PureVideo (in all its flavors) is a crock of balogna

[mrSHEiK124]

What I'm understanding is, if I'm not using WinDVD or some other equally overpriced POS ($100+), I get ZERO hardware acceleration when decoding H.264 files?

I transcode a lot of the shit I get with my TV tuner into H.264, and like to watch an HD-DVD every once in a while. On a few of my computers, no hardware accelertaion isn't a big deal (dual core, pretty fast, etc.). My HTPC on the other hand has an Athlon 64 3000+. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal, I've got a 6150, it supports H.264 acceleration according to nVIDIA.

Are there any ffdshow-like DirectShow compatible (meaning, they'll work with Media Player Classic) decoders that are "PureVideo HD" compatible? I'm referring not to PureVideo (the DVD only one), or PureVideo 2 in the new 8 series, but PureVideo HD that was in the 7 series and some 6 series GPUs.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Hmm, from Wikipedia's AVIVO page:

Compared to NVIDIA PureVideo, AVIVO does not offer any actual decoding software like the PureVideo MPEG-2 decoder. It only allows decoder developers to utilize the DXVA API.

I'm guessing a Radeon 3450 or 3650 on the el-cheapo would be a good idea, seeing as how it looks more "open".

 

[DerekWilson]

i've used media player classic to test purevideo before, but i don't remember what decoder i was using ...

that wikipedia entry is a bit out of date. NVIDIA no longer makes the purevideo mpeg-2 decoder.

AFAIK, nvidia and amd both have quirks when it comes to what decoders are accelerated and/or how to enable acceleration. I know at one point or another they both said that anything using vmr9 and dxva should work at some point ... whether that point is now I don't know ... but definitely play with it and see what you find ... something free somewhere should work.

 

[s44]

Here's one, but for the DX10 cards only.

 

[j0j081]

Originally posted by: DerekWilson


that wikipedia entry is a bit out of date. NVIDIA no longer makes the purevideo mpeg-2 decoder.

why is that? You can still find a download link if you look hard enough but it has been updated in about two years. I paid for the platinum version and still use it I think it works great for dvd viewing.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: DerekWilson
i've used media player classic to test purevideo before, but i don't remember what decoder i was using ...

that wikipedia entry is a bit out of date. NVIDIA no longer makes the purevideo mpeg-2 decoder.

AFAIK, nvidia and amd both have quirks when it comes to what decoders are accelerated and/or how to enable acceleration. I know at one point or another they both said that anything using vmr9 and dxva should work at some point ... whether that point is now I don't know ... but definitely play with it and see what you find ... something free somewhere should work.

You were probably using PowerDVD, the Cyberlink decoder that powers it is a whole DirectShow module, so it works just fine under apps like MPC.

Originally posted by: j0j081
why is that? You can still find a download link if you look hard enough but it has been updated in about two years. I paid for the platinum version and still use it I think it works great for dvd viewing.

It is my understanding that they made their own DVD decoder because they initially needed something to show off their hardware decode abilities and Cyberlink/Intervideo weren't fully on-board yet. They continued with it as an in-house project to test hardware features, opting to keep it public at the time to make a few bucks off of it and to have a decoder to ship with their ill-fated TV tuners and AIW competitor products. Since they are no longer working on additional hardware acceleration for MPEG-2, they no longer maintain it in-house or publicly.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Alright, a few hours of reading online later and I think I've got it running. I installed Media Player Classic Homecinema (MPC HC) as it supports EVR, set the PowerDVD h.264/AVC converter to highest priority in its filter list, and downloaded a bunch of MKV and MP4 tools that I later learned were unnecessary.

I found out that most people that want to play back a Matroska file with H.264 and AC3 audio usually end up demuxing both streams, reencoding the audio as AAC, and making an MP4 file out of them instead of the original MKV. Playing the MKV will give you a blank black screen and MPC will appear to be frozen.

Apparently, the "blank black screen" issues some seem to have with a PD7/MPC/MKV file combination has nothing to do with the fact that it's an MKV; it's MPC's internal audio switcher fucking things up. I decided to disable it after I remember it giving me a ton of grief with H.264 files that had DTS tracks. ffdshow could handle the video just fine, but the sound was playing like choppy garbage through MPC when they'd play back fine in VLC albeit with extremely choppy video, probably because of it's video decoder.

