why is not the nvidia.com?

  • Juan

    Seriously?
    Are you going to force adobe to limit the Mercury Engine to Quadro when the actual GTX and, i’m sure, the new Fermi is completly capable of working with it????
    Are you going to force us to spend a lot of money for something that an actual high end gaming card is capable?
    I thought that the quadro bussiness is a scam (i’m refering to the Quadro FX family only) …but i understand that for some things you should have separate markets, and separate bussiness, but this is ridiculous.
    I can understand that a quadro, with a better type of memory and a lot more of memory, can proccess this faster, but this does not mean that this is not possible with a GTX or a future Fermi.
    If Mercury Playback is limited to Quadro i can say that officially the Quadro bussiness is a big scam. A lot of small bussiness cannot afford the quadros while they can afford high end geforce, and have a little less performance, but a least a lot more of performance than without any hardware acceleration.
    This is an abuse, i know that you can do whatever you want with what is yours, but really this is completly an abuse for the small bussiness, specially in this times of hard work and less money, you have the power and you are abusing it.
    It’s just my opinion but i have a little hope so you can hear that opinion and change a bit your politics about quadro and geforce specially for small bussiness.

  • Juan

    Also…that is what you say:
    “The Mercury Playback Engine is only accelerated by professional graphics solutions from NVIDIA”
    That is what Adobe’s says:
    “Ensure your system is ready to take advantage of the Mercury Playback Engine in a future version of Adobe Premiere Pro. The Mercury Playback Engine works hand-in-hand with NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology and the following graphics cards are now available:
    * GeForce GTX 285 (Windows and Mac)”
    Seriously, if you force Adobe to run Mercury only in Quadro, you are totally abusing your power.

  • Mark Priscaro

    Hi Juan,
    Thanks for your post. First we should clarify, Adobe selects the minimum hardware requirements, and yes, you are correct, Mercury Playback Engine will absolutely run on GeForce GTX 285 (we’ve updated the blog post today to reflect this). Plus we expect that Adobe will add the new GeForce GTX 480 and 470 in the future. That said, NVIDIA’s and Adobe’s recommendation is that if you use the Adobe tools in your day-to-day work and your livelihood depends on it, then a Quadro professional solution is the best choice. Here’s why professionals worldwide, who cannot afford downtime, overwhelmingly select Quadro:
    • Quadro solutions are designed by NVIDIA, built by NVIDIA, and directly supported by NVIDIA. Using professional workstation-class components, they also have a three year warranty;
    •Quadro software drivers are the result of hundreds of man-years of engineering development, close collaboration with software partners, and extensive testing on professional applications;
    •In addition, high-end Quadro solutions have larger amounts of memory, a direct benefit whether working with large files, such as 2K, 4K or RED video files, or large 3D assemblies, and;
    •Specifically with the Mercury Playback Engine, when working with more than three layers, only Quadro will accelerate the entire project on the GPU. GeForce products will only accelerate layers 1 – 3, with any additional computation falling back to the CPU.
    Once again, thanks for taking the time to comment, Juan, and please let us know if you have any other questions. In fact, please contact me directly at mpriscaro@nvidia.com, as I’d like to follow up with you further, if possible.
    Best regards,
    Mark

  • Mark Priscaro

    Hi Tom,
    Check out our updated post. Quadro CX is supported.
    Best regards,
    Mark

  • Tom

    Hi Mark
    Thanks for your reply. Can you tell whether they are significant differences between Quadro 4800 and Quadro CX? If so, how will this affect Mercury Playback Engine?
    Best regards
    Tom

  • Mark Priscaro

    Hi Tom,
    Sure. Happy to provide any information we can to assist you. The NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 and Quadro CX cards are virtually identical to each other. Since the cards feature the exact same design, they can be expected to perform identically to each other in every imaginable scenario. Either one will be an excellent choice for use with Adobe’s Mercury Playback Engine.

  • http://jooh.no Jon Austenaa

    If software developers like adobe ditch CUDA and go for an open standard like openCL, wont quadro be useful only if you want better warranty? Release it today and cheap mid-end graphics cards of the future will accellerate adobe premiere just as good as a quadro today? I can understand there might be limitations in openCL, but a common and open standard should be the future.
    Also its time the rest of the GUI get hardware accelerated on windows 7 like macs are today.Cant wait for direct2d, but its sad Windows have like four differen gui standards running qt once; gdi, gdi+, wdc, wpf and now direct2d with software fallback. Thats a lot of reduntant code. I wish microdoft would have slowly transitioned gdi+ to direct2d like mac did with quartz2dextreme.

