HD Playback - I'm out of the loop

[Piyono]

Happy Chanukah,

Video has never really been a big interest of mine so I should be forgiven for displaying the following bit of ignorance:

I found myself on Apple's movie trailer site, today, downloading HD movie trailers, and was surprised to discover that my computer was having trouble playing them. I downloaded all three sizes of a few movies. 1080 was a slideshow. 720 was dropping frames like they were on fire. 480 played but was still a bit sticky.

Running the show are a Radeon 7500, XP2600+ and 1GB of generic RAM.

Is it time for an upgrade or can I tweak my way to smooth playback?


Piyono

 

[sechs]

I think that it was here a while back that we discussed WMVHD.

How well your software takes advantage of your hardware really seems to make a diference. For example, HD clips were slideshows in WiMP, but played fine in PowerDVD on my old AthlonXP. Unfortuntely, not enough of the work is being hardware accelerated, so throwing clock cycles at decoding really makes a difference.

Are these particular trailers in some kind of magical format, like MPEG 4, for which you might be able to find a better player?

 

[Santilli]

Actually, from my experience, it's pretty much all video card. I ran em on a dual Xeon 2.8, with a Matrox P650, and 64 mb of ram, and it was out of sync, and slow. I upgraded to a 256 mb of vram X800Xl, and that solved my slide show problem. It seems to have a ton to do with the avaliable amount of VRAM, and, 128mb seems to be minimum, with 256 mb or more, optimum.

That said, let me try running the ones you are talking about, and I'll get back to you.

gs

 

[Mercutio]

I found that even with an X850 and an AMD X2, playback of WMV content can be sub-par. Microsoft has a patch to fix it, but it's a rather unappealing thing to install.
It wouldn't surprise me if there's simply no hardware acceleration for whatever is in Apple's HD-quicktime. I can tell you that it's an MPEG-4 codec, but who knows which one.

This is the thread sechs was talking about.

My solution for WMV playback issues at this point is to recode the clips in something less sucky like divx 6.

 

[Piyono]

I'm playing the vids in Media Player Classic using QuickTime Alternative. I didn't really notice any difference between MPC and WMP in terms of smoothness. Both were pretty choppy.
I'll try ffdshow and see what happens.

]-[

 

[MaxBurn]

I view the apple movie trailer site all the time, but I use the actual quicktime player to view them. I am not aware of what the actual file format is, but I have not run into any speed issues even viewing them on my server which has an old Matrox G400 MAXX 32MB video card. Try using the quicktime player free download?

 

[Santilli]

I keep gettiing
"bad public movie atom" and can't download anything.

Wonder if it's the same with MSFT?
S

 

[Mercutio]

I view the apple movie trailer site all the time, but I use the actual quicktime player to view them. I am not aware of what the actual file format is, but I have not run into any speed issues even viewing them on my server which has an old Matrox G400 MAXX 32MB video card. Try using the quicktime player free download?

I know you didn't just tell someone to use an Apple program on Windows.

Anyway, .mov format is exactly the same thing as .avi. It's a container for whatever the hell combination of audio and video compression the producer chooses to use. New-top-of-the-line quicktime files are using an MPEG-4 compression of some sort, and whatever it is, most Windows PCs don't seem to like it.

 

[MaxBurn]

Piyono: Can you give us a link to a film you can't play, now I am curious to see if I can duplicate this.

Mercutio: Come to think of it the only time I use the quicktime player is on the apple trailer site and some other very obscure occasional sites.

 

[Santilli]

Well, I just played 1028 HD Step into Liquid, and Alexander, and Titanic, and, they all played flawlessly, and on each monitor, full screen.

This, in contrast to the P650 Matrox that was slide show time, with only 64 mb of vram.

By the way, it takes about 40-50% of the processing power of the dual xeons
to make it work.

Thanks

GS

 

[MaxBurn]

Hmm both the ice age trailer and worlds fastest indian in 720P result in 50-80% CPU utilization on a 2.8P4 with Matrox G400 MAXX 32MB video card. I didn't realize it was that bad on the CPU, plays smooth though.

 

[Stereodude]

I found that even with an X850 and an AMD X2, playback of WMV content can be sub-par. Microsoft has a patch to fix it, but it's a rather unappealing thing to install.
It wouldn't surprise me if there's simply no hardware acceleration for whatever is in Apple's HD-quicktime. I can tell you that it's an MPEG-4 codec, but who knows which one.

This is the thread sechs was talking about.

My solution for WMV playback issues at this point is to recode the clips in something less sucky like divx 6.

Strange, my XP 2200+ with a GeForce 6600GT plays back the 1080p WMV clips perfectly. I think CPU usage peaks around 70%. However this only happens if you disable the overlay for HD playback and set it to use VMR.

