Playback HDDVD & BluRay on Barton 3200+?

[brucevangeorge]

I need to know whether my Barton is capable of playing HDDVD & BluRay or not.

I will be getting a 7600GT shortly and a ram upgrade to 2GB. Is this enough to play it back? What about using GPU acceleration? I know it is possible for H264, but that's only one of the next gen codecs... right? What about the one by Microsoft?


It would be nice to know before spending money on a HD drive and then seeing it doesn't work.

[ntropy]

I need to know whether my Barton is capable of playing HDDVD & BluRay or not.

I will be getting a 7600GT shortly and a ram upgrade to 2GB. Is this enough to play it back? What about using GPU acceleration? I know it is possible for H264, but that's only one of the next gen codecs... right? What about the one by Microsoft?

ATI's new Unified Video Decoder (formerly "Universal") in the Radeon HD 2000 series is supposed to do hardware decoding of both h.264 and VC-1.

There are a bunch of charts and details at http://www.ocworkbench.com/2007/ati/ATI-HD-Radeon-HD-2900XT-and-HD-2000-Series/p5.htm and a review of the HD 2900 XT (released today) in action at http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/431/11/. The cheaper 2400 and 2600 cards aren't coming until June/July.

There's also word of an AGP version coming: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=701&Itemid=1

[brucevangeorge]

That's way overkill for a barton.

What about a x1650xt?

[brucevangeorge]

And did you say unified driver??

I wonder if the 2400 or 2600 will have that too.

A 2400 would seem like a much better match for a Barton. Since that would be a low end card... right? Would match a mid-end card from previous generations.

[foxyshadis]

Your barton is probably going to be eaten alive if you use a x1xxx or 7xxx series card, so a 8500 or 2400 (if any AGP do show up soon) will most likely be necessary for the extremely high bitrates on HD/Bluray. For broadcast or downloaded streams, they would probably be sufficient, but with last-gen cards dual-cores are still needed with gpu acceleration for the h.264 discs.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Absolutely. Most recent GPUs have only very minimal decoder acceleration, and it's usually limited to deinterlacing or maybe a bit more. True bitstream decoding is only really implemented right on the GeForce 8500. This can play back high bitrate AVC on even a mediocre system like yours.

~MiSfit

[Awatef]

"mediocre"?? that was harsh! not because you have a dual core that a single core is automatically "mediocre" :eek:
And it's not any single core, it's a 2.2GHz AMD man!

I would rather qualify the PowerDVD engine to be "mediocre", especially when compared to CoreAVC's performance.

I would recommend bruce to wait a bit, first to see if CoreAVC will be able to decode HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray, and second to see wether AGP versions of the latest GPUs will be available or not.
I think it's too early for HD-DVD & stuff anyway, everything is still in "beta" stage, if you understand what I mean...

[foxyshadis]

CoreAVC requires at least a dual-core to play HD discs. P4s and XPs just can't cut it, unless you have a killer overclock going on, like 100%. Even some of the lower end dual-cores can't handle it without a strong GPU boost. Compare these numbers: GPU acceleration test (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2886&p=4) and use the fact that coreavc is ~20% more efficient than PowerDVD software decoding, or ~50% less efficient than with a 7600GT (source (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_purevideo_hd_preview/page7.asp)), and see just how bad it is on a top-end current dual core. No single core could hope to touch that without full gpu offload. (Might deal with MPEG-2 and VC-1 discs okay though.)

Yeah, it hurts, but a top-end system from 4 years ago is now 3 generations behind (K8, K8-X2, K10 aka K8L) and has to be classed as mediocre for these tasks.

[Awatef]

@ foxy
Well, that's why I told him to wait. We'll have to see how an improved CoreAVC will handle high bitrate AVC w/ GPU acceleration. CoreAVC can actually be up to 70% faster than PowerDVD, depending on the content. So may be we can see it handle high bitrate 1080p on single core machines when the GPU support is available.
Also we shouldn't forget that dual core often means 50% performance increase over a single core CPU, and not 100% ;)
And should newer cards become available in an AGP version, he may just end up keeping his original proc. :)

As said, it's too early to jump on the HD train IMHO, drives are still too expensive, software is still in children shoes, etc

[brucevangeorge]

These are all retarted specs. Honestly now.

I can play back x264 content ( WMV) in 720p on a palomino 1800+.

With a GeForce Ti4600. Minimal if any GPU acceleration. It plays no problem.



But on a 3200+ with as much GPU acceleration as possible it can't play back 1080p?

