LAV CUVID Decoder - High Quality Hardware decoding for NVIDIA

[nevcairiel]

I did test DVBViewer before with DVB-T and DVB-C, but i'll re-install it and test again. I was quite sure it worked, however.

[nevcairiel]

I just tested DVBViewer again, and both H264 and MPEG2 streams work fine. The only issue is that channel changes seem to take quite long, maybe i can improve that somehow.

[Gleb Egorych]

The only issue is that channel changes seem to take quite long, maybe i can improve that somehow.
DVBViewer option "Fast Channel Switching" produces this effect (Settings -> TV+Radio -> Fast Channel Switching).

[CiNcH]

DVBViewer option "Fast Channel Switching" produces this effect (Settings -> TV+Radio -> Fast Channel Switching).
If enabled, the DVBViewer won't rebuild the graph when switching channel.

[LordMerlin]

Good evening.
Please tell me whether or not the decoder h264 in 520 series is much more powerful than the 430.

[ryrynz]

The 430 has twice the amount of CUDA cores and RAM bandwidth in comparison to the 520, however it does make up for some of that with faster clocks.
The only big advantage I can see is that the 520 is more efficient (around 20 watts less power than the 430)

Judging from those differences and ignoring architectural changes (which likely only give a small boost) the 430 looks to be the better card for LAV CUVID.

[nevcairiel]

The 520 has a significantly faster decoder on board, however, due to the severly limited memory bandwidth and shader performance, the 520 completely fails at doing deinterlacing, completely destroying any advantage it has in decoding performance.

If i had to build a HTPC today, i would go with a 440 or 450.

[GTPVHD]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4380/discrete-htpc-gpus-shootout/11

We asked NVIDIA about the changes in the new VDPAU feature set and what it meant for Windows users. They indicated that the new VPU was a faster version, also capable of decoding 4K x 2K videos. This means that the existing dual stream acceleration for 1080p videos has now been bumped up to quad stream acceleration.

Though the GPU can decode 4K videos, it is unfortunately not able to output it through HDMI. Despite the HDMI controller being advertised as HDMI 1.4a, it doesn't implement the 4K x 2K resolution part of the standard. The lack of HDMI sinks which accept that resolution is another matter, but that should get resolved in the next few years.

Thats answers the questions about Feature Set D hardware decoder. Now to see if Nvidia Kepler will output 4k res over HDMI/DisplayPort.

[JoeH]

The 520 has a significantly faster decoder on board, however, due to the severly limited memory bandwidth and shader performance, the 520 completely fails at doing deinterlacing, completely destroying any advantage it has in decoding performance.

If i had to build a HTPC today, i would go with a 440 or 450.

Would buying a 550 get the advantages of both the faster decoder and also avoid the performance problems? Or does the 550 not include the faster decoder?

[nevcairiel]

Only the 520 has it.

[ney2x]

I recommend GTX 560 Ti. You can play games and it's overkill for HTPC :)

[JarrettH]

Is there a certain way to get this working with madvr when playing back DVD discs? I added LAV as preferred and blocked the Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder assuming it would work. I get that Macrovision Fail error.

Seems to be working fine on its own with other content + madvr. Is this a better solution than using ffdshow's dxva?

Thanks

Edit: If madvr won't work as above, will choosing EVR-CP + LAV be a better choice than using the Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder? Just curious whether anything different is happening with EVR-CP + LAV playback

[mindbomb]

If i had to build a HTPC today, i would go with a 440 or 450.

but you can get a passive gt 430 from zotac, while I'm not aware of a passive 440 or 450.

[CruNcher]

Ui Featureset D also means 4k support now for Nvidia i wonder if 4:2:2 is also supported now ? :)

The Anandtech article though is strange they call "Lady Washington" a Spears&Munsil thing that clip is provided by Microsoft

[nevcairiel]

but you can get a passive gt 430 from zotac, while I'm not aware of a passive 440 or 450.

Passive is overrated.
Your system needs some kind of cooling, and most people with a passive card still put 1-2 system fans in there, so whats the point?

Unless you can go 100% passive, you can as well get one of those super-silent cards.

[CruNcher]

Passive is overrated.
Your system needs some kind of cooling, and most people with a passive card still put 1-2 system fans in there, so whats the point?

