System Recommendations

General Recommendations

Operating Systems Support

Cinegy Convert software is certified to run on the 64-bit editions of the following operating systems:

  • Windows Server 2019

  • Windows Server 2022

  • Windows 10 Enterprise / Pro

  • Windows 11

Operating system recommendation: Windows Server 2022 is recommended for servers; Windows 11 Pro is recommended for workstations and desktop PCs.

Caution
 We recommend updating Windows OS to include the latest Microsoft updates and hotfixes.

NVIDIA Accelerated Encoding

Note
 To optimize the performance of your NVIDIA graphics board, it is recommended to use the "Prefer maximum performance" value for the "Power management mode" parameter in the NVIDIA Control Panel.

Cinegy Convert supports the hardware-accelerated encoding for H.264 4:2:0, Cinegy Daniel2, and HEVC NVIDIA GPU video codecs. The codecs are highly recommended to use for high-density output formats like HD/UHD.

Note
 Daniel2 GPU encoding and decoding are supported by NVIDIA video boards that have CUDA Compute Capability 3.5 and higher. If the NVIDIA video board has the CUDA Compute Capability of an earlier version, then use Daniel2 CPU encoding and decoding.

To be able to use the encoding hardware acceleration, you will need to install the NVIDIA graphics board (based on Maxwell generation GPU) into the Convert server:

  • NVIDIA GeForce Series (started from GeForce 600)

  • NVIDIA Quadro Series

Please note that the GeForce and lower Quadro Series (Quadro 600) has a limitation of two concurrent encoding streams, therefore if you use these boards, you won’t be able to record more than two H.264 files at the same time by using the NVIDIA hardware acceleration (see the table below):

NVIDIA Series Number of Concurrent Encoding Streams

GeForce Series (GeForce 600 and newer), Quadro M600 Series

2

Quadro Series (M2000 and higher)

Unlimited

If you are going to use multiple encoding (more than 2 streams), it is recommended to use the Maxwell or Pascal generation of GPU (recommended board is NVIDIA Quadro P1000 or higher); if you do not need more than two streams, you can use the modern GeForce Series (e.g., NVIDIA GTX 960).

Note
 After installing a dedicated graphics card, please disable the onboard graphics card (e.g., Matrox) using the Windows Device Manager > Display Adapters and selecting the "Disable device" option for that card.
Caution
 Do not choose NVIDIA "RTX" series cards if you want to use GPU encoding (NVEnc) for Interlaced TV formats! All RTX (Turing family) NVIDIA cards do not support interlace field coding mode. Please, use the Daniel2 GPU encoder, which is not affected by this limitation.
Caution
 Cinegy Convert 22.12 supports the latest NVIDIA boards which require new NVIDIA drivers and a new SDK to be utilized. For that reason, the minimal NVIDIA driver version is 456.81. Before starting any upgrades, please make sure that the OS under which you are running Cinegy Convert and the model of the NVIDIA board you are using is supported in the version of the NVIDIA driver you choose.
Note
 Please perform the process of NVIDIA drivers update only upon stopping Cinegy applications. For detailed instructions on installing an NVIDIA driver, please refer to the NVIDIA Drivers installation article.
Note
 If you use the older driver, you may have an issue with NVIDIA encoding initialization; in this case, you will have the corresponding message in the log file and encoding will fail.

Hardware Recommendations

Note
 Cinegy products work only on machines with CPU supporting minimum instruction set SSE4.1, "Intel® AVX" is also required.
Note
 These system recommendations use older hardware that has been previously tested. The listed CPUs should be used as a guide to select modern equivalent options and not as direct requirements.

The actual performance of a machine depends on the number of running simultaneous tasks, their TV formats, as well as various settings like the number of encoders used, the complexity of encoding profiles, etc. Therefore, no precise hardware recommendation can be given. As Cinegy Convert has no requirements to perform faster than the real-time speed, virtually any modern machine can be used.

The following configuration has proven to be reliably sufficient for up to 4 simultaneous HD transcoding tasks using a single encoder: Supermicro Superserver 1028 series platform, dual Xeon E5 2630v3 CPU, 8x 4GB of DDR4 RAM, SATA-2 SSD drive for OS.