[Blue_MiSfit]

Not without full GPU offload it can't :)

Sorry, I really don't mean to be rude! It's just a fact!


I can play back x264 content ( WMV) in 720p on a palomino 1800+.


Well, x264 and WMV are two totally different things. 720p on a palomino 1800+, sure maybe at low bitrate.

The thing you have to keep in mind is that HD-DVD and BluRay have MASSIVE bitrates. They can be as high as 50mbps, and 1080p to boot! That's a tremendous amount of data to deal with, and, it's just not possible to play this high quality content on even a very fast single core processor. More bitrate = harder to decode.

Playing a 720p or 1080p apple trailer is NOT, repeat NOT even close to playing an HD-DVD or BluRay movie. My dual core 3800+ and 7800gt would probably struggle to play 1080p HD-DVD or BluRay. Actually, my power supply would undervolt and shut down the machine, but I digress... ( I need a new one ;) ).


Also we shouldn't forget that dual core often means 50% performance increase over a single core CPU, and not 100%

Often, but not for situations like these. Video decoding and encoding can often see 80-90% improvements. I know I did!

As foxyshadis said, yeah it hurts. But a high end PC from 4 years ago is not high end anymore :) It's like comparing a 733MHz Pentium 3 to your Barton 3200+.

But it's no big deal, the GeForce 8500 has awesome GPU offload, so why worry? :)

Hmm. on second thought, it probably doesn't have an AGP version :(... Maybe if you're lucky someone will make one.

~MiSfit

[Awatef]

@ Blue
I'll have to trust you on the 80-90% improvement with dual cores for video DEcoding (I'm not so sure about that for ENcoding though, I didn't see benchmarks that show more than 60% improvement)

Anyway, yeah, the problem is less the 1080p resolution than the bitrate. Normal bitrates around 9 Mbit/s would most probably be no problem for his XP 3200+, but considering a 25GB disc w/ 2 hours content will have around 25 Mbit/s average, the CPU will be in for a treat!

[Blue_MiSfit]

Look here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=998229#post998229)

My upgrade MeGUI results :)

Over 60% improvement at a slower clock speed than my single core. 2.2 GHz results were ~90% faster, compared to the single core.

~MiSfit

[Awatef]

Hmmm... this is amazing! Things seem to have greatly improved since the first SMP optimizations.
Thank you for the clarification Blue :)

PS: Have yet to get a dual core, next year may be :rolleyes:

[brucevangeorge]

Dang.

Well that explains it. Looks like this little PC will be just an SD media center instead of an HD.

Its a E6600 (or better bang for buck) & a 8800GTS then!

[Inventive Software]

E4300 and 8600GT will better suit the budget HD media centre. ;)

[Awatef]

Bruce, don't get it wrong, the 8800GTS is no better than a 7600GT for AVC decoding acceleration.
It is the mid-range models 8500 & 8600 that support full AVC hardware decoding, so even a 8500GT for 85€ will do!
If you're going to get such a card, a single core will definitely do the job!

But please consider waiting at least until next christmas, you never know, may be a 8500GT AGP model comes out (or an equivalent model from ATi), and then if it doesn't you make an upgrade that it's worth its money: prices for HD drives will drop for sure and you get a better CPU (AMD Phenom will be in the market by then I think)

[Inventive Software]

Can't you get PCI-Express to AGP converters? I might be wrong....

[Sirber]

Barton is AGP anyway. You'll need to upgrade anwyay the whole thing to get 8500/8600 PCIE :)

[Awatef]

I don't think external adapters exist. The solution is always built-in within the card to make it work on AGP (afaik).
I don't think there are any Socket-A mobos out there that support PCI-E either so...

[brucevangeorge]

But please consider waiting at least until next christmas, you never know, may be a 8500GT AGP model comes out (or an equivalent model from ATi), and then if it doesn't you make an upgrade that it's worth its money: prices for HD drives will drop for sure and you get a better CPU (AMD Phenom will be in the market by then I think)

Here's me crosiing fingers for AMDs Phenom processor!

Even if its not that great, Intel will still cut prices to follow suit, and AMD after. That means more a bargain for me! I like to time when I buy hardware.

Also waiting to see the new x2900 from ATi (and lower end models). Whether its all that its bragged to be and if its got good potential to being an awesome bang-for-buck card.

Or another GeForce from nVidia. Whichever is a better deal overall.

[ntropy]

There's also word of an AGP version coming: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=701&Itemid=1

Lots of AGP versions of the Radeon HD 2000 series listed here:

http://www.amd.com/fr/reseller/visualexperience