  • Mark

    Hi Jon,
    NVIDIA has and continues to support open standards like OpenCL. Adobe has embraced our CUDA architecture, which, of course, we also fully support.

  • Mohammad

    I have a system with this spec
    CPU Dual xeon x5550
    MB supermicro X8DA3
    Ram 12x4GB 1333 ECC Reg
    HDD 1×300 GB SAS for OS and apps and 6x1TB(raid 0) SATA for project
    VGA Quadro FX 3800
    OS windows 7 64bit
    Premiere 4.2.1
    Now my Q is can i use Mercury Playback engine? if yes how to enable it?

  • http://www.highimpact.com Ryan Brady

    I have to add my opinion on geforces vs quadros. I had a quadroFX1700 that I replaced with a GTX260 with 1.7gb of ram. Everything runs much fast and its cheaper.
    The idea that I should “upgrade” to the quadro 3800 in order to unlock features is absurd.
    The Quadro 3800 has 700mb less memory, 32 less stream processors, and costs 4x as much as my current card.
    Limiting me to 3 layers because my video card is faster than a quadro? That makes no sense. I hope when adobe moves to OpenCL I will be able to buy ATI. I have bought over 60 nVidia cards and this is infuriating.
    ATI doesn’t pull this stuff on their customers.

  • Mark Priscaro

    Hi Ryan,
    Thanks for your comments. As we’ve stated previously, high-end Quadro solutions have larger amounts of memory, a direct benefit whether working with large files, such as 2K, 4K or RED video files, or large 3D assemblies, and, specifically with the Mercury Playback Engine, when working with more than three layers, only Quadro will accelerate the entire project on the GPU. GeForce products will only accelerate layers 1 – 3, with any additional computation falling back to the CPU.
    As we’ve also previously stated, NVIDIA has and continues to support open standards like OpenCL. Adobe has embraced our CUDA architecture, which, of course, we also fully support.

  • Ryan Brady

    Hi Mark, I really appreciate you taking the time to comment, but I do have to disagree.
    “high-end Quadro solutions have larger amounts of memory” accept my gtx260 has 1.7gb vs 1gb for the quadro 3800 and 1.5gb for the 4800. The 5800 is the only one that has significantly more memory than my videocard. In the tech demos they use a 4800 which has 200mb less memory than mine. It also has 32 less stream processors. It has less memory and less computing power.
    Drivers for opengl and directx I can understand. These often need to be customized to run many different applications. Charge extra for it, it makes sense.
    CUDA is a language, it shouldn’t break on different cards. You don’t see Intel saying “you cant run pro software on an i7, you have to buy a xeon”. If premier is limited to 3 layers on my GTX card it has nothing to do with the performance of my card. My card is faster in every way than the 4800 the Adobe folks are using.
    If nVidia is going to feature limit cuda than what is the point of developers using it. Only a small percentage of users have a Quadro. If you make CUDA only run on pro hardware then software developers will be forced into the arms of OpenCL. Only a monolithic company like Adobe can afford to even suggest that their software wont run on consumer hardware.
    What is the frustration is that many of us have been waiting and watching for years for GPGPUs to come to market. To see a powerful GPGPU hardware and well written GPGPU software artificially not compatible is excruciatingly painful.
    You guys at nVidia have done amazing things, don’t artificially keep it from the hands of those who need it most.

  • Patrick

    Hi Mark,
    I appreciate your willingness to debate with Ryan but concrete action is required by Nvidia based on customer feedback of otherwise enthusiastic supporters and customers of Nvidia.
    The number of posts on the web about the issue of the Quadro vs gaming cards is substantial and a huge time waster.
    In my opinion Nvidia need to make a credible statement or truly differentiate the cards rather than attempt unsuccessfully to insult its customers intelligence with corporate bs.
    There are many historic examples that indicate that the Nvidia strategy will eventually fail to dominate if it does not adopt a credible customer orientation.
    I suggest and hope you will take action to hold on to your loyal supporters and customers with a more coherent and reasonable product differentiation and pricing strategy and announce it at the CS5 launch.
    I have sat in similar shoes before and I know this can be done. This is your challenge!
    Regards.

  • Gordon Hutchinson

    Hi Mark,
    From the text above “Adobe has also certified the GeForce GTX 285″
    Can the GTX 285 make use of the Mercury Playback Engine. Also I’ve seen a GTX 470 which looks to be a higher spec card. Would the GTX 470 make use of the Mercury Playback Engine.
    Regards Gordon

  • Mark Priscaro

    Hi Gordon,
    Yes, CS5 will run on a GeForce GTX 285. Plus, we expect that Adobe will add the new GeForce GTX 480 and 470 in the future.