System requirements for HDTV with MediaPortal (4 Viewers)

[Tech Geek]

First observations of the two cards:

The 1650 card has a fan but it's very quiet.

The 1950GT is clocked slower than a 1950 PRO which may make it perfect for a HTPC, however my 1950GT was loud out of the box. It seems some of the Sapphire cards have a bios with buggy fan control and they stay at the default fan speed after startup which is high. After flashing a new bios it is much quieter but you can here it running when you are close to it. Whether or not it will be too loud depends on the level of ambient noise of the room it's used in. The 1950GT recommends at least a 450 Watt power supply. I'm running it on a 380 but haven't done much to tax it yet.

Since I'm using a machine that apparently has some DirectX issues I can't do complete testing until I get my regular HTPC machine back.

 

[mdbarber]

hd requirements

Just to report i have been using a dell ati x600 card aquired off ebay for about 15ukp , low profile and this handles hd 1080p playback no prob, and its passively cooled
regards
mdb

 

[Tech Geek]

I hate to repeat myself but 1080 playback isn't the problem. I didn't have trouble with 1080 video on my X1300.

Live ATSC or playback of recorded ATSC video broadcast in lower resolutions causes horrid skipping on lower end cards. I'm not sure if it's related to scaling, interlace or compression but it's definitely a problem. Since other programs experience fewer problems I'm guessing it's related to DX9.

If you do some searching you'll find that this has proven to be the case for several people on other cards.

 

[mdbarber]

?

So what resoultuion are you actually talkin about, using a 1360x768 display myself so thats lower than 1080.
But if ur not specific about what your problem is how can anyone know if they've had same prob lol
perhaps the effect your talking about comes from scaling of a 4:3 sample to 14/16:9 and its not the resolution thats causing the problem
And btw the original topic of this thread is about the requirements for hdtv so you seem to have hijacked it a little tech guy, not sure if thats considered good manners
regards
mdb

 

[Tech Geek]

So what resoultuion are you actually talkin about, using a 1360x768 display myself so thats lower than 1080.
But if ur not specific about what your problem is how can anyone know if they've had same prob lol
perhaps the effect your talking about comes from scaling of a 4:3 sample to 14/16:9 and its not the resolution thats causing the problem
And btw the original topic of this thread is about the requirements for hdtv so you seem to have hijacked it a little tech guy, not sure if thats considered good manners
regards
mdb

Hijacking a thread I started... hmmm... interesting.
Is it good manners to come into a thread without actually reading it and accuse the person that started it of hijacking it?

BTW, I had posted almost exactly what I did in the last post within 5 posts before it. And if you read the entire thread you'll probably find "it works on my <insert low end card> at 1080i/p" other times as well.

Try searching on ATSC HDTV. There was another thread on the topic and I believe several cards and this issue with lower resolution sources was discussed. The board has been reorganized since I last looked at it so I'm not sure where it's at anymore. I think it was originally under "hardware" but where that is now I'm not sure.

Like I said, it's probably a DX9 issue and if you look I didn't list resolution as the cause. If I were pinned down as to the cause I'd say it's scaling the image in a 3D mode where 3D speed & memory bandwidth are the issue. However I'm not sure exactly what the minimum combination is.

I *can* say that very high MHz 128bit or 256bit memory busses seem to be common on cards that do work. High 3D rendering speeds also seem to be common on the same cards so it's difficult to distinguish which is a bigger factor.

Part of the reason I'm trying these two cards is to finally make my system work with HDTV and to see if we can help come up with a baseline for chipsets or memory speed.

Knowing your card works with 1080i/p video doesn't really tell us much just because even low end cards seem to handle it since it is less taxing on the hardware.

What we really need is a standard set of video clips people can download and then have people submit how a specific card from a specific manufacturer performs when playing each clip. Once we get enough results to start making some real comparisons... then we can say this or that chipset, memory speed, buss width and CPU speed works with HDTV.

Then we need to nail down requirements for H.264, Blue Ray, HD-DVD... does ATSC require more/less speed than DVB-T/S??? You get the idea.

But until we have a known set of video clips to base results on... we are still guessing a little.

If I can get some problem clips recorded I may put up a couple torrents for people to grab and see if they work.

Your X600 is a midrange card and it may be fast enough or it may depend on which model you have. The X1300 I tried is quiet but it's the slowest X1300 made. If the X1650 works... your X600 has pretty good odds of working with all sources. I have no doubts about the X1950GT working and I bought it as a fallback in case the X1650 falls short of expectations.

 

[phertiker]

Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8ghz)
1GB DDR SDRAM
ATI Radeon 9600 XT 128MB - SVideo out to SDTV at 1024x768
Pinnacle HD Pro Stick USB or whatever the hell it's name is
Windows XP SP2
My OS drive is a Seagate 7200RPM 40GB.
I've got a Western Digital 120GB and a couple of Seagate externals (USB2).


ATSC TV works 99% fine. The audio is crystal clear and skip free, but the video skips every few seconds. Video and audio seem to stay in sync just fine even with the skips, and the picture (when not skipping) is fantastic. This may be due to antenna placement; I had to move it around quite a bit as is to get the signal I've got. My apartment is built like a bunker, and there's a tall bunker between me and the antenna farm. I'm currently using Purevideo codecs.

I am able to play 720p anything: h.264, mpeg2, xvid, whatever. I can also play 1080p xvids, and 1080i transport streams. anything else 1080p is completely out, as you might imagine from the hardware list above. I use CoreAVC for h.264 decode.

I believe the ability to play anything at 1080p is more to do with the output resolution of 1024x768 than system ability. Because of that this may be a useless post, heh. However, it would be sweet with an older projector only able to do 1024x768 or 848x480 or something...

