Hi10 H264? Wut?

[VirtualLarry]

However, keep in mind GPU acceleration does not work with the relatively new Hi10-encoded H264 materials (most others are 8-bit stuff). Unless you are viewing anime fansubs (where Hi10-encoding has become quite common), you are unlikely to encounter them elsewhere though.

Can anyone elaborate on this?

Is this some kind of new extension to the H264 codec standard?

Why isn't it hardware-accelerated like normal H264 material is, on current video cards?

What kind of CPU horsepower is necessary to decode this material, if your video card HW doesn't support HW decoding?

 

[alkemyst]

software standards are usually low price point solutions. Those at low price points usually don't scale to real/serious solutions.

Hence it's mostly anime / pirated material.

 

[Zorander]

Can anyone elaborate on this?

Is this some kind of new extension to the H264 codec standard?

Why isn't it hardware-accelerated like normal H264 material is, on current video cards?

What kind of CPU horsepower is necessary to decode this material, if your video card HW doesn't support HW decoding?

You could have just PM'ed me or Googled it:

http://haruhichan.com/wpblog/?p=205

You can actually have DXVA working on such materials but the decoder is incapable of properly decoding the colors, resulting in artifacts akin to running in 256-color for viewing your pictures/videos.

You can use FFDShow Tryout or the LAV/MadVR combo but that leaves out GPU acceleration. Most modern CPUs will have no issue. The trouble lies on stand-alone media players and low-powered CPUs that depend on GPU acceleration to get their work done. Hi10 materials will render them impotent.

Edit: I never pay attention to how much more CPU power is required with 10-bit but, with FFDShow Tryout, there is probably very little difference (a few % over the normal 8-10% on my Lynnfield).

It's the LAV/MadVR combo that can put lesser GPUs to their knees. The MadVR renderer utilises the Shader Processors heavily on these. I notice up to 60% GPU usage on the HD5850 and I have read somewhere else that people with lesser video cards (e.g. HD4200, HD45xx, etc) are experiencing stutterings.

 

[lamedude]

Its an old extension.

Version 3: (March 2005) Major addition to H.264/AVC containing the first amendment providing Fidelity Range Extensions (FRExt) containing High, High 10, High 4:2:2, and High 4:4:4 profiles.

x264 added support about a year ago though so you could consider it new since that what everyone uses to make "backups".

 

[Aikouka]

I use Media Player Classic - Home Cinema on my desktop, which does have support for h.264's 10-bit setting. However, it is important to note that the version on the main MPC-HC website does not support it. There's some Russian group (yes, I know how shady that sounds!) that compiles much more recent builds from the MPC-HC SVN, and the newer versions support it.

I'm not able to find a good link at the moment, but I believe the good builds are 1.5.3.xxxx.

 

[Zorander]

I use Media Player Classic - Home Cinema on my desktop, which does have support for h.264's 10-bit setting. However, it is important to note that the version on the main MPC-HC website does not support it. There's some Russian group (yes, I know how shady that sounds!) that compiles much more recent builds from the MPC-HC SVN, and the newer versions support it.

I'm not able to find a good link at the moment, but I believe the good builds are 1.5.3.xxxx.

Does this MPC-HC version support DXVA for 10-bit decoding?

 

[Aikouka]

Does this MPC-HC version support DXVA for 10-bit decoding?

Hmm, I'm not too sure. I'll have to do some digging to figure this out.

Although, I did see that MPC-HC's standard version has been updated to 1.6, which I would assume means it supports 10-bit since my 1.5.3 non-standard version does.

http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/download-media-player-classic-hc.html

I'll have to look into that as well though.

 

[Zorander]

I gave it a quick try.

DXVA still does not work with Hi10 material, but the player is smarter now by disabling it automatically for 10-bit playback (whereas the old version would force-enable DXVA and then artifacts galore).

I can't remember if the old version (with its built-in decoder) can correctly decode 10-bit correctly with DXVA disabled but this latest version seems to have no issue on that. That means 10-bit playback is supported by this player (even if DXVA is still not possible, but again, that means next to nothing for those of us with reasonably recent systems).