Unless you can go 100% passive, you can as well get one of those super-silent cards.

My 9800 GT is running full passive (and that is double the TDP of the GT430) and combined with SB you wont here anything @ idle ;)
0 system fan as the system is fully open also ;)

[nevcairiel]

The whole system, not the card.
No Fan on the CPU? None in the PSU? No other system fan?

You need a specially designed case for completely passive, and very few people have that.

I have a Gigabyte GTS450 with a Windforce Dual-Cooler, i don't hear a thing. When its on in idle, nothing. Only when i pressure the CPU to go 100%, i get a bit of noise from the CPU fan, but i havent managed to make the GPU make noise.

[CruNcher]

The whole system, not the card.
No Fan on the CPU? None in the PSU? No other system fan?

You need a specially designed case for completely passive, and very few people have that.

I have a Gigabyte GTS450 with a Windforce Dual-Cooler, i don't hear a thing. When its on in idle, nothing. Only when i pressure the CPU to go 100%, i get a bit of noise from the CPU fan, but i havent managed to make the GPU make noise.

CPU (wouldn't really be needed anyways for SB, big passive tower can cool it without any fan in a open enviroment) and PSU (for now) yes but no case fan and PSU we entering the Platin Generation currently semi and fully passive (90+ efficiency) is the future (500w fully passive is quiet possible these days with exterior block but not yet developed also a cost issue per unit), if you not a crazy gamer and need some overrated GPU and all kind of anti aliasing going on @ 2k res ;)

[JarrettH]

Is there a certain way to get this working with madvr when playing back DVD discs? I added LAV as preferred and blocked the Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder assuming it would work. I get that Macrovision Fail error.

Seems to be working fine on its own with other content + madvr. Is this a better solution than using ffdshow's dxva?

Thanks

Edit: If madvr won't work as above, will choosing EVR-CP + LAV be a better choice than using the Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder? Just curious whether anything different is happening with EVR-CP + LAV playback

I think I found my answer. The decoder should work, but the DVD navigator isn't compatible thus far :p

[nevcairiel]

I don't think LAV CUVID currently works with the DVD Navigator, but the Macrovision problem is a madVR problem on Win7.

[JoeH]

Only the 520 has it.

Too bad. I'm going to wait until we get a more powerful NVidia GT with VDPAU Feature Set D and go for that....

[Nick [D]vB]

Would it be possible to add MVC support to CUVID?

It would be great to have CUDA support for MVC on older cards.

Would that be possible on VP2 / Feature-set A hardware?

[nevcairiel]

MVC is only supported on newer cards, and i'm not quite sure if CUVID itself supports MVC at this time.

[Nick [D]vB]

So CUDA acceleration of MVC would only work if the GPU supports MVC in DXVA anyway?

Do you think this would be the same for CoreMVC when they add CUDA support?

It is a shame, I know a lot of people were hoping for a solution for older cards.

You think it is possible that CUVID already supports MVC on new cards ?!?

[edison]

The decoder can not work with x264 + Avisynth DirectShowSource.

[blubberbirne]

@nevcairiel

is it possible to get 4:2:2 working?

[madshi]

is it possible to get 4:2:2 working?
No, the hardware doesn't support it.

[pirlouy]

I'm not sure to understand.
Is the 520 (or 430) better than the 550Ti for CUVID (or madVR) ? I though 550Ti would be better in all ways...

[CruNcher]

In easy words raw decoding performance of the 520 is better but real world performance of the 550TI is depending on the usage scenario much better, though you can't say it that easy either as it depends on the API and general usage scenario :). Though for General Video playback purpose a 550TI is too overkill imho still the GTS 450 looks like a nice in between also in Power consumption the most balanced one and still more powerful then back then the 8800/9800 GT :)

Power consumption wise though in idle all discrete solutions these days made big steps so having a very powerful card or a less powerful card in a htpc makes no big difference these days (only some watts depending on card configuration memory and bios pstate setup) :) so with a GTS 450 (on Nvidias site) you cant really go wrong for many scenarios in a HTPC and have a much better card that can still beat every console these days ;)
Though also the foundation of the HTPC should be solid it makes no sense to push in a discrete workhorse into a base platform that can't deliver the throughput VP4/5 and MadVR require (especially in terms of High framerate Realtime Shader based Deinterlacing, or Realtime Motion Interpolation) so instead of pushing every money into 1 part it's more important to have a very good overall balance for the targeted purpose :)

[JarrettH]

So by usable with madvr did you mean dxva works? I noticed if I switch to EVR-CP it shows the Playing [DXVA] in the seek bar, but when I switch back to madvr it does not show [DXVA]

[pirlouy]

I think I was not clear. Several of us, users, are gamers who buy gamers cards. I just wanted to know if a 550Ti (or GTX 590) has something which prevents it to be a better card for playing a video with CUVID + madVR.