I've come to the conclusion that MPC's own internal audio switcher has probably got some shit code that can't properly demux an audio stream without destroying everything else. Even after doing the MP4 conversion trick the audio would vanish and everything would become choppy if I tried to seek in the file. Once MPC started using the morgan switcher for audio the original MKV files (as well as the MP4 files I had to make) played back fine, no conversion needed. Now PowerDVD 7 is allowing the 6150 to do the limited amount of hardware accel that it can, I get 30-40% CPU usage instead of the 100% capped I did with other software decoders, and the image quality looks a little better too. I tested it out with the Smallville intro that usually makes software decoders skip a few frames on slower computers and it played back fine. Now I've just got to find an S/PDIF header for my motherboard and I'm set

 

[IcePickFreak]

I use the K-lite codec pack which can be had for free (legally), just google it, and when playing mkv's in media player (I'm on XP) I get great picture quality and my cpu utilization fluctuates between 30% to 10%. This also worked great when I was running on my 8500GT backup card when I upgraded the 8800. I'm not too big into HTPC stuff so forgive me if I totally missed the question.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: IcePickFreak
I use the K-lite codec pack which can be had for free (legally), just google it, and when playing mkv's in media player (I'm on XP) I get great picture quality and my cpu utilization fluctuates between 30% to 10%. This also worked great when I was running on my 8500GT backup card when I upgraded the 8800. I'm not too big into HTPC stuff so forgive me if I totally missed the question.

I'm not a huge fan of codec packs like K-lite as they often have several decoders that all do the same thing (I see 5 different MPEG2 decoders available with it, WHY?).

It does appear to use ffdshow for H.264 video though, which would be fine on a Core2Duo E8400 like yours, but choppy on an Athlon 64 3000+ like the one I'm using right now. ffdshow and other similar decoders are software based, using the PowerDVD decoder lets my graphics card handle some of the work; I imagine if I got a newer card it'd offload 100% of the decoding work to it. Thanks though

 

[v8envy]

IcePick: it's all about the resolution. Something which takes 30% of your CPU for a 480i video (NTSC tv) would take up to 360% of your cpu at 1080p. That's why any mainstream machine made in the last 10 years can handle playing back a DVD, but HD content still requires macho hardware to play back w/o stuttering or audio desync.

OP: I've given up on anything but rudimentary motion compensation help from my video cards. Pure CPU ftw. In this day of $60 780G motherboards and $50 dual core X2s it's just not worth the headache -- I couldn't always get the codecs, the software and the hardware to all march in unison for every video source. Threw a 3 ghz quad core at the problem and the problem went away.

 

[imported_Scoop]

This is probably totally off-topic but I'm gonna throw it in here anyway. When I built this rig I downloaded only the CCCP (combined community codec pack) to run my video-files. Well everything looked to be in order until I looked at some MPEG2 material, which looked totally terrible with the new system. It looked way too soft and people looked like they had a bunch of makeup on.

I determined the problem to be my new HD3850, I previously had a 7600GT. So I changed the video setting within the catalyst control center to try and find a good one but none of them looked good enough. So I figured that I'm missing a MPEG2 software codec and it's decoding through hardware. So I installed PowerDVD which comes with an MPEG2 codec. This didn't fix the problem, though now my .ts HD-files were running in sync with the video so it fixed that. So I went back to catalyst control center, turned automatic deinterlacing off, and now I could set hardware acceleration (ATI Avivo) off within the PowerDVD settings and finally got the picture I was looking for. So I may be using more CPU now but hey, picture quality over everything.

 

[s44]

Yeah, now try doing all of this at native x64... Heh.

 

[BassBomb]

Yes you have to demux it to watch MKV and get it to decode.

Heres the best tip (I used this for my HTPC see sig)

Get PowerDVD, MPC-HC, MakostraSplitter

Install Power DVD + Makostra

Now when using MPC you have to add cyberlink VC1 and or HD-DVD as external filters along with Makostra splitter, and disable handling as internal filter.

This way it will demux, then be accelerated by Cyberlink Codec (which is one of the ONLY codecs to accelerate VC1 on a Nvidia GPU).

The other option is having everything in WMV9 format and using Windows Media Player with PureVideo (I did that for trailers).

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
Yes you have to demux it to watch MKV and get it to decode.

Heres the best tip (I used this for my HTPC see sig)

Get PowerDVD, MPC-HC, MakostraSplitter

Install Power DVD + Makostra

Now when using MPC you have to add cyberlink VC1 and or HD-DVD as external filters along with Makostra splitter, and disable handling as internal filter.

This way it will demux, then be accelerated by Cyberlink Codec (which is one of the ONLY codecs to accelerate VC1 on a Nvidia GPU).

The other option is having everything in WMV9 format and using Windows Media Player with PureVideo (I did that for trailers).

I just played back an MKV file without demuxing it, and it played just like the H.264 in MP4 file I wasted time making. With it enabled, MKV files produce a blank black screen, as soon as I switch to using the morgan switcher, and whatever integrated decoder MPC has for the audio, be it AC3 or DTS, it works fine. I do have PowerDVD and MPC-HC, the only other thing you need to do is disable MPCs internal audio switcher. And of course using gspot or MPC to set highest merit for PowerDVD.

 

[will889]

HDCP --obsfucation FTW.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: will889
HDCP --obsfucation FTW.

