WMV-HD Hardware Support

[gsellis]

Does anyone know, for a fact, of any video cards that support WMV-HD on the card? I know of one that has WMV9 listed as encode/decode, but the spec does not specify if this includes WMV-HD.

 

[Wag]

WMV9 includes WMV-HD.

Is there some reason why you need it? If you have an Athlon 2500+ setup (or better) you should be able to play back even 1080p WM9 stuff. I can handle all the demo clips on the website just fine.

 

[gsellis]

That was what I was thinking in regards to WMV9 vs WMV-HD, but I have seen WMV-HD referenced alone in discussions of DVD-HD. Therefore, uncertainty. The MS site is light on detail. Even if it is on-board, that does not mean the vid driver implements it either. I love cutting edge

MS has specs on machines for both 720p and 1080p playback at WMVHD. Trying to get an edge and offload some of the work from the processor. I am not a liberty to discuss why at the moment.

 

[Wag]

Those specs are set rather high.

2500+ w/AGP 8x and Fastwrites on should handle any WMV-HD you throw at it just fine.

If you want to check, just try the demos at WMV-HD.

 

[gsellis]

Bump with new info... nVidia's solution on the 6800, according to the slides per tech support, off loads 60% of the decode. Not sure if that scales through HD though.

If anyone has a x800, I would be curious what the CPU utilization is playing one of the 720p demos at the WMVHD site is. For grins, 2 of them at a time. What about 1080p?

As a reference, my 2.4 with 1GB and lowly Intel Extreme Graphics (work machine) does not drop audio, only displays about half the frames, and the CPU is at 100%. I will try in on a Dual with a 9600XT tonight.

Edit for the non-dyslexic (have vs half)