HD Video Playback: H.264 Blu-ray on the PC
by Derek Wilson on December 11, 2006 9:50 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
We've been hearing for quite some time now that Blu-ray and HDDVD movies could prove to be too much for today's desktop microprocessors; today we finally have the proof. X-Men: The Last Stand encoded using the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile at 1080p requires more processing power to decode than affordable dual core CPUs can handle. We are at a point where GPU decode acceleration is essentially required with all but the highest end processors in order to achieve an acceptable level of quality while watching HD content on the PC.
NVIDIA hardware performs better under our current set of drivers and the beta build of PowerDVD we are using, but exactly how well GeForce 7 Series hardware handles the decode process is more dependant on the type of card being used than ATI. In general, higher performance NVIDIA cards do better at decoding our H.264 Blu-ray content. The 7950 GX2 doesn't perform on par with the rest of the high end NVIDIA cards as SLI doesn't help with video decode. With the exception of the X1600 Pro, each of the ATI cards we tested affected performance almost exactly the same.
While there isn't much more to say about performance right now, we do need to consider that we are working with an early release of our player software, and ATI and NVIDIA are always improving their driver support for video decode acceleration. While we can't count on seeing improved performance in the future on current hardware, it is always nice to know that the possibility exists. We will continue to track performance with future player and driver updates.
But no matter what we see in the future, NVIDIA has done an excellent job with the 8800 series. G80 based cards will definitely lead the way in HD video decode performance, making it possible to stick with a cheaper CPU and still get a good experience. Of course, nothing about playing HD content on the PC is cheap right now, especially if we are talking about using an 8800 in conjunction with our Blu-ray drive.
For those who don't have the money to build a computer around Blu-ray or HDDVD, a standalone player is the other option. We tested our Samsung player with X-Men: The Last Stand to see if it could handle the demands of an H.264 movie (as any good CE player should). We were happy to see that the Samsung box didn't seem to have any problems playing our movie.
As for recommendations, based on our testing, we would not suggest anything less than an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 for use in a system designed to play HD content. The E6400 may work well enough, but not even the 8800 GTX can guarantee zero dropped frames on the E6300. ATI owners will want to lean more towards an E6700 processor, but can get away with the E6600 in a pinch. But keep in mind that X-Men: The Last Stand is only one of the first H.264 movies to come out. We may see content that is more difficult to decode in the future, and faster processors are definitely a good place to pad your performance to ensure a quality HD experience on the PC.
We've been hearing for quite some time now that Blu-ray and HDDVD movies could prove to be too much for today's desktop microprocessors; today we finally have the proof. X-Men: The Last Stand encoded using the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile at 1080p requires more processing power to decode than affordable dual core CPUs can handle. We are at a point where GPU decode acceleration is essentially required with all but the highest end processors in order to achieve an acceptable level of quality while watching HD content on the PC.
NVIDIA hardware performs better under our current set of drivers and the beta build of PowerDVD we are using, but exactly how well GeForce 7 Series hardware handles the decode process is more dependant on the type of card being used than ATI. In general, higher performance NVIDIA cards do better at decoding our H.264 Blu-ray content. The 7950 GX2 doesn't perform on par with the rest of the high end NVIDIA cards as SLI doesn't help with video decode. With the exception of the X1600 Pro, each of the ATI cards we tested affected performance almost exactly the same.
While there isn't much more to say about performance right now, we do need to consider that we are working with an early release of our player software, and ATI and NVIDIA are always improving their driver support for video decode acceleration. While we can't count on seeing improved performance in the future on current hardware, it is always nice to know that the possibility exists. We will continue to track performance with future player and driver updates.
But no matter what we see in the future, NVIDIA has done an excellent job with the 8800 series. G80 based cards will definitely lead the way in HD video decode performance, making it possible to stick with a cheaper CPU and still get a good experience. Of course, nothing about playing HD content on the PC is cheap right now, especially if we are talking about using an 8800 in conjunction with our Blu-ray drive.
For those who don't have the money to build a computer around Blu-ray or HDDVD, a standalone player is the other option. We tested our Samsung player with X-Men: The Last Stand to see if it could handle the demands of an H.264 movie (as any good CE player should). We were happy to see that the Samsung box didn't seem to have any problems playing our movie.
As for recommendations, based on our testing, we would not suggest anything less than an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 for use in a system designed to play HD content. The E6400 may work well enough, but not even the 8800 GTX can guarantee zero dropped frames on the E6300. ATI owners will want to lean more towards an E6700 processor, but can get away with the E6600 in a pinch. But keep in mind that X-Men: The Last Stand is only one of the first H.264 movies to come out. We may see content that is more difficult to decode in the future, and faster processors are definitely a good place to pad your performance to ensure a quality HD experience on the PC.
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Stereodude - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Also, there's http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=91...">this post on AVSforum. The poster had no problems playing back Xmen-3 with a "P4 3.2Ghz HT system and a Radeon X1950Pro". Clearly a 3.2gHz HT P4 isn't nearly as powerful as any of those C2D processor nor was the X1950Pro as the various nVidia cards.Stereodude - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Perhaps, but nVidia intentionally sent them a H.264 torture test disc that's not available in the US. That also doesn't explain why the 7600GT nearly cut the CPU usage in half for one review, but only helped 20% in the other.Also, nVidia says an E6330 or X2 4200+ with a 7600GT is adequate for the most demanding H.264 titles. That sure doesn't agree with the conclusion of this Anandtech piece, which says you need a 8800GTX card to use a E6300.
balazs203 - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
In the PC Perspective article they say:"In our testing the H.264 bit rates were higher than the VC-1 rates, in the high 18-19 Mbps up to 22 Mbps in some cases."
That is about half the maximum bitrate of the Anadtech tested disc.
Stereodude - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Since when does bitrate = difficulty to decode?DerekWilson - Thursday, December 14, 2006 - link
bitrate does equal difficulty to decode because it equals more to do per frame.frogge - Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - link
64 bit OS vs 32 bit...puffpio - Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - link
Will you start using more updated/modern encoding CPU tests for H.264 encoding? Currently you use Quicktime right? That doesn't use many of H264's advanced features.Have you considered using x264 (an open source encoder of H264 that generates the best quality encodes of publicly available H264 encoders) using a standard set of encoding parameters?
Nothing taxes a CPU better than video encoding :)
rain128 - Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - link
Im little bit sceptic about those test results. Becuse my Home computer on the subject line played Dejavu clip (downloaded from Apple website trailer 1 - 1080p) with CPU usage 40..60% and with current version of NVIDIA drivers. Wiht older drivers (dont know excact version, installed those over a year ago) average farame rate was between 50...70%.For a decoder used PowerDVD 7, installed trial and even when cyberlinks webpage says that H.264 codec doesnt work with trial version i had now problems with it. Gspot reported for a default rendering path Cyberlinks H.264 codec. For fulscreen capability used BSPlayer, strange was that Windows mediaplayer didnt want to play that trial eventhough all other players had no problem finding installed codecs.
TIP: with BSPlayer you can see droped frame rate count.
Renoir - Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - link
The h.264 clips on the apple website tend to have lower bit rates than those found on blu-ray discs so that explains your cpu usage.DerekWilson - Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - link
this is what we have found as well, and is also why looking at BD and HDDVD performance is more important than when we've looked at downloaded clips in the past