No HDCP FTW, playing back MKV files over VGA.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: j0j081

Originally posted by: DerekWilson


that wikipedia entry is a bit out of date. NVIDIA no longer makes the purevideo mpeg-2 decoder.

why is that? You can still find a download link if you look hard enough but it has been updated in about two years. I paid for the platinum version and still use it I think it works great for dvd viewing.

Nvidia's mpeg2 decoder is worthless. I've used it and it actually has higher processor utilization than a pure software mpeg2 decoder.

 

[AmdInside]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

Originally posted by: j0j081

Originally posted by: DerekWilson


that wikipedia entry is a bit out of date. NVIDIA no longer makes the purevideo mpeg-2 decoder.

why is that? You can still find a download link if you look hard enough but it has been updated in about two years. I paid for the platinum version and still use it I think it works great for dvd viewing.

Nvidia's mpeg2 decoder is worthless. I've used it and it actually has higher processor utilization than a pure software mpeg2 decoder.

But which one looks better? Before PDVD7, I thought the PVD looked so much better than PowerDVD 6.

 

[j0j081]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

Originally posted by: j0j081

Originally posted by: DerekWilson


that wikipedia entry is a bit out of date. NVIDIA no longer makes the purevideo mpeg-2 decoder.

why is that? You can still find a download link if you look hard enough but it has been updated in about two years. I paid for the platinum version and still use it I think it works great for dvd viewing.

Nvidia's mpeg2 decoder is worthless. I've used it and it actually has higher processor utilization than a pure software mpeg2 decoder.

hmm. so what is the best software dvd player then?

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: j0j081

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

Originally posted by: j0j081

Originally posted by: DerekWilson


that wikipedia entry is a bit out of date. NVIDIA no longer makes the purevideo mpeg-2 decoder.

why is that? You can still find a download link if you look hard enough but it has been updated in about two years. I paid for the platinum version and still use it I think it works great for dvd viewing.

Nvidia's mpeg2 decoder is worthless. I've used it and it actually has higher processor utilization than a pure software mpeg2 decoder.

hmm. so what is the best software dvd player then?

You've got such a fast computer, the performance difference would be completely negligible for even HD MPEG2. H.264/VC-1 is where decoders make a difference.

 

[ViRGE]

mrSHEiK124, the fundamental problem with your system is that your hardware flat-out isn't powerful enough. The 6150 only offers a very basic form of decode acceleration, it's not a complete offload process like the latest post-G80 NVIDIA GPUs can do. Take a look at the results from this AT article, pay particular attention to the 8800GTX; it has a similar level of decode acceleration. Notice how with the slowest systems the CPU usage is pegged at 100%, basically the CPU can't keep up.

You're not going to be able to play most H.264 HD files with that setup. At best, with CoreAVC (basically the lowest CPU usage H.264 decoder out there) you may be able to do up to 720p, and even then that's going to be a stretch that will only work if the CPU isn't loaded down by anything else. All of this messing around with codecs won't help if you're choking on files due to CPU usage. Otherwise you need to drop in a video card that can do complete H.264 offloading.

 

[DerekWilson]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
mrSHEiK124, the fundamental problem with your system is that your hardware flat-out isn't powerful enough. The 6150 only offers a very basic form of decode acceleration, it's not a complete offload process like the latest post-G80 NVIDIA GPUs can do. Take a look at the results from this AT article, pay particular attention to the 8800GTX; it has a similar level of decode acceleration. Notice how with the slowest systems the CPU usage is pegged at 100%, basically the CPU can't keep up.

You're not going to be able to play most H.264 HD files with that setup. At best, with CoreAVC (basically the lowest CPU usage H.264 decoder out there) you may be able to do up to 720p, and even then that's going to be a stretch that will only work if the CPU isn't loaded down by anything else. All of this messing around with codecs won't help if you're choking on files due to CPU usage. Otherwise you need to drop in a video card that can do complete H.264 offloading.

wow can't believe i missed that the first time ... the 6150 is low on capability ... "support" is there, but performance on the level of other cards is not.

good catch virge

 

[mrSHEiK124]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103037

Would this be enough of an upgrade to get H.264 running nicely? I don't exactly want to throw a ~$100 video card or or dual core processor at an HTPC rig I made out of spare parts and about an extra $100 investment. My Athlon 64 X2 4200+ @ 2.4 GHz on my home computer is more than powerful enough to decode even 1080p without stuttering; this is missing a core but it's got an extra 512 KB of cache, and I'm not entirely sure how much dual core benefits video decoding[/b]. Ideas?

 

[DerekWilson]

probably not ...

in general, even fast single cores can't do h.264 ... especially not without GPU support.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Then I'll probably go with this graphics card: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=204450333

I've got a $20 off $80 GCO coupon that makes it a pretty sweet deal, this card should support full H.264 offloading too. I think I'm going to buy the processor anyways, I was surprised when I saw all these socket 939 chips at "normal" pricing. NewEgg usually has them inflated due to lack of supply...