Howdy! New to MP and a few questions (2 Viewers)

[jburnette]

The 'splitting' is done in realtime as the file is played. As long as you've got haali installed, it will do what it's supposed to do on it's own. MKV is a container for video files encoded in (but not limited to) formats like x.264 or h.264. Think of x264 as the high def equivalent to xvid. When encoded in x264, your bluray/hddvd movie is only about 5gb.

As far as playing the files in mediaportal, all you need is a codec to decode the streams. In configuration you'll just have to go to Movies->Player and choose your h.264 codec. This is where having PowerDVD or CoreAVC will come into play. With powerdvd installed, you'll be able to choose its decoder which will be used by MediaPortal to decode the video. This will be transparent to you, though.

 

[FiremanJim]

The 'splitting' is done in realtime as the file is played. As long as you've got haali installed, it will do what it's supposed to do on it's own. MKV is a container for video files encoded in (but not limited to) formats like x.264 or h.264. Think of x264 as the high def equivalent to xvid. When encoded in x264, your bluray/hddvd movie is only about 5gb.

As far as playing the files in mediaportal, all you need is a codec to decode the streams. In configuration you'll just have to go to Movies->Player and choose your h.264 codec. This is where having PowerDVD or CoreAVC will come into play. With powerdvd installed, you'll be able to choose its decoder which will be used by MediaPortal to decode the video. This will be transparent to you, though.

5gb?!?!?!?! holy CRAP! My 3.5TB machine will last forever! LOL... wow, this is something i GOTTA look into. What's the preferred program for using the x264? I'll search, but a recommendation is most welcome!!!
Thanks!!!

 

[Marcusb]

Last edited by FiremanJim : Today at 15:00. Reason: speeling

heheheh

 

[FiremanJim]

Last edited by FiremanJim : Today at 15:00. Reason: speeling

heheheh

I guess the big question is that is x.264 worth using? I mean, the reason I have HD DVD and Blu Ray capability is for the superior image quality. How much of a loss is there with .264? Still better than uncompressed standard DVD's? I love the idea of the size, but at what cost? Maybe when the drives I have are full, or for burning onto a 'normal' disk it's worth it... but if I lose quality, why have the HD stuff?

Either way, I'm loading up MP this week... looks great, and just getting away from M$ rule is good by me

 

[Darre]

Depends how much you compress it, but I think a 9gb rip of a normal length movie is almost loss less. The rips I have are all between 4,5gb and 9gb, and I really can't say it differs a lot from the source when it comes to picture/sound quality. There are several sites that have experts in these fields, http://www.doom9.org/ amongst others.

 

[Arn01805]

Cyberlink PowerDVD version 7.something supports H.264 HiDef decoding as well. If you have a graphics adapter that supports hardware decoding of H.264 (Like the Nvidia 8600GTS that I have) you can offload the decoding of the stream to the GPU. ffdshow still doesn't support hardware decoding of H.264 This way you don't need a very powerfull CPU to do the decoding. These kinds of videocards are dropping in price very quickly at the moment(at least in the Netherlands).

 

[FiremanJim]

Hmmm... I'll have to look at my card specs. I'm using a 7900GTX 512MB that I replaced in my game machine. Not sure if it does or not...

Also, is there a favored program for encoding into x.264? One that works with media portal? Seems there are a couple out there!

I'll have to read thru Doom9 and see what they say as well (great... another forum to join/read!)