Minimum Specs to Watch HD videos on PC?

[Auric]

The features were advertised but the hardware just didn't work and they subsquently fixed it in later derivitives (6600) and revisions. If I recall, it is possible to get a later model 6800 AGP which does actually does work (perhaps only PCIe core with AGP bridge?), despite the general specs stating otherwise.

 

[jammur21]

I think for 720p its a P4-C 2.4ghz
for 1080p its a P4-C 3.0ghz

 

[fern420]

what a wonderful time to have this thread. im building a media pc and am having some hangups on 1080P videos.

im using a pent 3.4 775, 2 gigs of 677 ddr2 ram, a msi g965m but only onboard video. i can play up to 1080i just fine, no problem at all on the built in video output but it chokes a bit on 1080p videos, fps are dipping. i just ordered a x1550 for it from good old new egg since it was dirt cheap so im hoping it will do the trick to get the 1080p videos playing perfectly but they certainly do need a lot more juice to run than most people realize. i just hope adding a 256mb x1550 will give me that extra push umphhh i need to play these 1080p videos, after all i was pushing it to get perfect 1080i on 8mb of physical on board video memory, hehehe. i just dont want to shell out for a core 2 duo on the media pc to play the few 1080p downloads or files i would ever get.

 

[jonny13]

Found a thread at AVS Forums showing the incredible performance of even the 8500GT for H.264 performance.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=835630&page=5&pp=30

 

[Auric]

fern420, the Intel GMA 3000 is supposed to sport some decode acceleration, no? The X1550 may help sufficiently given a DxVA decoder however a 7300GT prolly would have been a better low-cost choice. ATI doesn't equate until something like the X1650XT since relying upon shaders rather than a uniform unit. Please follow up with how it performs.

jonny13, the new PV does look impressive indeed.

 

[fern420]

Originally posted by: Auric
fern420, the Intel GMA 3000 is supposed to sport some decode acceleration, no? The X1550 may help sufficiently given a DxVA decoder however a 7300GT prolly would have been a better low-cost choice. ATI doesn't equate until something like the X1650XT since relying upon shaders rather than a uniform unit. Please follow up with how it performs.

jonny13, the new PV does look impressive indeed.

thanks for the insight, i may end up getting a 7300gt after all, good thing newegg has never given me a problem with returns, hehe. i also shipped back that msi board today to mwave, i just wasnt happy with it at all, absolutely no decent bios options at all. i think ill pickup a cheap gigabyte to suffice it. im just crossing my fingers on this x1550 being able to produce uninterrupted 1080p video but if it doesnt ill pick up the 7300gt. is that the best card under $100 youd recommend for 1080p playback? also what would be the best software to be using to play a 1080p video? ive just been using quicktime and some 1080p trailers for my testing.

 

[Auric]

Well, in PCIe the 8500GT is $100 and just look at the decode performance in the above link. Otherwise, the next best option probably is 7300GT 128-bit since there is little savings with the 7600GT and 7600GS.

There was scuttlebutt many moons ago about an ATI OEM-only card sporting an RV550 (integrated Xilleon/UVD otherwise only available in the unreleased R6xx line) but I am not aware of availability or even card models.

What decoder are you using and did you find any difference toggling DxVA with the GMA 3000?

 

[fern420]

im honestly not sure witch codex its using, i have both the new power dvd and quicktime on that machine. i was just kinda using quicktime as a control group, i know its plays 1080p videos flawlessly on my two 1900 crossfire setup so i was hoping it would be a good "out of the box" test platform to check fps on the new media pc.

i did see those benchies on that 8500, i may just have to refuse the ups package from newegg when it comes and order that 8500, better safe than sorry sitting there doing all that work then having that 1550 not being able to play 1080p videos smoothly.

one more question, id have to be running vista to get the pure video option on the 8500 to work correct? is pure video alone worth dealing with vistas hiccups?

 

[Auric]

The software decoder is just as important as the hardware if any assist is expected from the GPU. QuickTime provides none so definitely use PowerDVD, or alternately the CyberLink decoders with another player.

I only glanced at it but my impression was an XP driver is due in a couple months to enable the 8500's PureVideo functionality. I would certainly research it a bit before buying one and not rely upon promises. Is there no DxVA at all with the 8000 on XP or is it at least just at the level of the 7000 for now which is good enough for the time being given your CPU?

Personally, I have no desire to subject myself to Vista before a service pack or two and some compelling reason. Such decode ability might be compelling on an otherwise incapable system but then again, running Vista on such a system would prolly be painful.

I do like the adaptability of a PC for media playback but as hardware players are finally rolling out such as the Tvix M4100/5100 they're gonna lose some of their advantage.

 

[mercanucaribe]

What's funny is my Athlon 2600+ chokes on 720p, but my laptops 1.6ghz Pentium M does fine.

 

[fern420]

Originally posted by: Auric

I do like the adaptability of a PC for media playback but as hardware players are finally rolling out such as the Tvix M4100/5100 they're gonna lose some of their advantage.

arggg!!! thats exactly what i need!!!! your exactly right, im spending all this time and money banging my head on the wall making sure my media pc can play 1080p when that little badboy can do it all in such a small form, heheh. i was wondering when someone would produce one. any idea what these are going to retail for on release?

http://www.minhembio.com/forum/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33217

 

[RussianSensation]

Isn't Pure Video HD acceleration for the GeForce 8500/8600 GT/S only available for Windows Vista?

 

[jonny13]

I just ordered a 8500GT which will be here Tuesday, May 1st. I will be testing it out in Windows XP as well as Vista using PowerDVD 7.3 with both King Kong and Batman Begins. I currently have an Intel G965 using integrated graphics and PowerDVD won't play the HDDVD's since the driver isn't valid. I'll post more after testing.

