1080p. MKV playback on a Q6600?

[AKarpo]

Hello.

Right now I'm playing my .MKV files with the Cyberlink H.264 codec + MPC w/EVR enabled. Performance really brings my X2 4400 to its knees (around 75% utilization), and I was wondering if any of the newer processors handle high-bitrate content any better. Any personal experiences?

[nexs]

Do you have a graphics card that supports hardware decoding? If you don't a 8400 or 8600 would solve your cpu ussage problems.

[Dark Shikari]

CoreAVC is only 15 bucks and plays 1080p quite easily, even on battery mode, on my 2Ghz Core 2 Duo.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I can play 1920x1088 videos (H.264, High Profile) on my Q6600 with lavc decoder (MPlayer, VLC Player, ffdshow) just fine :)

[homerpez]

I can play 1920x1088 videos (H.264, High Profile) on my Q6600 with lavc decoder (MPlayer, VLC Player, ffdshow) just fine :)

Have an E6600 Myself, and it's fast enough for all this as well.

For comparison, I also have an AMD 4200 x2 machine, which I intended to be my "play around" machine to play movies off of.

It will play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD titles, only off the hard drive, and then the audio is out of sync. (Power DVD)

It will try to play 1080p x264 .mkv material... it begins to choke, stutter, and audio is out of sync.

I can play 720p x264 mkv's without any issue, and this is what I've been doing.

So you may have better luck with a faster machine. I will say though that even on my "fast" machine, AVC does pretty much hammer the CPU (30-50% on mine). But faster = better.

I'm curious... are Nvidia 8600's really THAT great for accelerating AVC? I do know they suck at most everything else :P

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I'm curious... are Nvidia 8600's really THAT great for accelerating AVC? I do know they suck at most everything else :P

That all depends on what H.264 decoder you use and how it takes advantage of Hardware Acceleration.
As long as you want a free decoder (libavcodec), Hardware Acceleration is of no use at all....

[InorganicMatter]

I think your problem does not lie in hardware. My 1.66GHz Core Duo, and my 3.8GHz Pentium 4 both play HD stuff just fine. Maybe try the FFDSHOW AVC decoder, or make sure there's nothing wrong with your OS. :confused:

CoreAVC is only 15 bucks and plays 1080p quite easily, even on battery mode, on my 2Ghz Core 2 Duo.

Yeah, it also has the added bonus of looking like garbage. :p

[Dark Shikari]

Yeah, it also has the added bonus of looking like garbage. :pEven though the output is exactly equivalent, pixel-for-pixel, with FFDShow?

I have yet to see a video that differs between CoreAVC 1.5 and FFDshow, with the exception of videos intentionally made out-of-spec (such as my 17-reference-frame clip).

[mitsubishi]

Indeed, there was a while ago, because of the blocking issue, accusations that coreAVC was cutting corners to gain speed, but that turned out to be x264 creating non-standard files which libavcodec dealt with and coreAVC didn't.

If coreAVC looks bad, you might want to check the levels setting or switch to overlay.

[foxyshadis]

The while-ago bug was an actual bug (several, actually) in CoreAVC. The out-of-spec files was only more recently noticed.

[sarastro]

That all depends on what H.264 decoder you use and how it takes advantage of Hardware Acceleration.
As long as you want a free decoder (libavcodec), Hardware Acceleration is of no use at all....

I currently use coreavc to playback my mkv's (720p x264) because my cpu (3000+) isn't up to the task when using VLC. So I thought about buying an ati HD 2400, to reduce cpu usage and possibly allow for 1080p (mkv's) playback, and maybe even be able to play blu-ray discs. According to this review http://www.beyond3d.com/content/reviews/28/7 the UVD technology is quite effective, but this is only tested with blu-ray and hd-dvd playing in PowerDVD.

Although Coreavc does a far better job in reducing CPU usage then VLC, Coreavc still has no GPU support.So which decoder should/could I use in order to use the UVD acceleration offered by the ati HD cards?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

You will have to buy a commercial H.264 decoder with support for your GPU. Maybe CyberLink's?
http://www.cyberlink.com/cinema/ati/h264_decoder/deu/trial.jsp

Note: You can get a Core 2 Duo/Quad at affordable price now, which should have enough CPU power.
Especially if you already own the CoreAVC Decoder...

[sarastro]

Thanks for the reply lord mulder.

It would be ideal if I could continu using the mpc+ coreavc combo with GPU acceleration, but perhaps i should consider using powerdvd.

About the cpu upgrade:the problem is that Ive got an 754 mobo, so upgrading to a better cpu is difficult. Upgrading my graphic card is difficult aswell, i've only got an agp slot. The ati HD radeon 2400 is one of the few cheap new graphic cards available in AGP.

I thought upgrading my graphics card would be a cheap way to delay having to buy an upgrade set (cpu+mobo+ ram+ graphics card).

[LoRd_MuldeR]

It would be ideal if I could continue using the mpc + coreavc combo with GPU acceleration, but perhaps i should consider using powerdvd.

Well, CoreAVC does not support GPU acceleration. They say it will be implemented soon, but they do so for a long time now. No idea if they will every release a CoreAVC version with GPU acceleration. So better look out for a different decoder, in case you really need GPU acceleration....

I thought upgrading my graphics card would be a cheap way to delay having to buy an upgrade set (cpu+mobo+ ram+ graphics card).
I know upgrading the CPU is quite expensive. But I'm sure with an up-to-date CPU the CoreAVC+MPC combo will be able to decode all H.264 streams available! As I already said: My Q6600 plays a 1920x1088 H.264 stream (High Profile) without any async/framedrops. And I use MPlayer (libavcodec H.264 decoder), which doesn't use any GPU acceleration for sure and is known to be much "slower" than CoreAVC...