1080P H.264 Playback Discussion

[jochs]

I just spent the last 8 hours reading the forums. Information overload! I recently built an HTPC (specs below) that is dedicated to HD playback. The main players I use to decode HD streams are Nero ShowTime 3, CyberLink PowerDVD 7.2, VLC, wmplayer. I have not used CoreAVC decoder yet due to the fact that there is no GPU support. I hear it does an excellent job without GPU support and that GPU support is coming soon…but if I have the GPU why not use it? PowerDVD 7.2 seems to have the best playback so far. I am making that call from my half way trained eye and from CPU usage that is not going over 50% while playing 1080P H.264 material. However, I do have an idea that I hope everyone will participate in. Someone needs to post a 1080P h.264 40Mb + high action demo file that everyone can benchmark against and report back their playback results. That way we know what decoders, players, system specs, are best for high end HD playback. Also, I have read through a lot of forums but still have not seen a way to measure dropped frames, real-time Mb per second, average Mb per second, average CPU usage, average GPU usage, and memory usage during the playback of a video. If this is already built then great, point me in the right direction. I know that the players I am using do not have these features built in.

If you reply to this thread please post your system specs so everyone knows what hardware you’re working with. I want to know anything and everything about your HD playback experiences with diffrent hardware / decoders / whatever.

-Jonathan

System Specs

__________________
CPU:
AMD 64bit X2 4400+ over-clocked to 5200+ equivalent
Speed: 2.607 Mhz
XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600) (32 bit)

Video Card:
eVGA NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS KO (256MB)
DirectX Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.10.9371

Sound Card:
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

TV Cards:
ADS Instant HDTV PCI
Plextor ConvertX PVR PX-TV402U

RAM:
1023 Mb DDR 400

Hard Drives:
WD Raptor 74GB SATA 1000RPM
Maxtor 300GB SATA 7200RPM (File Storage)


Software:
Beyond TV HD Latest Version
Nero ShowTime 3
CyberLink PowerDVD 7.2
VLC Latest Version
Windows Media Player 11
NVIDIA Pure Video Decoder

[Hobojobo]

O.k. :)
I come along.
What we still need is a 1080P h.264 40Mb + high action demo file, as you said.

My gear:
Athlon 64 3200+, 1 GB RAM, GeForce 6600 GT, W2k

[CruNcher]

these are rather old results but mostly still valid i hope i find the time to update them soon

http://cruncher.mufflastig.com/h264/h264-decoder.txt

[BlackSharkfr]

I only use CoreAVC, it's very very fast, on my machine it's faster than the Purevideo/Avivo stuff.

I can render a high action video-game clip from trackmania and then encode it and make it available to everyone through Zudeo (a free public bittorrent tracker, legal of course)

I'm ordering a complete new PC next week so i can prepare some driving and a set of cameras (static, pan, traveling, complex bullet-time stuff, and game cam) so that when the new pc is ready all i have to do is to shoot, and encode. But honestly i don't think you'll ever need such a high bitrate, even for high action, 1080p footage.

Current machine :
AMD Athlon xp 2000+
2x 512MB RAM
Nvidia 6600GT 128MB AGP

Next week machine
Intel Core 2 Duo (E6600 probably)
2x 1024MB RAM
Nvidia 8800GTX

[Shinjite]

Yeah I would like to participate too in this, wanna see how far my machine can decode 1080p videos.

My machine :
Intel Pentium 4 ES 3Ghz@3.41Ghz
1024MB X 2 DDR SDRAM
128MB Nvidia FX 5900XT@5900U AGP

[jochs]

But honestly i don't think you'll ever need such a high bitrate, even for high action, 1080p footage.

You should read this (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2886) article on anandtech.com

At one point X-Men: The Last Stand hits over 41Mb. Over 40Mb will be very common this year in h.264 movies. The files you guys are working with are not high end enough it sounds like.