 

[Santilli]

What I noticed was the higher definitions, 1028 in particular, really suffered, if the Video card didn't have at least 128 mb of vram. Yes, it requires processing power, but, I suspect a 1800+ CPU, with sufficent ram, and a video card with at least 28 mb of vram, would be sufficent for anything but maybe, 1028. I could be wrong.

Playback Computer
Playing high-definition Windows Media Video files is a CPU-intensive process, due to the data rates involved and the large number of pixels that are rendered during playback. For this reason, it is important that you use a high-end computer for playback, such as a computer with a dual Athlon MP processor or a hyper-threaded Pentium 4 processor and a fast video adapter with current drivers.

Note that most of the next-generation video adapters will be compliant with DirectX Video Acceleration (VA). DirectX VA is an application programming interface (API) set that enables hardware-accelerated routines in decoding. Video adapters that are DirectX VA-compliant will be able to handle much of the high-intensity decoding, which will reduce the processor requirements for a computer to play high-definition video.

For optimal audio playback, the computer should have a multichannel sound card installed. (However, if the computer does not have a multichannel sound card, the audio plays in stereo.) For more information about setting up your computer to play multichannel audio, see the 5.1 Audio page.

From MSFT.
gs

 

[Pradeep]

The newer vid cards from ATI (x1800, x1600 etc) now have acceleration for WMV-HD in the latest Catalyst drivers.

 

[Explorer]

Actually, from my experience, it's pretty much all video card. I ran em on a dual Xeon 2.8, with a Matrox P650, and 64 mb of ram, and it was out of sync, and slow...

I had absolutely no problems playing the 720p files -- video smooth, audio perfect.

I had minimal problems playing the 1080p files -- a slight video mothion jerk was noticed about every 5 to 7 seconds, otherwise, audio perfect.


Setup:
* Garden variety 3.0 GHz Northwood Pentium 4
* Quicktime 7
* Matrox P650 (64 MB)
* WinXP (SP2)

 

[mubs]

I think it's a combination of video card and processor.

The 720p Wildlife "movie" was showing one frame every 10-12 seconds on my m/c, and the 420p version was not much better. The audio was fairly ok.

Radeon 9000 w/ 64MB vram, 2xP3-900/100, 1GB RAM. The AGP slot is a 1x/2x. CPU Utilization was between 92% and 96% (that means both CPU's were being slaughtered).

 

[CityK]

The newer vid cards from ATI (x1800, x1600 etc) now have acceleration for WMV-HD in the latest Catalyst drivers.

WMV acceleration has been around for a while. But, as Merc pointed out, do you really want that carrot?

However, what I think you were actually referring-to/meant was the newly provided acceleration for H.264/AVC.

 

[CityK]

I think it's a combination of video card and processor.

Its a function of that, but its also very much dependent upon your filters (decoders, splitters/demuxers) and viewing/playback app.

 

[mubs]

I have Media Player Classic + QT Alternative + RT Alternative. When I double-click the HD Apple file, MPC is launched. Beyond this, I don't know - you da man.

 

[Santilli]

Actually, from my experience, it's pretty much all video card. I ran em on a dual Xeon 2.8, with a Matrox P650, and 64 mb of ram, and it was out of sync, and slow...

I had absolutely no problems playing the 720p files -- video smooth, audio perfect.

I had minimal problems playing the 1080p files -- a slight video mothion jerk was noticed about every 5 to 7 seconds, otherwise, audio perfect.


Setup:
* Garden variety 3.0 GHz Northwood Pentium 4
* Quicktime 7
* Matrox P650 (64 MB)
* WinXP (SP2)

I was using Windows Media Player 10,, IIRC, and the 120 mb files from MSFT.
Also, Dual Xeon, 2.8's, and the Matrox 650. Don't remember if I had two, or three monitors hooked up, but, I was running relatively high resolutions, maybe 1280 or so on each, and, this seemed to affect quality.

The 7XX files worked fine.

GS

 

[Explorer]

Actually, from my experience, it's pretty much all video card. I ran em on a dual Xeon 2.8, with a Matrox P650, and 64 mb of ram, and it was out of sync, and slow...

One thing you want to do is to update the graphics card BIOS from time to time -- not to mention the system driver.

More than half the time, a BIOS update is issued by Matrox to gain compatibility with weirdo plug'n'play monitors, weirdo DOS games, new finicky mobos, as well as significant computer platform changes (64-bit X86, dual-core, etc). But, sometimes they will sneak in better graphics processing for such things as motion video. If you update the BIOS you should also make an effort to update the system driver to take advantage of BIOS updates.

• 
  P650 BIOS:
  http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/bios/home2.cfm
  
  BIOS Update File (15/September/2005) ===> sysutil_1904.exe
  
  
  
  P650 Driver:
  http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/files/xp2k_110_01_002_hf_whql.cfm
  
  Driver (28/October/2005, Ver. 1.10.01.002 HF) ===> xp2k_110_01_002_hf_whql.exe

 

[Santilli]

Thanks for the links.

