How much processing power is required to view HD content on a PC?

[mitchafi]

I'm thinking about building a new PC this summer and turning my current PC into a HTPC to go with the HDTV I plan to purchase. What I'm wondering is if my AMD 3200+ clawhammer will be powerful enough to play HD rips in both 720p/1080i and 1080p. My video card is an AGP BFG 6800 OC if that also factors in. Since I don't really game on the PC much anymore, I could also possibly make the new rig the HTPC (would likely be intel dual-core) and keep my current one as the main PC.

 

[ericeash]

from anands article on both formats, it looks like you'll be out of luck with that processor for transcoding on the fly. if you download to your HDD first, that is probably another story.

 

[Len12345]

My athlon @ 1.9Ghz gets crushed trying to play 720p or higher content. You should go the that microsoft site that has the high res trailers and see if your video card may help you out

 

[almach1]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window...candvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

 

[Wik]

What is bad, is your 6800. I had the same card in my system, and it does not not have hardware acceleration for h264 hdtv. I could play stuff from Discovery HD Theater just fine, but my core 2 duo would come to a crawl trying to play 1080i H264 shows from the BBC. If you can, find a 6600 as it has hardware acceleration for h264 HDTV. Or dont use H264 and stick with Mpeg-2

I could play non H264 720 and 1080i shows with my P4 3.2 and my BFG6800oc

Check out Nvidia's purevideo supported cards

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Playing 1080i rips that are not H264 encoded shoudl be fine.

I have a lot of trouble playing the 1080p Quicktime trailers. Those are H264 encoded I believe?

My Opteron 175 @ 2.5 GHz and 7800GT OC become the bottleneck. That said, the framerate is not bad, but you can tell it's not a smooth video. I'd say it runs 20 fps or so.

720p and 1080i should be fine for my processor though.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

That system just isn't going to cut it as a modern HTPC, I'd use the new Intel setup. That way you aren't put in a position of having to swap out for a faster rig anytime soon.

 

[customcoms]

I have a 6600GT and haven't noticed any difference with purevideo in HD content. In might be the way my system is installed, and I don't think I've messed with the latest purevideo, but I did try the first release of purevideo with HD/H.264 support in a clean install of x64 (dual boot, installed x64 a long time ago, booted into it maybe 5 times), and the purevideo icon wouldn't pop up when playing HD content..only when playing a DVD. I'm pretty sure this means it is doing jack, as windows media player has built in codecs for .wmv files which most HD content trailers are formatted for. How much ram does your pc have?

If you want on the fly HD video playing capability, you should be looking at a minimum of a C2D E6600+2gb ram without a gpu to offload, or a C2D/X2+2GB ram+GPU.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: almach1
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window...candvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

Those all play fine in full screen with no lag on my system...so I dunno.

Also my AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.6Ghz with a 6800GT runs it fine.

 

[VooDooAddict]

I can't play 1080p or 720p Quicktime trailers smoothly on:

Socket 754 2.0Ghz/512k AMD64
1Gig DDR400 CAS2
AGP 6800NU (or X850Pro)
RAID-0 2x160 Samsungs
nForce3 250GB Chipset

It's a big part of why I'm fighting the upgrade bug. For the games I play ... it's still enough. But it's a bit of a dog now for Visual Studio 2005.


Fighting with doing the cheep upgrade, nothing, or the big one.

Cheep upgrade: around $300
- Socket939 4000+ $80 @ The Egg
- X1900XT $215 @ The Egg
Already have everything else including Spare mATX SLI 939 board and AMD Heatpipe cooler in the closet.

The Big One: around $1300
E6400 (Overclocked to 3.2) $225
Tuniq Tower $50 (Or similar)
DS3 $150
2Gig DDR2-800 $225
P180 $125 (with extra 120MMs)
8800GTS $400
500W Active PFC $125
Already have everything else

 

[kknd1967]

also highly depends on the codec and data rate.
my 2.26G P4 + FFShow + X850XT can handle most 720p (dvix, xvid), but have troubles with x.264 720p and 1080i stuff.

 

[VooDooAddict]

Originally posted by: kknd1967
also highly depends on the codec and data rate.
my 2.26G P4 + FFShow + X850XT can handle most 720p (dvix, xvid), but have troubles with x.264 720p and 1080i stuff.

Agreed. Divx @ 720p is smooth. It's those darn Quick time trailers that I suspect are that new HD codec everyone has been talking about.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: VooDooAddict

Originally posted by: kknd1967
also highly depends on the codec and data rate.
my 2.26G P4 + FFShow + X850XT can handle most 720p (dvix, xvid), but have troubles with x.264 720p and 1080i stuff.

