Anand's articles on Blu-ray and HD-DVD playback...

[ericeash]

So after reading anand's article, i get the impression that unless you are running core 2 duo, which i'm not, you are not going to be able to get decent playback even with 8800 series gpus. there is no mention in either of the hidef articles of what playback is really like on an amd machine. is there anyone here with hi-end amd machines running hd video?

 

[Noema]

Well, I just say the article and I'm surprised at the amount of PC muscle one requires to watch HD content smoothly on the PC. So far my HD experiences in my lowly rig (no HD-DVD or Blu-Ray of course: I have some 720p and 1080p clips I've gotten off the net, as well the Terminator 2 Extreme Edition second disk, which includes the whole movie encoded in WMV9 and which runs at 1080p and which can only be seen on a PC.) have been positive, with no frame dropping whatsoever. Blu-ray / HD-DVD seem to be a different kind of monster though. Right now it's much cheaper and easier to simply get an X-Box 360 with the HD-DVD drive addon to watch HDDVD flicks.

Hopefully as time goes by the decoding algorithms get more efficient so that performance gets better across the board.

 

[Matthias99]

I believe WMV9-HD is VC1 compression, which doesn't seem that bad (~30% CPU usage for software decode in their article, albeit on a fast dual-core.) Also -- it being "1080p" doesn't say anything about the bitrate. You can have "1080p" content at the same bitrates as SD 480i... you'll have tons of compression artifacts, but it's still "1080p". I'm guessing that the T2 DVD version is lower-bitrate than a lot of the HD-DVD releases, simply because you're limited to ~9GB for the whole thing instead of 25.

The problem is high-bitrate H.264 compression, which a lot of Blu-Ray movies are using. This takes a LOT more horsepower to decode. It would be nice if they ran the same tests on some single/DC Athlon64s... you'd only need to test a couple of them to get an idea of how the performance should scale.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
I believe WMV9-HD is VC1 compression, which doesn't seem that bad (~30% CPU usage for software decode in their article, albeit on a fast dual-core.) Also -- it being "1080p" doesn't say anything about the bitrate. You can have "1080p" content at the same bitrates as SD 480i... you'll have tons of compression artifacts, but it's still "1080p". I'm guessing that the T2 DVD version is lower-bitrate than a lot of the HD-DVD releases, simply because you're limited to ~9GB for the whole thing instead of 25.

Yeah, the bitrate is no doubt much lower, and you are right that resolution doesn't necessarily equal quality. The T2 1080p disk does look great, but it's probably blown away by HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies, with much less artifacting.

 

[AmdInside]

I have a Dell 30" and I thought about trying out the HD-DVD drive but found out there are no graphics cards available today that support HDCP over DVI-I Dual-link in dual-link mode.

Its ok because I have a PS3 which I can watch on my HDTV. You have to see Kingdom of Heaven, Blackhawk Down, Superman Returns in HD....oh my.

 

[moonboy403]

Originally posted by: AmdInside
I have a Dell 30" and I thought about trying out the HD-DVD drive but found out there are no graphics cards available today that support HDCP over DVI-I Dual-link in dual-link mode.

Its ok because I have a PS3 which I can watch on my HDTV. You have to see Kingdom of Heaven, Blackhawk Down, Superman Returns in HD....oh my.

wouldn't the G80 solves your problem?

 

[Nightmare225]

Originally posted by: moonboy403

Originally posted by: AmdInside
I have a Dell 30" and I thought about trying out the HD-DVD drive but found out there are no graphics cards available today that support HDCP over DVI-I Dual-link in dual-link mode.

Its ok because I have a PS3 which I can watch on my HDTV. You have to see Kingdom of Heaven, Blackhawk Down, Superman Returns in HD....oh my.

wouldn't the G80 solves your problem?

Indeed?

 

[Hyperlite]

yeah, it would seem counter-intuitive for them not to support HDCP over dual-link DVI...thats a major part of their feature set...

 

[Auric]

I don't know about current AMD but an old single core P4 combined with PV/AVIVO is sufficient for 20 Mbps AVC. Certainly AMD CPU's lacking SSE2+ are SOL but then users would have chosen those for their skew towards single task performance (games) anyway and not multi-tasking or video.