 

[Tech Geek]

Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8ghz)
1GB DDR SDRAM
ATI Radeon 9600 XT 128MB - SVideo out to SDTV at 1024x768
Pinnacle HD Pro Stick USB or whatever the hell it's name is
Windows XP SP2
My OS drive is a Seagate 7200RPM 40GB.
I've got a Western Digital 120GB and a couple of Seagate externals (USB2).

I'm not sure if the 2200+ would be an issue or if it's the 9600XT.
Both are on the low side.

ATSC TV works 99% fine. The audio is crystal clear and skip free, but the video skips every few seconds.

I'm wondering if that's due to a block of video getting decoded and by the time it's done it's behind and has to skip to catch up.

Video and audio seem to stay in sync just fine even with the skips, and the picture (when not skipping) is fantastic. This may be due to antenna placement; I had to move it around quite a bit as is to get the signal I've got. My apartment is built like a bunker, and there's a tall bunker between me and the antenna farm. I'm currently using Purevideo codecs.

If the skipping is random in nature then signal strength is a likely culprit. If it's a consistent pattern it is probably a speed issue.

I am able to play 720p anything: h.264, mpeg2, xvid, whatever. I can also play 1080p xvids, and 1080i transport streams. anything else 1080p is completely out, as you might imagine from the hardware list above. I use CoreAVC for h.264 decode.

Hmmm... higher compression xvid works better than MPEG2? The xvids are lower bandwidth. Hard drive bandwidth, video card bandwidth or both could play a part. Maybe even the hardware MPEG2 decoder if you are using it.
There has to be enough memory bandwidth to transfer the data to the card, decode the video, scale the video and play the video.
Different codecs may offer better results.

I believe the ability to play anything at 1080p is more to do with the output resolution of 1024x768 than system ability. Because of that this may be a useless post, heh. However, it would be sweet with an older projector only able to do 1024x768 or 848x480 or something...

Anytime you have to scale the video to another resolution you are probably relying on the graphics hardware to make the change and at that resolution... it's a lot of data.

 

[phertiker]

I'm wondering if that's due to a block of video getting decoded and by the time it's done it's behind and has to skip to catch up.

If the skipping is random in nature then signal strength is a likely culprit. If it's a consistent pattern it is probably a speed issue.

I'm more inclined to believe it's a signal issue since it's completely random... My folks have a similar issue at their place which is 25 miles from town, where the outdoor antenna installer angled the antenna 18 degrees THE WRONG WAY, and they get the occasional video blocking and skipping. Not as bad as mine, but they are using the tuner in their TV...
MP reports signal strength of 100, signal quality of 71. Normally I would say "well what the heck that should be fine argh" but I don't know tons about ATSC, and my folks have similar signal levels and similar problems. Plus, I really want this tuner to be worth the money.

Hmmm... higher compression xvid works better than MPEG2? The xvids are lower bandwidth. Hard drive bandwidth, video card bandwidth or both could play a part. Maybe even the hardware MPEG2 decoder if you are using it.
There has to be enough memory bandwidth to transfer the data to the card, decode the video, scale the video and play the video.

To be honest I'm not sure if I've tried any 1080p MPEG2 stuff. The PBS station broadcasting in HD I believe is 720p, although I'd have to glance at their website to make sure. And it's hard to tell since I'm playing it back on a regular NTSC TV...

Well, that's not entirely true. I can easily tell the difference between HD playback and even 480p digital broadcasts or DVD playback.

Different codecs may offer better results.

That's certainly true. Until I switched to CoreAVC, h.264 playback was right out at ANY resolution, and h.264 hardware acceleration is not an option with the 9600xt. But even with my geforce 6600gt hardware acceleration still doesn't compare to CoreAVC.
Incidentally, I switched away from Purevideo to the MPA/MPV codecs for TV playback. The stuttering changed slightly; there's a bit less of it, but not enough for me to cry "foul" on the Purevideo codecs. They also look equally as nice as Purevideo did.

All in all I'm happy with my (admittedly limited) HD experience in the living room at this point. Once I get the signal issues worked out I will be happier, and once I convince the wife to let me sell the car and go buy a sweet TV, I will be happiest of all.

 

[Tech Geek]

Here is the other thread I was talking about.
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/atsc_card_owners_come_here_support-t5231p32.html?highlight=ATSC

 

[Lucky_JL]

What you think of this motherboard capabilities ?
I'm thinking in build my MediaCenter with this baby ...


Lucky_JL



EPIA EX 15000G C7 Mini-ITX Board


1.5GHz VIA C7 powered 17x17cm Mini-ITX motherboard with the latest CX700M2 chipset and a wealth of pro-quality audio and video output connectors.

Specifications: 1.0GHz Fanless C7 CPU; CX700M2 chipset; Supports up to 1GB on 240-pin DDR2 533 DIMM socket; 6 channel audio (VIA VT1708A High Definition Audio Codec); VIA UniChromeTM Pro II 3D/2D AGP graphics with MPEG-2/4 and WMV9 video decoding acceleration.

Rear Panel Connectors: DVI connector; RJ45 10/100 LAN; 2x USB 2.0; miniDIN for S-Video output; 1x Triple RCA jack for composite video and stereo audio outputs; 1x Triple RCA jack for component video output; S/PDIF coaxial connector; S/PDIF optical connector.

Board pin headers and connectors: Headers for additional 4x USB 2.0 ports on 2x connectors; 1x Firewire 1394; Front-panel audio header (HP-out and MIC-in); Audio Line-in; LPC; LVDS connector to support 1-CH LVDS panel; Video pin connector for VGA output; CCIR656/601 video input and SMBUS; PS2 mouse/keyboard header; 1x IDE 66/100/133; 2x SATA connectors; 2x Fan pin connectors for CPU and System fans; 20 pin ATX power connector; PCI Slot.

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