Probably no TG HD this series

[h-p]

Originally Posted by phas3r

having a fast graphic card will reduce utiliziation of CPU will playing hd videos right?

That depends. If graphics card has support for it, it will. Some videos downloaded from torrents(etc.) doesn't have appropriate support for gpu acceleration.
Newer graphics cards help with blu-ray though.(Radeon HD -series and GeForce 8xxx).

Someone correct me if i'm wrong. Haven't been playing with these things in a while.

[deephallow]

If i'm not mistaken, the only thing a graphics card will help with, is to reduce playback from a HD-DVD or a blu-ray.
But since nearly all the HD stuff you have on your pc is compressed, it won't really help

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by deephallow

If i'm not mistaken, the only thing a graphics card will help with, is to reduce playback from a HD-DVD or a blu-ray.
But since nearly all the HD stuff you have on your pc is compressed, it won't really help

Exactly. Playing back "uncompressed" HD material is a joke which is why they leave it lightly compressed -- so Blu-Ray players don't have to be a beefy computer.

But to save space, it's compressed so you need a beefy CPU. The graphics card has little to do with compressed HD material.

[leomax]

What i understand is that these new generation graphic cards offloads the demanding tasks from cpu to gpu (like CABAC).These Purevideo HD and UVD almost completely offloads h264 acceleration from CPU.UVD adds VC1 support too.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/fullimage.php?image=6976
In case of mpeg4,its not too demanding ,itll do fine with DXVA itself.
See these reviews comparing these technologies
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=552
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ideo,1711.html

[phas3r]

so videos with .avi format that is 720p or 1080p is compressed? which means quality can be better if its played straight from bluray?

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by phas3r

so videos with .avi format that is 720p or 1080p is compressed? which means quality can be better if its played straight from bluray?

HD material is usually put into a MKV container rather than an AVI one, but yes, it's compressed. No though, the quality wouldn't be better. Okay, so technically it would be, but you nor I could tell the difference if it's a good rip.

It's the same with with CDs and MP3s. CDs are 700MB, but you can rip it to MP3s and have it be around 100MB. The quality, which technically inferior, is hard to tell apart if you do a decent job of ripping it.

However, it requires a more powerful processor to play back a MP3 than a CD, although with mobile processors what they are now, it's hardly expensive to get a chip that can handle MP3s.

[AJ888]

Even Bluray video is compressed. I think Bluray has a bitrate something like 40Mbit/s whereas the original would be recorded on HDCAM which is somewhere around 440Mbit/s.

[deephallow]

Originally Posted by AJ888

Even Bluray video is compressed. I think Bluray has a bitrate something like 40Mbit/s whereas the original would be recorded on HDCAM which is somewhere around 440Mbit/s.

Blu-ray and HD-DVD are both compressed, but way less then HD stuff on your pc.
On a single blu-ray disc, you can get 50gb, while most of the 1080p stuff that i have is about 6 - 7 gb.

[Viper007Bond]

DVD is compressed as well, but it's the same kinda thing -- only lightly.

[the_ape]

It's easier than your making it... It's all down to the codec (and player which uses it). Most HD stuff broadcast is in H.264 which is easily offloaded by all the modern GPU's from nvidia and ATI.

The Matroska stuff is a container, so if it's H264 inside it, your gpu will offload the decode, simple as that.

As for DVD / HD-DVD / BR there not 'lightly compressed' at all. DVD is 10Mbps including audio so Highly compressed and BR is a mix of MPG2 (same as DVD) or AVC1 (H264 or MPG4 as some call it, AVC1 is actualy based on Windows Media 9 Pro codecs) upto 40Mbps and HD-DVD (the better technical format) is AVC1 at 40Mbps (no mpg2). The last uncompressed digital video format was LaserDisk, which still looks better than DVD impo, even MegaBit DVD's.

All of these formats have the ability to be partialy decoded by GPU, but any Core2 cpu could handle any of the formats in software only anyhow (but will run at 70 to 100% cpu).

My Laptop a core2 1.83 running Vista x64 using an Intel GPU (so limited offload) has never struggled with 1080p and I know 1.6ghz ones that handle it as well.

If your doing it in Vista though I would recommend a good chunk of RAM

Just make sure that you have a Codec that supports your cards GPU to play back the format. PowerDVD/WinDVD's MPG4/AVC1/H264 codecs are a good 'easy' starting point, or FFDShow-Tryout is a great place to go if you have the grunt, and don't want the hassle of multiple codecs installed on your system.

[javamon]

Originally Posted by the_ape

Just make sure that you have a Codec that supports your cards GPU to play back the format. PowerDVD/WinDVD's MPG4/AVC1/H264 codecs are a good 'easy' starting point, or FFDShow-Tryout is a great place to go if you have the grunt, and don't want the hassle of multiple codecs installed on your system.

Winner! Except up to that part - ffdshow-tryout is all cpu, no gpu acceleration. However, it is perceived to have the best quality. To enable purevideo acceleration for nvidia, you need powerdvd/windvd or nvidia's own WMP plugin. I can't speak for ATI - but I do know that if you've got vc1/x264 content playing on a geforce 6200+ through a player with purevideo support, you'll get gpu acceleration, and don't need serious CPU horsepower to get it done. Linky: http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/11036/...Comparison.pdf

And I know this thread is a wee bit old, but I wanted to clear that up. Alternatively, if you want to leave your PC right out of it, I suggest one of these: www.popcornhour.com . Stupid name, brilliant device. Mine is slowly replacing my xbox/xbmc as my media player.

Anyway, sucks there's no HD. I was looking forward to it.