 

[ericeash]

i guess i'll have to wait til a cheap drive comes out to find out, but i'm oc'd right now to 2.6-2.7 on my opty. i guess if i have to go sli when combo hd/bd drives are available, that's always an option. but i've always heard dvd playback over sli was crippled.

 

[Auric]

What do you mean have to go SLI when combo drives are available? Do you mean for a large display of at least 1920x1080 resolution to enjoy movies while still having enough pep for games?

I never thought aboot multi-GPU systems and video decoding. Is either system capable of assuming more load combined than a single GPU?

You don't have to wait for a cheap drive to find out... just fetch a sample from various sources (not Apple trailers 'cause those are low bitrate).

 

[ethebubbeth]

Yeah, the T2 extreme edition WMV9 release fits on a DVD-5 (I own it). The problem with decoding HD-DVD comes in the massive increase of bitrate.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Auric
I don't know about current AMD but an old single core P4 combined with PV/AVIVO is sufficient for 20 Mbps AVC. Certainly AMD CPU's lacking SSE2+ are SOL but then users would have chosen those for their skew towards single task performance (games) anyway and not multi-tasking or video.

If it's merely SSE2 that is required than that's not so bad as everything starting with the first K8 has it. I can't imagine playing back HD content with just an Athlon XP or older.

 

[Treyu]

Originally posted by: moonboy403

Originally posted by: AmdInside
I have a Dell 30" and I thought about trying out the HD-DVD drive but found out there are no graphics cards available today that support HDCP over DVI-I Dual-link in dual-link mode.

Its ok because I have a PS3 which I can watch on my HDTV. You have to see Kingdom of Heaven, Blackhawk Down, Superman Returns in HD....oh my.

wouldn't the G80 solves your problem?

Na, the max he can watch HDCP content on that monitor would be the max res that falls into single link DVI mode (1920x1200?)

So no matter his setup he can't watch HDCP content at 2560x1600

 

[Auric]

Yeah, but recall that those AthlonXP systems are from the same era or newer than such P4's. Many a user on various Nvidia forums feel ripped off since they specifically upgraded video cards for AVC decode assist only to be surprised it doesn't work and then finding out from other users about the never stated minimum requirement of SSE2. Hopefully that will be corrected one way or the other (either stated or better yet actually no longer being required in the near future).

 

[destrekor]

goes to show both the 360 and PS3 are equipped with some serious muscle power, because the BD drive in the PS3 has no BD chipsets, it's all using the Cell and it's memory.
same with the 360. That's why the systems can offer the players for so much cheaper than a true player, because if it already has the muscle power to run the decoders, than why put in dedicated decoding chipsets, when you can save a lot of money and use the systems already available muscle?

 

[Ichigo]

Originally posted by: Treyu

Originally posted by: moonboy403

Originally posted by: AmdInside
I have a Dell 30" and I thought about trying out the HD-DVD drive but found out there are no graphics cards available today that support HDCP over DVI-I Dual-link in dual-link mode.

Its ok because I have a PS3 which I can watch on my HDTV. You have to see Kingdom of Heaven, Blackhawk Down, Superman Returns in HD....oh my.

wouldn't the G80 solves your problem?

Na, the max he can watch HDCP content on that monitor would be the max res that falls into single link DVI mode (1920x1200?)

So no matter his setup he can't watch HDCP content at 2560x1600

What are you talking about? There IS no HD content encoded natively at 2560x1600.

 

[ericeash]

i think it will come down to better programming. there is no way a $400 hd-dvd player has more processing power than my machine.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Ichigo
What are you talking about? There IS no HD content encoded natively at 2560x1600.

I think the issue is that you could not, for instance, watch your HD content in a 1920x1080 window (or 1:1 with black bars all around, or even upscaled) at 2560x1600.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: ericeash
i think it will come down to better programming. there is no way a $400 hd-dvd player has more processing power than my machine.

Probably not, but the hardware in that HD DVD box is tailored for its specific task, your PC is a jack-of-all-trades and arguably master of none.

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: ericeash
i think it will come down to better programming. there is no way a $400 hd-dvd player has more processing power than my machine.

Probably not, but the hardware in that HD DVD box is tailored for its specific task, your PC is a jack-of-all-trades and arguably master of none.

That's what I thought at first but then I remembered that the first generation HD-DVD player was essentially just an Intel PC (hence the behemoth size and cost).