Upgrade to support HDTV, HDDVD & Blu-Ray

[dman_lfc]

What GPU's in the MacMini? I heard they were getting a decoding on the motherboard...

DMAN

[barnonline]

My current setup should be able to handle HDTV as long as I don't use ffdshow for scaling and such. But why would I with a HD signal?

But as my onboard 6150 doesn't support HDCP, I would be forced to upgrade my video card


amd64 3000+ A8N-VM CSM with GeForce 6150 using purevideo (btw, I'm very satisfied indeed with purevideo), Twinhan mantis 3030

[airxdata]

I would definitely beef up my graphics card as one of my final steps towards hitting HD status. One thing I have already done, in anticipation of switching to digital cable, is to purchase a HDhomerun unit for an HDTV tuner.

[joboehl]

Originally Posted by barnonline

My current setup should be able to handle HDTV as long as I don't use ffdshow for scaling and such. But why would I with a HD signal?

But as my onboard 6150 doesn't support HDCP, I would be forced to upgrade my video card


amd64 3000+ A8N-VM CSM with GeForce 6150 using purevideo (btw, I'm very satisfied indeed with purevideo), Twinhan mantis 3030

I wouldn't count on that. I have the exact same setup and it strugles to play H.264 1080p, even on low bitrates. Keep in mind that PureVideo Decoder is not used for H.264 nor VC1 and will never do.

Impossible to use this setup for BluRay and HD-DVD.

[barnonline]

To joboehl:

It should be able to handle HDTelevision, as HDtelevision is commonly/usually encoded with mpeg-2

(or am I wrong?)

Both BR and HDDVD uses HDCP, my onboard 6150 doesn't support HDCP, I would be forced to upgrade my video card just on that alone.

That new videocard hopefully should not only support HDCP, but also have some kind of HW helper for H.264/VC1

[FlyinWhee]

I would love a hardware solution to decoding, but only if I couldn't get a video card to do the trick for me. I realized today that some H.264 encoded videos in 720p I had here wouldn't play back properly, causing slowdowns and forcing the video to catch up afterwards - basically, it's not really nice having a great resolution on a 43 inch plasma, but have it lag out more than a youtube video.

I'm pretty sure the only thing I need to change is my video card (CPU is decent for the job, RAM will be slightly upgraded by tomorrow) since it's pretty damn old (Radeon 9250).

So that might be a tad off topic, but what decent AGP video card could I get in the 100 bucks range to make sure I can playback stuff at 720p without putting too much strain on the CPU?

And well, if nothing works, PCI hardware decoder would be lovely.

[pStar]

hi there
just stumbled over a press release from broadcom. they're planning to release a pci-e card chip which should cost around $40...so a card will end at $100 maybe

http://www.broadcom.com/press/releas...20&source=home

regards

[joboehl]

Originally Posted by barnonline

To joboehl:

It should be able to handle HDTelevision, as HDtelevision is commonly/usually encoded with mpeg-2

(or am I wrong?)

Nope, depends on the provider. Some use MPEG2 and some use H.264.

Originally Posted by barnonline

Both BR and HDDVD uses HDCP, my onboard 6150 doesn't support HDCP, I would be forced to upgrade my video card just on that alone.

That new videocard hopefully should not only support HDCP, but also have some kind of HW helper for H.264/VC1

Nope, not all (if any) HD-DVD or Blue-Ray today have the HDCP enforcement. That's optional by the specification and it's not being currently inforced.

Also, not all HD-DVD/BlueRay uses H.264/VC1. Some use high bitrate-high resolution MPEG2, witch 6150 can't handle also due to it's limited memory bandwidth. It's a great solution for SD and even tough it is marketed as having HD acceleration, it is not enough.

You could deal with this HD with a CPU upgrade probably, but the new HW decoder on the ATI and nVidia (and maybe dman) would allow you to keep this CPU.

I also buyed this mobo hoping to use it for HD, and it does work for the low bitrate files you find on the net. But the high bitrate ones are too much for the 6150/A3000+ combination.

[pannivas]

This is how I see it.

The two major x86 chip providers are pushing quad cores for the mainstream. I believe that in the next 6months quad core processors will be the mainstream x86 CPUs in the market and you will easily be able to get one as low as $150 maybe 200$. Quad core CPU will be more than capable to do software decoding without any need of GPU hardware acceleration or any other acceleration solution.

I would be much more interested on the software part of HD playback within MP. By that I mean one would be able to playback HDDVD or BDDVD without the need of any third party crappy ass software like PowerDVD or WinDVD.

[Gamester17]

we have an option to implement a H/W decoding solution that will require you not to have to upgrade at all in most cases

I am curious which codecs software package will have to be involved?, if a open source library like FFmpeg/FFdshow can be used (and the hardware 'only' assist in the 'heavy lifting') or if you have to use a proprietary and closed source soiftware. I feel that proprietary technology limits ones options.