The P 650 is at school, running two 19 inch monitors. I'll update the card when I go back, or maybe sometime this week.

Thanks again

Greg

 

[Santilli]

Well, I've learned to hate Quicktime 7, not hard for me to do with anything Apple, at this point.

I'm downloading Kong HD trailer, and playing it on this machine:
XP sp2
Athlon 3000+
Gigabyte Nvidia 3 chipset motherboard,
2 gigs of ram
Scsi Cheetah 15.3 boot, with LSI card
Quicktime 7
700XL ATI with 256 mb/vram

First reason to hate apple:
CPU usuage in Quicktime is 91%
Play quality is fine, no out of sync stuff
However, there server must be the slowest thing on the planet
and the cpu usage goes up to 100%.
I just went into processes, and turned off aol junk, McAfee, itunes, etc. anything I could to reduce cpu usage.
Thats reduced cpu usage down to high 60's, 100%. Much greater fluctuation.
Page file usage is abound 285 mb.

I'm now downloading Step into Liquid 1080. I want to compare the two, since I'm familiar with this one. See if it's a Quicktime, or WMP problem.



Comparision Test:
99-100% cpu
A little out of sync, video vs. sound, and, playback is not as smooth as dual machine.
1154 resolution
285 mb/ used for Page file.

Quicktime seems to actually play better. Let's see if I can figure out how to turn down the settings a bit...

Thought I had future enough processor and video card for HD.

Need a faster processor, or two...

Still, it plays Quicktime trailers at 1080, almost, and it's border line for
WMP.

Good news is the Gigabyte sound, and my old altec Lansing speakers sound fantastic. Was thinking about upgrading to Klipsch, but this sounds WAY too good to do that.

I'm downloading the smaller version,
720, and I'll have a go at that.

gs

 

[Santilli]

720 runs at 80% processor, and fine.

Even disabling one monitor, the 700XL and the 3000+, with 2 gigs of ram, just don't have the processor stuff to get it done.

GS

 

[Handruin]

Your 3000+ might be a bit slow for a 1080P. I've had no problems with QT 7 otherwise. 1080P media doesn't run so hot on my 3200+ with x800 pro, but 720P is fine. I watched the davinci code trailer @720P and the CPU was between 50-60%.

You can find the QT 7 install without itunes if you're like me and hate itunes. Apple hides it from everyone, but it is available if you look around.

 

[Sol]

I think the latest quicktime stuff is using apples implimentation of h.264 (Mpeg4/AVC).

Other than the quicktime player there are only a couple of apps/codecs capable of decoding it, fddshow (which I've always had performance issues with) and a couple of players including VLC and Mplayer.

ATI have hardware support for h.264 content in thier latest drivers for X800 and newer cards but Nvidia only have beta support for 7800s and newer last I read.

VLC or Mplayer are probably the best bet to get smoother playback.

I tend to think that 1080P for trailers is a huge waste of effort at the moment though, the DVD release will have half the frame rate and half the resolution and I'm betting that in a lot of cases even the source isn't of high enough quality for it to make a huge difference...

 

[CougTek]

I read that the Catalyst 5.13 bring ATI into serious territory for video picture quality.

Welcome back Sol.

 

[Santilli]

I read that the Catalyst 5.13 bring ATI into serious territory for video picture quality.

Welcome back Sol.

WOW :excl: :bigeek: wneddnce:

SERIOUS DIFFERENCE IN PLAYBACK QUALITY. 1028 is just velvet smooth, nothing dropped, incredible visual quality.

Fantastic :excl:

Thanks

Greg
PS
I'll post some 3000 x 2000 screen shots for you CT :wink:

 

[Piyono]

Well, I just installed the latest Catalyst drivers but saw no difference in playback quality.
Guess my hardware just isn't up to the task.

]-[

 

[Santilli]

As I have posted in other threads, I wonder if Apple is capable of writing decent x86 hardware software. So far, they TOTALLY SUCK.

Why would anyone buy a mac, until they convert over.

Frankly, as a former mac lover, from the MacPlus era, since the 9600, thanks to Jobs, they should be roasted alive, slowly, over an open fire...
then eaten alive....

gs

 

[CityK]

Well, I just installed the latest Catalyst drivers but saw no difference in playback quality.
Guess my hardware just isn't up to the task.]-[

For Windows based playback of Mpeg 4 AVC see this

 

[CityK]

As I have posted in other threads, I wonder if Apple is capable of writing decent x86 hardware software. So far, they TOTALLY SUCK.

Quicktime for Windows blows goats, and Apple's implementation of H.264/AVC is rather poor in comparison to others (lacks many of the features found in other implementations of AVC as available in Ateme's, x264, ...)