 

[fern420]

Originally posted by: jonny13
I just ordered a 8500GT which will be here Tuesday, May 1st. I will be testing it out in Windows XP as well as Vista using PowerDVD 7.3 with both King Kong and Batman Begins. I currently have an Intel G965 using integrated graphics and PowerDVD won't play the HDDVD's since the driver isn't valid. I'll post more after testing.

please post your results as im in the same boat with you, i ordered the 8500 too, ill just refuse that 1550 when it comes. what processor are you putting behind it, just out of curiosity?


EDIT

ill be damned if i did not have the newest power dvd update installed ( i only had 7.0), i went and got the update for it and low and behold my 1080p performance dramatically improved even on a older setup, 478 pent 3.0 and a crappy 64 mb video card. its still not perfect, averaging 22 fps but its amazingly better than it was for that pc before i updated the powerdvd on it (14fps average yesterday) i would have to agree that the new power dvd makes a world of difference and for anyone playing 1080p videos its a must have.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Upcoming R600 and Nvidia's 8500/8600 make CPU speed pretty much irrelevant.

 

[jonny13]

Originally posted by: fern420
what processor are you putting behind it, just out of curiosity?

I am running a E6300 with 2GB ram.

 

[Auric]

M4100-SH is around $320. There are a number of such players becoming available from mainstream companies with particular focus on network ability so perhaps the premium will not hold up so well as with previous generation units when they were more a niche item.

There was a 5% performance increase with CyberLink AVC decoder 1.99.0.1405 over 1.99.0.1207. The player and driver configuration is crucial though. During playback, CPU useage should not be rise and fall dramatically (see Task Manager performance tab). If it does, be sure to toggle/re-toggle Smart Deinterlacing to None. It will still function as configured in the decoder properties (accessed via other players such as MPC) but seems to avoid some conflict (at least with PureVideo). Likewise, disable Enhancements from Video Color Settings in the new CP.

 

[jonny13]

The 8500GT arrived and after installed the new nVidia drivers for Vista x64, I was up and running. I was able to watch Batman Begins in HDDVD via Analog cable to my bigscreen in full 1080P using PowerDVD 7.3. I also bought a DVI-HDMI adapter and hooked that up to my HDMI port on the TV and that worked great as well, although did have some overscan that needs to be corrected with powerstrip. The color and brightness was much better via HDMI. I played a scene of Batman Begins just fine, but after playing with some video settings, PowerDVD started giving me errors via the HDMI output. So, I switched back to analog. CPU usage was averaging <30% and never moved much from there. And I believe Batman Begins uses VC-1 encoding, so even a 7xxx series card should give the same results. Either way, it was nice to finally get HDDVDs going.

 

[zephyrprime]

Since Nvidia charges extra for purevideo, I think that ATI is the clear choice for HD playback since AVIVO is free. Also, the C2D is clearly the champ for any media related task because its SSE implementation is the best by a big margin.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Wait, are these videos 720p/10180i or 1080p?

That's rather strange... I downloaded some gorgeous-looking 720p .AVIs off the net (Chronos being one of them) and they play just fine on my PC... and I have almost the same configuration: P4@2.8 GHz, 1 GB RAM, ATI AIW x800XL

Edit: forgot to add - I use Media Player Classic...

 

[jonny13]

If you use PowerDVD or WinDVD, you don't need to buy anything for Purevideo to work. Most of the new DVD software handles Purevideo, so there is no need to buy anything anymore.

 

[Auric]

Nvidia doesn't "charge extra" For PureVideo. They sell PureVideo Decoder packages for DVD. For HD, commercial third-party decoders are required to make use of either PureVideo or Avivo hardware.

 

[essenns]

I have a HTPC with the following key components:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+, Venice core, Socket 939 (checked with CPU-Z to ensure that SSE3 is also supported) not OC
2 GB RAM
ASUS EN8500GT
LG GGC-H20L BLU-RAY HD-DVD Drive
nVidia ForceWare 163.75 for Win XP
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 with the latest patch

Can you provide some info on how I might be able to get hardware acceleration to work? I have the hardware acceleration checked in the PowerDVD configuration. As soon as I start playing either a BluRay or HD-DVD disc, there is a lot of stutter, CPU is at 100% and when I pull up the configuration during playback it looks like the checkmark has been disabled. How can I enable hardware acceleration so that I can offload the processing to the graphics card? How can I even check if the GPU's video acceleration is being leveraged even while playing some other format files in say WMP?

Thanks in advance for any info/help that you can provide. I am dying to get this working.

 

[Auric]

Check forums.nvidia.com to see if DxVA is working with those drivers and revert to older ones if necessary.

Also, check the PDVD Information tab during playback to confirm DxVA is actually disabled.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: essenns
I have a HTPC with the following key components:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+, Venice core, Socket 939 (checked with CPU-Z to ensure that SSE3 is also supported) not OC
2 GB RAM
ASUS EN8500GT
LG GGC-H20L BLU-RAY HD-DVD Drive
nVidia ForceWare 163.75 for Win XP
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 with the latest patch

Can you provide some info on how I might be able to get hardware acceleration to work? I have the hardware acceleration checked in the PowerDVD configuration. As soon as I start playing either a BluRay or HD-DVD disc, there is a lot of stutter, CPU is at 100% and when I pull up the configuration during playback it looks like the checkmark has been disabled. How can I enable hardware acceleration so that I can offload the processing to the graphics card? How can I even check if the GPU's video acceleration is being leveraged even while playing some other format files in say WMP?

Thanks in advance for any info/help that you can provide. I am dying to get this working.

Holy thread revival!