Can I get BBC HD with my setup? (1 Viewer)

[Owlsroost]

Thanks, but again, it's PCI-E 2.0. Unless, someone says my Abit AA8-Erd Eye has a PCI-E 2.0 slot, or that the v2.0 card will work with the v 1.0 interface, then it's no go for me...

I'm currently running an HD3650 on an Intel 915 chipset motherboard at work (same 2004 vintage as the 925 chipset on your motherboard) - it's working OK, so you shouldn't have compatibility problems.

Tony

 

[son_t]

Thanks. I ordered the HiS 2600 Pro from Scan, yesterday. It was a toss up between this one and the 3450 and reading up on those GPUs (apart from making my brain hurt!) - I decided on the 2600 Pro...

I'll keep this thread updated to how I get on with the cheapo GPU for HD...

 

[son_t]

So, I got this GPU yesterday, installed and played about with it last night. Just installing the drivers did not do it, but installing the whole package including the Catalyst Center software, and having a play with that seems to make it work a little better.

Now I can view BBC HD better than the GeForce 6600LE card, but it is still not perfect. The picture is not that smooth. I might need to tweak the card more, or something like that if I knew what I am doing... MP froze a few timers after watching BBC HD a while (say 5+ mins), so I don't know what is going on there... I am thinking of re-installing MP SVN from scratch which might fix this problem...

The big problem at the moment, with BBC HD, is that I get both audio channels - the normal one and the audio description channel. Anyone know how I stop the audio description channel (which is for the blind) from being heard? Is there an option for this in MP? I've tried changing the various audio codecs available, but still no luck...

 

[wonkyd]

So, I got this GPU yesterday, installed and played about with it last night. Just installing the drivers did not do it, but installing the whole package including the Catalyst Center software, and having a play with that seems to make it work a little better.

Now I can view BBC HD better than the GeForce 6600LE card, but it is still not perfect. The picture is not that smooth. I might need to tweak the card more, or something like that if I knew what I am doing... MP froze a few timers after watching BBC HD a while (say 5+ mins), so I don't know what is going on there... I am thinking of re-installing MP SVN from scratch which might fix this problem...

The big problem at the moment, with BBC HD, is that I get both audio channels - the normal one and the audio description channel. Anyone know how I stop the audio description channel (which is for the blind) from being heard? Is there an option for this in MP? I've tried changing the various audio codecs available, but still no luck...

You probably want to try a H.264 decoder with hardware acceleration, the PowerDVD one is a good choice. As for the the BBC Audio Description, goto the MediaPortal Configuration>Television>Client (I think) then tick the box that says "Prefer AC3 Audio" that'll stop the audio description being the default on BBC HD. Don't worry if there is no AC3 it'll just drop back to the MPEG2 stream for SD. HTH

 

[Owlsroost]

Yes, CoreAVC cannot use DXVA - you need to use PowerDVD or MPC-HC H.264 codecs to get hardware accelerated decoding. When this is working properly the CPU utilisation should be quite low.

Tony

 

[son_t]

Update

BBC HD is working fine now

I went through re-installation of MP (yet again!) and installed an SVN version of MP from scratch and as I suspected, this has 'perfected' HD decoding. Yay!

I might insert the old GeForce 6600LE card back in place of the new 2600 to see if the problem was the MP configuration that was the problem, not the GPU... Why you may ask... well for two reasons: (a) I've notice extra noise (which I suspect is due to the new GPU's cooling fan), and (b) power consumption has shot up an additional 40W or so!

 

[Owlsroost]

Why you may ask... well for two reasons: (a) I've notice extra noise (which I suspect is due to the new GPU's cooling fan), and (b) power consumption has shot up an additional 40W or so!

That's one reason why we were trying to steer you towards the more modern cards - they throttle back the internal clocks to save power when not busy, and the 4550 combines enough performance for good HD with low power.

Out of interest, which codecs are you now using ?

Tony

 

[son_t]

Currently, for the new card, the PDVD9 codec, for H.264 decoding...

(I did not have time to test recording and viewing BBC HD at the same time - so that test is still to come. I'm trying to push my old hardware as much as I can, until I get to the point that I have to replace the mobo, GPU and CPU, for something more modern and energy efficient )

 

[Owlsroost]

In response to your blog comments in Build a Freesat / Freeview HTPC about RAMdisk software, try CENATEK: High Speed Storage Systems - it's free for up to 400MB disks (I'm currently using the Dataram RAMDisk Beta version).

Tony

 

[son_t]

Many thanks for the RAM disk software. I've just tried it on my work test machine, and it seems to do the job. I will install it on my home HTPC and see how this goes...

BTW: Recording and watching BBC HD at the same time is just fine