AVC/264 Playback: Most efficient decoder

[sjchmura]

On my P4 3Ghz 1GB ram I am unalbe to play in showtime nero HDTV AVC at 960x540 even. It seems to not use the hyperthreading at all

FFdshow seems better - smoother - but alot more crashes.

Any other suggestions???

[Leo 69]

To my mind, Nero's decoder is currently the fastest one (it requires less CPU than the last announced Mplayer build 1.0pre7)
Have you tried overclocking? :)

[sjchmura]

:)

Wow - well, on my informal tests

960x540 AVC HDTV profile (all options max)
Downconverted from 1080i Enterprise

NeroShowtime has constant "stops" then starts

CPU = P4 3ghz w HT

So The one CPU shows 100% utilized while the HT one is simply not at all

Installing FFDSHOW and enabling auto-post processing gives me smooth playback with 60-80% CPU 1 utilized and 20-30% CPU 2 utilized.

I am waiting to upgrade till the dual core AMD64's hit. THey look to be a great bang for the buck (the 4400 X2)

[trbarry]

I am waiting to upgrade till the dual core AMD64's hit. THey look to be a great bang for the buck (the 4400 X2)

Exactly where I'm sitting right now except on a 2.4 Ghz P4.

And I'm sort of wondering if I could get a dual CPU mobo and populate only one of them at first and a second when prices drop. All of this just for HD playback.

- Tom

[guada 2]

The graphics board would not be it not useful in this kind of video treatment, especially in mode HR-HD?

I noted that it was possible to add barretes memories on the future graphics boards.

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by trbarry
And I'm sort of wondering if I could get a dual CPU mobo and populate only one of them at first and a second when prices drop. All of this just for HD playback.

That's what I did. I got an MSI Master2-FAR and put one Opteron 240 on it. I'm ordering my second 240 next week at $135 for the second - almost half what I paid for the first.

If you want to get a dual CPU mobo and get one dual-core CPU now, I'd recommend a better mobo like a Tyan. The Master2-FAR isn't rated to handle the power requirements of two dual-core Opterons (it'll only do one).

A lot of people are looking at that - getting a dual CPU mobo and putting a dual-core CPU in it. That way when they get a second later, they'll have a quad CPU system.

If you go for the single-core CPUs, you can get faster than the 240 for a good price right now. I'd look at the 246 or 248.

[video]

try to set video>video quality to auto-adjust in showtime. 1.6GHz banias can play 960x540 AVC w/o frame drops on moblie radeon 9700, so a 3GHz prescott should do as well.

[sjchmura]

Ok, I will try that. Still it is amazing that Nero is NOT using teh HT at all and FFDshow WITH post processing is smooth.

In fact, 1280x720p @3mbit (WOW) looks FANTASTIC.

[iwod]

Is Nero Still the lowest resources decoder? Coz latest FFDshow has some improvement on decoding speed compare to previous build i have try.

[bond]

when you compare the decoding speed of the nero avc decoder and ffdshow you also have to take into account that nero can drop frames to decode faster, which ffdshow doesnt do

[patxitron]

On my P4 3.0GHz using gentoo linux (full bloating KDE desktop) and tree days ago CVS checkout of mplayer, the 1280x544 quicktime version of Serenity trailer plays smoothly and the HT cpus shows an average load of 50% with 80% maximum peaks each one.

Best regards

[sjchmura]

I do not think the nero decoder is dropping frames at 50% CPU usage. The FFDSHOW is DEFINITELY dropping them at 90% (jerky movement).

[Blue_MiSfit]

@paxitron

How do you play the apple quicktime samples without quicktime? If you try to download the sample, it's just one of those <100k "hint" files. I have been wanting to try decoding these samples with ffdshow (given that the apple qt7 h.264 decoder is incapable of delivering smooth playback on my Athlon64 2800+).

[Pookie]

The Newest Quicktime Alternative 1.50 Beta 1 includes the codecs that come with Quicktime 7.

[yidaki]

The Newest Quicktime Alternative 1.50 Beta 1 includes the codecs that come with Quicktime 7.
Isnt that illegal?

[gotaserena]

@paxitron

How do you play the apple quicktime samples without quicktime?

If you are running gentoo linux, you only need

#emerge mplayerplug-in


BTW, no problems here with the 852x480 trailer of batman... And I'm on a lousy P4-M 1.7GHz :D

[plonk420]

i dont' think quicktime alt is illegal, it's just not supported/supportable as it's not made by Apple. on the other hand, HR-HD sounds illegal, as i've only seen that abbreviation on copyrighted shows distributed on the internet ;)

[patxitron]

@Blue_MiSfit: Sorry but my english skill is not good. I don't understand very well your question. If you mean that how I enabled quicktime support in mplayer, simply I compiled it without options referring to quicktime support.

If you mean how I downloaded a quicktime that the web page only allows you to wiew it online, it's simple. View the page source (html) and somewere in it is the URL of the movie.

Best regards