Supported Codecs and File Formats

Supported TV Formats

Standard Definition (SD) High Definition (HD) Ultra High Definition (UHD/4K) Ultra High Definition (UHD/8K)

NTSC 720x480 16:9 29.97 fps

NTSC 1280x720 progressive 29.97 fps

NTSC 3840x2160 progressive 29.97 fps

NTSC 7680x4320 progressive 29.97 fps

NTSC 720x480 4:3 29.97 fps

NTSC 1280x720 progressive 59.94 fps

NTSC 3840x2160 progressive 59.94 fps

NTSC 7680x4320 progressive 59.94 fps

PAL 720x576 16:9 25 fps

NTSC 1920x1080 interlaced 29.97 fps

PAL 3840x2160 progressive 25 fps

PAL 7680x4320 progressive 25 fps

PAL 720x576 4:3 25 fps

NTSC 1920x1080 progressive 29.97 fps

PAL 3840x2160 progressive 50 fps

PAL 7680x4320 progressive 50 fps

NTSC 1920x1080 progressive 59.94 fps

3840x2160 progressive 23.976 fps

7680x4320 progressive 23.976 fps

PAL 1280x720 progressive 25 fps

3840x2160 progressive 24 fps

7680x4320 progressive 24 fps

PAL 1280x720 progressive 50 fps

4096x2160 progressive 23.976 fps

NTSC 8192x4320 progressive 29.97 fps

PAL 1920x1080 interlaced 25 fps

4096x2160 24 fps

NTSC 8192x4320 progressive 59.94 fps

PAL 1920x1080 progressive 25 fps

NTSC 4096x2160 progressive 29.97 fps

PAL 8192x4320 progressive 25 fps

PAL 1920x1080 progressive 50 fps

NTSC 4096x2160 progressive 59.94 fps

PAL 8192x4320 progressive 50 fps

1920x1080 progressive 23.976 fps

PAL 4096x2160 progressive 25 fps

8192x4320 progressive 23.976 fps

1920x1080 progressive 24 fps

PAL 4096x2160 progressive 50 fps

8192x4320 progressive 24 fps

Supported Media File Formats

Cinegy Convert will read the following file formats (containers):

  • Raw DV

  • MPEG Elementary Stream (M2V, M2A)

  • MPEG Program Stream (MPG, MPEG)

  • MPEG Transport Stream (TS, M2T) *

  • MXF OP1a

  • MXF AS-03/11

  • MXF OPAtom

  • Apple Quicktime (MOV and MP4)

  • Windows AVI

  • Windows Media (WMV and WMA)

  • WAV

  • MP3

  • OGG

* Only MPEG-2 encoded streams are supported.

Supported Video Codecs

Cinegy Convert supports the following video codecs:

  • DV25

  • DVCAM

  • DVCPRO

  • DVCPRO 50

  • DVCPRO HD

  • HDV

  • Sony IMX

  • Sony XDCAM SD

  • Sony XDCAM HD

  • Sony XDCAM HD422

  • Sony XDCAM EX

  • H.264 (up to 4:2:2)

  • MPEG-2 I-frame

  • HEVC (H.265)

  • MPEG-2 Long GOP

  • Panasonic AVC Intra 50

  • Panasonic AVC Intra 100

  • Avid DNxHD

  • Avid DNxHR

  • Apple ProRes

  • Windows Media (all versions)

  • Cinegy DANIEL 2

  • Any Windows-based AVI codec

  • Sony XAVC
Note
 Please note that some of the video codecs listed here may require an additional purchase of a codec license depending on the product version or bundle used. Contact the Cinegy Sales Team for details.

Supported Audio Codecs

Note
 Cinegy Convert currently supports live input with an audio sample rate of 48 kHz.

Cinegy Convert supports the following audio codecs:

  • 16, 20, and 24-bit PCM

  • MPEG-2 Audio Layer I-III

  • AAC LC/HE/HE2

  • Vorbis

File Formats Support

File Formats

AVI (Supporting all locally installed codecs including alpha channel support)*

XDCAM SD

AVID DNxHD (In AVID-compatible MXF)**

XDCAM HD

DV

XDCAM HD422

DV25

XDCAM EX

DVCAM

H.264 (MP4)

DVCPro (DV50)

MXF with MPEG-2 Long GOP

DVCProHD (DV100)

MXF AS-03

HDV

MPEG-2 (I-frame and long GOP up to 1080i 4:2:2)

IMX

Windows Media

Panasonic P2 (DV, DV50, DV100, AVC-Intra)

* Only reading of such container/codecs is supported.

** Please note that working with the AVID DNxHD video codec requires an additional purchase of a codec license and installation of a separate plug-in. For details, please contact the Cinegy Sales Team.

Audio Formats Support

The following audio formats are supported for import: PCM/WAV, MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, and all AVI audio codecs (with locally installed codecs).

For export: PCM, AAC, and MPEG audio.