-Jonathan

System Specs

__________________
CPU:
AMD 64bit X2 4400+ over-clocked to 5200+ equivalent
Speed: 2.607 Mhz
XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600) (32 bit)

Video Card:
eVGA NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS KO (256MB)
DirectX Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.10.9371

Sound Card:
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

TV Cards:
ADS Instant HDTV PCI
Plextor ConvertX PVR PX-TV402U

RAM:
1023 Mb DDR 400

Hard Drives:
WD Raptor 74GB SATA 1000RPM
Maxtor 300GB SATA 7200RPM (File Storage)


Software:
Beyond TV HD Latest Version
Nero ShowTime 3
CyberLink PowerDVD 7.2
VLC Latest Version
Windows Media Player 11
NVIDIA Pure Video Decoder

[BlackSharkfr]

The Anandtech article says it's a 20Mbps average encode, with 40Mbps peak !!!!
That makes much more sense to me than a 40Mbps average one.

So... I think i've found what i need as a replay file. I'll use my 1K project II replay (http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=12321) and change the cameras completely, i should get enough various situations (landscape (for stability) vs cars bouncing everywhere (for water-like noise)).

[arfster]

Those are Bluray though. I've got a couple of AVC HD-DVDs with video bitrates in the 18/19mbit region, with 25mbit peak. They play smoothly on a 3.5ghz dualcore Pentium in software mode (hardware acceleration of VC1/h264 in PDVD 7.2 screws picture quality), but only just - both cores are at 80%.

For 40mbit peaks I can see why Anandtech is recommending top end C2D machines, and that's unlikely to change unless decoders get considerably more efficient, and/or hardware acceleration improves (which will need newer GPUs).

[jochs]

I agree that most movies are going to run in the 15mbit - 20mbit range. But what matters is how your system can handle the high end scenes. I think we would all agree that H.264 is a new technology to the public and the fact that it already is hitting the 40mbit range should be a good sign that in the future after the codec has had some time to progress an average of 35mbit - 40mbits will not be uncommon. Can anyone reference a known stream that at least has a high bit-rates at particular parts? First person to get my HTPC to shutdown because of an mbit raping gets props from me!

-Jonathan

[BlackSharkfr]

i don't know any... which is why i'm going to build one from scratch.

[morph166955]

If it helps any for your testing, I have a Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.0GHz) with 1.5gig ram (soon to be 2gig) and a very significant amount of storage space to hold a HD source for use. I will soon be upgrading my desktop to a Core 2 Quad Q6600 and it already has 4 gig of ram so id say that should be plenty sufficent to run this and get a good benchmark. I also have compiled mplayer/mencoder locally in msys/mingw on my core2 which is optimized for the core2 using gcc 4.3.0 (it actually does help a significant amount speed wise) that may help for testing also.

[arfster]

Can anyone reference a known stream that at least has a high bit-rates at particular parts?

Check that anandtech article, it uses an AVC disc with insane bitrates.

For HD-DVD though, it doesn't matter. You'll never see a disc with >25mbit peaks cos of mux limits.

[DrNein]

Too bad anandtech doesn't know what they are doing:

Unfortunately, we haven't found a feature in PowerDVD or another utility that will allow us to count dropped frames. This means we can't really compare what happens to the video quality when the CPU is running at 100%. In lieu of dropped frames, we will need to stick with CPU overhead as our performance metric.

If CPU utilization is only 40-80% and the reported frame rate is as expected then there are unlikely to be any dropped frames unless there is a defect somewhere in the chain. Regardless, MPC statistics function reports dropped frames when using VMR9 renderless output and presumably has been able to for what, five years?

[kolak]

AVC 40Mbits works perfectly on MacPro 3.0Ghz (2 x 5160 Xeon) with 2 GB ram and Quadro FX 4500 card. CPU usage is about 25% even without hardware acceleration.
:)

[arfster]

Is that Bluray though? AVC has a million different options, you can get 5mbit files that are pretty much unplayable even on C2Ds, and 20mbit ones that play at 30%.

Try this file, it's 1080p, but all of 1.5mbit:

http://jfl1974.free.fr/upload/XMenIII.mp4

[DrNein]

Err, my old P3.0@3.5 + DxVA makes a mockery of that awful X-Men clip with only 20% CPU useage. :p

Planet Earth @ 20Mbps at least takes some effort at 60% and is a joy to watch.

