Nero Digital AVC HDTV decoding

[AlexeyS]

HDTV clips encoded with AVC use too much CPU.

I have Athlon FX-55 (I think it still most powerful AMD CPU) and it loads 100% when plays 1280x720 video. If I turn off CABAC and Bidirectional Prediction, HDTV video uses 90% of CPU. And even with CABAC and BP turned off, I see lags sometimes. :confused:

Question to JohnV (and others):

Is this possible to play HDTV AVC video with lower CPU using?

What settings I should turn off to make video which less uses CPU, but not affect video quality too much?

[Sharktooth]

Use Mplayer for playback. It's a lot faster in decoding than any directshow filters+player.

[AlexeyS]

Originally posted by Sharktooth
Use Mplayer for playback. It's a lot faster in decoding than any directshow filters+player.
You mean Nero Media Player? It uses much more CPU than Nero ShowTime.

[Sharktooth]

No, i mean MPLAYER. Get the latest build here:
http://www.aziendeassociate.it/cd.asp?dir=/mplayer

or here:
http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.phpù

Info here:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html

or :search:

[Leo 69]

According to my observations, Mplayer uses more CPU, than MPC + Nero Video decoder :) and it's only with H.264, not with other codecs.

[dimzon]

Originally posted by Leo 69
According to my observations, Mplayer uses more CPU, than MPC + Nero Video decoder :) and it's only with H.264, not with other codecs.
Agreed

[Sharktooth]

well, i could play some QT HD content with mplayer that couldnt be played back correctly by showtime coz CPU was hogged.

[IgorC]

Mplayer doesn´t detect CPU instructions as SSE.
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
While my CPU is SSE2. I downloaded a P4 version 18 may.
What´s wrong?

[G-Slide]

there is a prob, AVC HDTV trailers work my A64 3400+ @ 30-40%

[AlexeyS]

Originally posted by G-Slide
there is a prob, AVC HDTV trailers work my A64 3400+ @ 30-40%
Could you try this sample (http://www.callofdutyserver.net/iii/test1.mp4).

How much CPU it takes (full screen) with Nero ShowTime? What version of Nero and Nero Vision Express do you have?

[G-Slide]

neroshowtime version 20018
your sample : 60%

you have an HDTV version of Shrek ? where did you get it ?

[SeeMoreDigital]

98% for me!

I think it's time I bought some more RAM :eek:


Cheers

[AlexeyS]

Originally posted by G-Slide
neroshowtime version 20018
your sample : 60%
Then why my Athlon FX-55 uses 100%? :( Any ideas?

you have an HDTV version of Shrek ? where did you get it ?
It's sattelite video. You also can buy D-VHS and HD-WMV movies (if they available in your country).

[Manao]

> I think it's time I bought some more RAM

RAM size is not the bottleneck here. Decoding a video with 2 ref, b-frames need to store at most 4 frames in memory ( ~600 KB per frame for PAL ), so you do the maths.

Faster RAM ( which often implies new motherboard & processor ) might help, but what will help most is still the processor and its cache.

Also, what has a huge tendency to create discrepancies between users is the way the video card is used ( overlay / VMR7 / 9... ). Some modes are clearly faster than others, and user not always have the control of which one will be in use. That explains, i think, the differences between the several observations reported here.

Finally, in a pure decoder contest ( without taking into account demuxing / showing on screen ), there's no doubt that Nero's decoder is faster than libavcodec's one.

[hellfred]

I suggest to try mplayer using a linux OS to get best performance. I have not tryed MPEG4 AVC under linux, but with ASP videos, the decoding speed was way faster than mplayer on win32 or any combination of dshwo filter and player, including ffdshow+MPC.
You do not have a linux on your HD to boot from? Just get yourself a linux live CD (like knoppix) or a bootable linux-distro for multi-media playback like movix. Try to get XVideo playback working and make sure that it is used. Some live-Cds have skripts to download and include nvidia's drivers while running.

Hellfred

[AlexeyS]

Also, what has a huge tendency to create discrepancies between users is the way the video card is used ( overlay / VMR7 / 9... ). Some modes are clearly faster than others, and user not always have the control of which one will be in use. That explains, i think, the differences between the several observations reported here.
Any ideas how I can run HDTV video faster? I have ATI X800XT and latest drivers installed. Maybe I need some patches for CPU/VideoCard? :confused:

PS: I've tried to watch this video on my notebook and it uses only 70-75% of CPU (P4 3.2 GHz). Still can't understand why Athlon FX-55 is so slow. :(

[AlexeyS]

Originally posted by G-Slide
there is a prob, AVC HDTV trailers work my A64 3400+ @ 30-40%
Did you install some drivers for CPU?

[G-Slide]

yes, i have a driver for my A64...but i can't remeber where i've DLed it... :confused: (i have my a64 since september)

[Dallemon]

here's a silly suggestion, try disabling PP ^_^

[AlexeyS]

Originally posted by Dallemon
here's a silly suggestion, try disabling PP ^_^
I think Athlon FX-55 should work on 20-30% with PP turned on (if 3400+ loads only on 30-40%).

yes, i have a driver for my A64...but i can't remeber where i've DLed it...
Could you look at CPU drivers' info (Control Panel >> Hardware >> ...)?

[Selur]

got a cpu usage of 60% with the shrek clip on my Athlon64 3400+ running under winxp32bit (50% with mplayer)

[G-Slide]

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html

[AlexeyS]

Originally posted by G-Slide
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html
Installed AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor Driver for Windows XP, Version (exe) 1.1.0.18.

Still 100% of CPU load... :(

[AlexeyS]

Have made some experiments with BIOS settings. Now it uses about 50% of CPU. :)

[G-Slide]

goof 4 you ! :)

[thed33p]

What did you hange in the BIOS, AlexyS?

[AlexeyS]

Originally posted by thed33p
What did you hange in the BIOS, AlexyS?
A lot of things. I'm not sure what exactly helped me. I think it was AGP Fast Write or AGP 4x >> AGP 8x or AGP buffer 128 Mb >> 256 Mb.