Agreed. Divx @ 720p is smooth. It's those darn Quick time trailers that I suspect are that new HD codec everyone has been talking about.

have any links? I'd like to see

 

[NokiaDude]

Any nvidia card that supports purevideo HD can play anything silky smooth.

 

[almach1]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Playing 1080i rips that are not H264 encoded shoudl be fine.

I have a lot of trouble playing the 1080p Quicktime trailers. Those are H264 encoded I believe?

My Opteron 175 @ 2.5 GHz and 7800GT OC become the bottleneck. That said, the framerate is not bad, but you can tell it's not a smooth video. I'd say it runs 20 fps or so.

720p and 1080i should be fine for my processor though.

That is wierd. i've been watching quicktime trailers always at 1080i and 1080P. my little ati tray tools FPS meter displays 24fps in 1080p transformers trailer. it always looks perfect.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: almach1

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Playing 1080i rips that are not H264 encoded shoudl be fine.

I have a lot of trouble playing the 1080p Quicktime trailers. Those are H264 encoded I believe?

My Opteron 175 @ 2.5 GHz and 7800GT OC become the bottleneck. That said, the framerate is not bad, but you can tell it's not a smooth video. I'd say it runs 20 fps or so.

720p and 1080i should be fine for my processor though.

That is wierd. i've been watching quicktime trailers always at 1080i and 1080P. my little ati tray tools FPS meter displays 25fps in 1080p transformers trailer. it always looks perfect.

Odd. I saw the same problem with my 3700+ San Diego @ 2.6ghz. I had 1GB at the time and when I switched to 2GB and an Opteron 170, I still noticed some choppiness.

I dunno. I'm sure my system should be capable of this shizzle (eVGA 7800GT OC) and it's always optimized

 

[SynthDude2001]

I've had success playing back a lot of h.264 encoded HD content with the CoreAVC codec, even on an Athlon XP. 720p and even some 1080p (not always smooth). Unfortunately it's not free, but it works really well. On anything as good as or better than a single core A64, I'd say most content should be no problem (with CoreAVC and/or hardware acceleration). I can play 1080i/1080p MPEG2 content at <35% CPU usage on the AXP (with the Nvidia Purevideo decoder); WMV-HD won't quite be smooth until I get another A64 though.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'd like a link to some video that is considered to be using the most demanding codec and encoding method. So far nothing I can find (even 1080p) is a problem to playback at all.

 

[almach1]

I did used to have problems before when i had my Venice chip at 2.2ghz. i would get choppy 1080p quicktime videos. i upgraded cheaply to a dual core and the problem was solved.

at the time i also did a reformat and updated to the new quicktime.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/h264/

here is a pick of the stats for the blood diamond trailer

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/6680/bloodiamondob8.jpg

running it in it's native resolution runs exactly the width of my monitor. no choppiness

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: NokiaDude
Any nvidia card that supports purevideo HD can play anything silky smooth.

That just isn't the case, the amount of hardware acceleration varies among cards, and for instance, none are going to help enough for a A64 3200+ to handle playing that Xmen HD flick. from the AT H.264 HD bluray on PC article

As for recommendations, based on our testing, we would not suggest anything less than an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 for use in a system designed to play HD content. The E6400 may work well enough, but not even the 8800 GTX can guarantee zero dropped frames on the E6300. ATI owners will want to lean more towards an E6700 processor, but can get away with the E6600 in a pinch. But keep in mind that X-Men: The Last Stand is only one of the first H.264 movies to come out. We may see content that is more difficult to decode in the future, and faster processors are definitely a good place to pad your performance to ensure a quality HD experience on the PC.

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
I've had success playing back a lot of h.264 encoded HD content with the CoreAVC codec, even on an Athlon XP. 720p and even some 1080p (not always smooth). Unfortunately it's not free, but it works really well. On anything as good as or better than a single core A64, I'd say most content should be no problem (with CoreAVC and/or hardware acceleration). I can play 1080i/1080p MPEG2 content at <35% CPU usage on the AXP (with the Nvidia Purevideo decoder); WMV-HD won't quite be smooth until I get another A64 though.

But WMV-HD isn't as demanding as the H.264 based content that is beginning to show up, and I've read it is becoming the most popular format.

True, most content will be fine on his older system, but he is going HDTV, so having a HTPC that can handle the latest, greatest HD content is the way to go imo.

 

[nanaki333]

my htpc has an x2 4200 with a 7950GT and it can handle anything i throw at it. plays HD files fine and plays my blu ray discs just dandy.