Matrox P 650 hardware support for DVD playing...

[Santilli]

Hi
Splash has done a really good job of convincing me of the nature of Matrox cards. NO OTHER CARDS COME CLOSE.

A feature he hasn't mentioned, is Matrox P650 and above have software that enables hardware support, for DVD playback. It's truly incredible. It plays DVD's at 1024 X, with hardware support, on my 19 inch Sony monitor, in a way that is truly spectacular.

I don't know of any other cards that have hardware support for DVD playback.

What this does, is allow Windows Media Player classic to play on my second monitor, in unbeliveable clarity, and clearness.

The quality is 3d in nature, simply the best you could imagine.

It's so far better then anything I've ever used on the monitor, when the monitor is set at 1024, that's it's simply amazing.


The eagles look like they are in my living room...and now I'm going to throw the ring into Mount Doom...
s

 

[sechs]

Isn't hardware-assisted decoding of DVDs a pretty standard feature these days?

 

[Santilli]

Not with my prior video cards. Also, not nearly at this quality.

s

 

[Santilli]

Previously a P550 did not offer this feature, and while one of the better video cards for 2D I've ever used, it was truly sucktacular at 3d.

s

 

[MaxBurn]

I haven't looked at Matrox in a while. I think they have always been tops in image quality and reliability/drivers. If they would just put out something that has good 3D usable for gaming...

 

[sechs]

Not with my prior video cards. Also, not nearly at this quality.

Well, my ATi cards have had something since Rage IIc. Performance has improved since then, but I can't say that quality is really any different; it's just as good as ever.

 

[blakerwry]

To get hardware support with ATi cards, you need the ATI DVD decoding codec... which is only available with retail ATi branded video cards and may not offer as good of quality as a fully software decoder from winDVD or power DVD.

You may also ahve to use the ATi App to get the benefits from it as well. I think Nvidia is the same, you must use the nvidia app.

 

[Mercutio]

One key difference between Matrox cards and everyone else is that Matrox tries really hard to have hardware acceleration for EVERYTHING. ATI and nVidia have some acceleration for MPEG playback and for 3D, obviously, but as I understand things, they don't bother with a lot of 2D effects or CAD things.

However, both ATI and nVidia DO have hardware MPEG decoding support. You have to have an application that is aware of that hardware support to make it work, like ATI's MMC or PowerDVD.

 

[Santilli]

The P 650 plays Quake 3 at respectable frame rates, and at insane clarity
and max settings.

I wonder what their new card is going to be like?

s

 

[sechs]

To get hardware support with ATi cards, you need the ATI DVD decoding codec...

Nope. Virtually all DVD players support hardware acceleration with ATi cards -- or anyone else's, for that matter. As I recall MPEG decode is now part of DirectX, making it extremely accessible.

 

[Santilli]

The Matrox P550 in the other room seems very clear, almost clearer then my setup. I just tried down grading to 16.8 million colors, and it really seems to remove a depth, like almost 3d feeling, in DVD playback, and on my regular screen, as well. This with the P 650.

Watching Gollum take a dive with the ring, and the last scenes in Return of the King seem to really bring out the best in video/DVD effects.

s

 

[blakerwry]

To get hardware support with ATi cards, you need the ATI DVD decoding codec...

Nope. Virtually all DVD players support hardware acceleration with ATi cards -- or anyone else's, for that matter. As I recall MPEG decode is now part of DirectX, making it extremely accessible.

I'm pretty sure there is a CPU usage difference with and without the ati codec (sticking with the MMC for simplicity), which would indicate one way is fully software and the other is hardware assisted. At what point did DVD decoding get put into directX? because Ati cards have been claiming 2d video acceleration since about directX6 or possibly earlier.

 

[sechs]

Perhaps you're using a rather ancient codec. PowerDVD and WinDVD both accelerate on both ATi and Nvidia hardware (presumably others). In fact, ATi now uses the PowerDVD core in its own DVD player.

I'm pretty sure that video acceleration is new to DX9, although it may have been optional in DX8.