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A Celeron G1820 can decode HEVC?

techne

techne

Member
My good old E35M1-M is not able to decode HEVC.

Would be a Celeron G1820 enough to decode 1080p videos encoded with H.265?

I'm already searching the web for answers, but any additional help would be appreciated.
 
Link.

If you have a computer or device that doesn’t include the aforementioned hardware, that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to decode HEVC. PCs, even those with entry-level CPUs from several years ago, shouldn’t have much trouble software decoding HEVC videos. One of my HTPCs equipped with a $50 Intel Celeron ‘Ivy Bridge’ CPU from 2012 is more than capable of decoding HEVC
Click to expand...

That Celeron doesn't have a hardware decoder (Only in Skylake or newer CPUs) but it can software decode. It might be a bit slow or have high CPU usage meaning it will be less efficient.
 
sell the motherboard and get a celly+h110 combo.

Or if you're just after media decoding, something like an android box based on S905 should be even better. They go for less than 30$ nowadays.
 
Yes... but not quite. It will be able to decode up to a certain bit rate, after which it will fall apart. If you want to better understand what will happen, you can use test files from this site.

I made a small test for you in case the CPU you have in mind is not in your possession - I used the 1080p 40Mbps Main 4.1 encoded file from the mentioned site on my Haswell machine, and tried to emulate the Celeron by restricting max frequency to 2.7Ghz and letting the media player use only 2 threads. Here's how CPU usage looked like:

NnaAnFk.jpg


The above screenshot is with hybrid decode disabled, software only decoding. The clip played almost ok, with only 1-4 dropped frames right at the start. Enabling hybrid decode or increasing CPU frequency a bit made the clip play without any dropped frames.

Now, in case you're wondering why would I not test with hybrid decoding always enabled, it's because things get complicated once you increase bitrate and also have a bit more CPU grunt available (4c/8t, dual channel RAM). In my case, using the 110Mbps file with partial HW acceleration resulted in bad quality playback (dropped frames), while going software only resulted in good playback. Just realized G1820 does not have any form of HW acceleration for HEVC anyway.

So quick recap:
  • test on your own system with your own software - software and drivers will play a big part here
  • my (very) limited testing says you should be able to play FHD files up to 40Mbps
If the Haswell Celeron is an upgrade option, I would suggest against it: either upgrade current HTPC with the cheapest HEVC Main10 video card available, or wait until Q1 2017 and buy a cheap Kaby Lake or whatever APU AMD brings about that can decode HEVC and VP9.

techne said:
I forgot to mention that I already have a Haswell motherboard (LGA 1150) lying around, so my choices are limited...
Click to expand...
Well, you can go with the Celeron for now, but soon enough you'll need to add a dGPU for proper support.
 
Last edited:
hojnikb said:
sell the motherboard
Click to expand...

coercitiv said:
If the Haswell Celeron is an upgrade option, I would suggest against it: either upgrade current HTPC with the cheapest HEVC Main10 video card available, or wait until Q1 2017 and buy a cheap Kaby Lake or whatever APU AMD brings about that can decode HEVC and VP9.

Well, you can go with the Celeron for now, but soon enough you'll need to add a dGPU for proper support.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the generous answer.

In fact, to sell the Haswell motherboard is an option, but to sell it with a CPU would be easier. And, after all, I need to know if the mobo is still working...

I will order the G1820. And next year I'll look for a new (and proper) HTPC.
 
Roughly: 1080P 60fps @ >= 5Mbps, 1080P 30fps @ >= 15Mbps, 1080P 23.976fps @ >= 25Mbps.
Use the most recent libavcodec for the best performance.
 
I have assembled the new PC a week ago and I'm back to report the end of the story.

While decoding Netflix and YouTube streams, no stuttering. FFmpeg is properly installed.

Use of CPU while decoding HEVC 8-bit: between 30 and 50%.
Use of CPU while decoding HEVC 10-bit: 90%. 😵

No stuttering.

So the conclusion of my test is: yes, a Haswell Celeron G1820 can decode HEVC without stuttering and qualifies for a 1080p HTPC. It seems to be the bare minimum, but it works. Instead of building a new HTPC next year, I'll build a Grok for my wife. 😉
 
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