Here's a benchmark of a clip (CyberLink)
User: 13s, kernel: 1s, total: 15s, real: 111s, fps: 275.9, dfps: 38.0

And with Core, which of course uses 100% and still can't manage
User: 35s, kernel: 3s, total: 39s, real: 201s, fps: 108.2, dfps: 21.1

[DrNein]

I only use CoreAVC, it's very very fast, on my machine it's faster than the Purevideo/Avivo stuff.

Current machine :
AMD Athlon xp 2000+
Nvidia 6600GT 128MB AGP


Well there's your problem. The 6600's PureVideo acceleration is non-functional for AVC without at least SSE2 which the AXP lacks. If it was possible to shoehorn a Celeron in there, peformance would go through the roof with a DxVA decoder.

Once you try some decent bitrate movies you will find the old (current) machine inadequate and be especially glad to have the new (next week) C2D one. Enjoy!

[Audionut]

What we still need is a 1080P h.264 40Mb + high action demo file, as you said.

Just re-encode at a low crf value. (2 - 5)

edit: If need be add some noise and sharpen it.

[Pookie]

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/marieantoinette/hd/

Try the 1080P one. That is a difficult trailer to play (for me, at least), only 10mb bit rate - lots of movement and scene changes.

[arfster]

Err, my old P3.0@3.5 + DxVA makes a mockery of that awful X-Men clip with only 20% CPU useage. :p


DXVA is cheating :-) Obviously 1.5mbit is well within the range of most video cards, but try running higher/normal bit rates with those encoding options and your card won't get anywhere near it (not even a 8800 will help you).

The picture with Core gives you the true idea of how hard that clip is on your poor machine. It actually consumes about 25% more CPU power than a typical VC1 HDDVD - crazy :-)

[DrNein]

DXVA is cheating :-) Obviously 1.5mbit is well within the range of most video cards, but try running higher/normal bit rates with those encoding options and your card won't get anywhere near it (not even a 8800 will help you).

The picture with Core gives you the true idea of how hard that clip is on your poor machine. It actually consumes about 25% more CPU power than a typical VC1 HDDVD - crazy :-)

VC-1 is less demanding than AVC. The previous benchmark was of Planet Earth. Here's your X-Men clip:

CyberLink (20%)
User: 11s, kernel: 14s, total: 26s, real: 51s, fps: 89.3, dfps: 46.4

Core (55%)
User: 27s, kernel: 1s, total: 29s, real: 68s, fps: 81.3, dfps: 34.7

[arfster]

VC-1 is less demanding than AVC.


Urrm, that was my point.


The previous benchmark was of Planet Earth. Here's your X-Men clip:

CyberLink (20%)
User: 11s, kernel: 14s, total: 26s, real: 51s, fps: 89.3, dfps: 46.4

Core (55%)
User: 27s, kernel: 1s, total: 29s, real: 68s, fps: 81.3, dfps: 34.7


Again - switch off DXVA for the Cyberlink test :-) You can't get level comparisons with it on, as it works almost fully for the X-men clip, but almost not at all for high bitratre AVC.

Planet Earth is a fairly good comparison. Despite being 20mbit, and the added hassle of mbaff, it doesn't actually consume a great deal more CPU than the 1.5mbit (and insanely heavily encoded) x-men clip.

[Pookie]

Format : 3GPP JVT AVC (MPEG-4) / 3GPP

Family : MPEG-4

File size : 67.6 MiB

PlayTime : 13s 980ms

Bit rate : 40572 Kbps



Video #0

Codec : H.264

Info : H.264 (3GPP)

PlayTime : 13s 980ms

Bit rate : 46429 Kbps

Width : 1920

Height : 1080

Aspect ratio : 16/9

Frame rate : 59.943 fps

Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.374

Size : 70894877

Non Commercial Video Clip Transcoded from HDV

http://www.bestsharing.com/files/32b1j213343/avc_test_40m.mp4.html