Is there something in this page which shows why 440 is better than other: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_400_Series#Products ??

[nevcairiel]

All 4xx and 5xx cards are equal when it comes to pure video decoding, except the 520, it has a faster decoder chip, but sadly its otherwise way too slow.
For other HTPC usage, the 465, 470, 480, 570, 580 and 590 do NOT support HD Audio Bitstreaming, which may be a reason for some people to not buy them. The 550 and 560 support it just fine, however, as do any other cards in the 4xx or 5xx series not listed here. Its only the high-end gaming cards which do not support it.

If you only want video decoding and don't care about HD Audio Bitstreaming, then any gaming card will be fine.

[SamuriHL]

I'm considering adding a cheap nvidia card to my main htpc just to use for decoding. I'd still use the AMD card for display and bitstreaming. Any recommendations? I love my 450 in the other machine but is that overkill for this purpose?

[nevcairiel]

Using an NVIDIA card for decoding without a display connected has a few drawbacks, for example you won't get the highest quality deinterlacing (because the HQ DXVA processing mode does not work without a display adapter).
So considering that you won't get the best quality anyway, you'll need less silicon to make it happen, so a 430 is probably fine.

[SamuriHL]

Damn. The deinterlacing was one of the reasons I was considering it. I guess I'll wait and see what comes out in the gaming card arena over the next few months.

[nevcairiel]

Pick up a book about DirectShow/DXVA programming and go nuts, its all possible, even for ATI (at least on Win7), someone just has to do it. :D

[SamuriHL]

I wish I had the time. Work is keeping me quite busy these days unfortunately. It would be fun though.

[nevcairiel]

Maybe one day, after LAV Video was released, it may be a feature possibility.
I need someone to pay me to write these things, so i could quit my day job. :p

[SamuriHL]

Wouldn't that be nice! :)

[andyvt]

Pick up a book about DirectShow/DXVA programming and go nuts, its all possible, even for ATI (at least on Win7), someone just has to do it. :D

Can you recommend one?

[nevcairiel]

Not really, they were all too expensive when i last looked, and well, i don't learn from books anyway.

[andyvt]

Not really, they were all too expensive when i last looked, and well, i don't learn from books anyway.

LOL - "get a good book" -> "books are worthless not useful to me" :)

[nevcairiel]

Books are not worthless, i just don't like learning with a book, i only use them for reference. People are different - some dive into those books and come out smarter, i use a more "hands-on" approach and learn by examples.

[SamuriHL]

I've always been a hands on developer, as well, so, I know exactly what you mean by that. I often have reference books by my side, as well, but, lately I've stopped buying them as it's usually easier to find what I'm looking for through a search engine.

[madshi]

Pick up a book about DirectShow/DXVA programming and go nuts, its all possible, even for ATI (at least on Win7), someone just has to do it. :D
Good things come to those who wait. But it seems patience is not a virtue commonly known on doom9... :p

[SamuriHL]

Good things come to those who wait. But it seems patience is not a virtue commonly known on doom9... :p

You got that right! :D

[CruNcher]

Good things come to those who wait. But it seems patience is not a virtue commonly known on doom9... :p

Now if that wasn't a hint, what else could be ;)

[nevcairiel]

Good things come to those who wait. But it seems patience is not a virtue commonly known on doom9... :p

Waiting is boring, programming things is fun! :)
I'm very impatient myself, thats why i would rather code something myself then wait for someone else to do it. :D

[Budtz]

Hey guys.

Im new to this decoder. I have tried to read up a bit but i am unable to figure out the difference between this and ffdshow? what are the advatages of this decoder over ffdshow?

[Budtz]

any plans to add a sharpness and deband setting?