Upgrade to support HDTV, HDDVD & Blu-Ray (1 Viewer)

[Tech Geek]

Here is another H.264 hardware encoder:
http://www.stealthimaging.com/

This is part of the description:
"Supporting up to 4 SD1 (720x480) simultaneous video and stereo audio encodings in real-time, "

It sounds like a commercial solution but it wouldn't hurt to find out.

 

[mrkrad]

hi. There are options for HDMI with sound output in one, they generally SUCK as a sound card, or better they just take the toslink/s/sdif out and dongle the dvi-d out into that send it to the tv. However every tv made after 2007 will not PASS through an unencrypted stream of audio, so you'd need a fancy HDMI receiver.

Radeon 2600XT drivers are too buggy in vista to do squat. its just not their time. They produce 95% of the quality of the 8600GT. The 8600GT card handles all offload VERY well, and provides quality superior to any software decoder. hands done. I'd say the 8800GTX is about 1/3 the quality of the 8600GT, and software renderers and maybe 1/3 of that lol. You can add a ton of filters to make it up to the same quality, then your core 2 duo 6700 will be barely squeaking by

The Latest vista.32 nvidia drivers are solid man. Real solid for cinema.
** note most 8600GT cards do not, even if they say so, have SECUREROM for hdcp. the ones that due generally have hdmi ports. The more expensive 8600GTS usually does. Check both or you'll be running svga/component out to your tv.

I see with core 2 duo decoding unencrypted 40megabit hd stream (i forget the codec) about 10% cpu utilization. I think the hard drives (raid-0) are starting to bottleneck lol.

Vista+Solid sound card drivers. Intel HD Audio isn't bad. But Azuntech and Bluegene use the CMI8768 (oddly they dropped the CMedIa Oxygen HD chips which are better). Now you can argue this is overkill with changeable OP-AMPS and analog converters (in/out) at 24/96khz and 24/192khz (cmi 8768/oxygen hd chipset) but these cards do DTS NEO6 full time out the TOSLINK port for 2 channel then seemlessly pass DD/AC3/DTS out the TOSLINK when the source arrives. They support DDL and i think the oxygen HD supports Prologic IIx as well. This kicks butt if you have an elcheapo pc-multi speaker such as 5.1/6.1/7.1. The drivers ROCK in VISTA. They suck in linux.

Oddly i have a CMedIa Turble Beach Riviera, which is an cmI8738 chip and it rocks in linux, but has little extra features. The Azuentech is identified as the CMI8738 but only plays stereo.

You know all these nvidia cards have access to your ram. The G84 chipset can access up to a gig of your memory. They don't but they can. It's like turbocache (8300/8400) but i haven't seen it used yet. In theory you could pump data to the G84 (8500GT/8600GT/8600GTS) and have it pump decoded data back over PCI-E version 2 spec directly into RAM. These cards can do it. They are designed to do it. Not sure if anyone has used it yet.

PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 supports the PureVideoHD gpu enhancements fully. I guess i'll have to muck around with the codec ordering to get playback to work. Since my 8600GT was mis-advertised by a major eggy vendor as HDCP i got $20 off, on top of $20 off paypal promo, and $10 rebate, bring the card from $104 to $54+shipping. That is awesome.

Lastly the Radeon 2600XT has superior BD/HD GPU enhancements, but the drivers are buggy so i will stay away. Linux support is nill. I will pay and support F/OSS but not these schmucks. To make sure you understand NVIDIA PUREVIDEOHD does TAKE Advantage of SLI. I had two 8600GT(s) or 8500GT, you can run them on nforce SLI motherboards together and get near double enhancements. Instead of 5-10% at 40megabit high definition with AES decode you might get 2-5%. Or maybe you might be able to record media at 80+ megabit with your studio camera and play it back on a celeron 420 (exactly one half of 2140) or intel (c2d) 2140 (half cached e4300). Both of which are reporting 100% overclocks all over the net (1.6ghz to 3.2ghz).

I'm only interested in decode. I'd gander the ATI All in wonder with AVIVO will be the first to support some sort of GPU decode but honestly if you know what how to program stream processors i'm sure you can program either of the newest video cards to eat content and dump it right back out in ram (turbocache laymans terms) to be swept to disk. 256meg is plenty of h.264 frames at 1080p to do an encode.

** My objective for media portal is to replace my dying xbox1 with xbmc, the kid uses it all the time baby einstein and i use it to watch overseas television. The fluidity of the XBMC has yet to been achieved anywhere but i hope Media Portal, with donations can reach that level. I have a terabyte attached to my VIP-622 to record shows (2 satellite+1 ota at once) So it seems silly to have pc record as well unless QAM works. OTA is big PITA and low def is for the birds

Figure out how to plug into the echostar vip-622/vip-722 pretending to be a USB drive (yes it has that option) simulating a usb drive, then decipher their content. I'll donate $1000 to media portal if they make that happen. seriously.

 

[norski]

When can a decission be expected on this topic? Feelinger trigger happy in getting a new graphics card to use with my new HD DVD player. Couldn't get my AIW X800XL to play along (at least within reasonable ease).

 

[mrkrad]

I'd suggest a Core 2 duo overclocked to 2.4 to 3.0ghz for full bandwidth 1080p. Haali MKV encoded blu-ray "backup" will skip with cyberlink or coreavc in media portal (unless it doesnt listen to my merit changes). Media player classic played it fine without drops with coreavc codec at heavy cpu load. The same movie(not haali encoded) just played through cyberlink powerdvd ultra 7.3 deluxe with about 15% CPU load using purevideo HD. I will post in the main forum for help on this. Probably some settings or merits being ignored. I will try again with the cpu overclocked to 2.4ghz today to see if its acceptable. Best bet: get a e2140/e4300 and overclock the heck out of them, and you will have all bases covered in case the packaging limits. Software decoding works but requires ALOT of power. You can get away with alot less video card with software decoding Right now by using alot of CPU. CPU's are cheaper than video cards thankfully

Will post in main media portal forum when i overclock the 1.8 to 2.4ghz (e4300) to see if it works smoothly.

I've got an xbox1 that can play 920x540 h.264 encoded videos with the hardware scaler to 1080i.
I run media portal at 1920x1080@60hz SVGA to my westy 42". The reason to use media portal of course is for high definition, not a drop less . anything less i might as well encode to the xbox1 and use xbmc. I am an xbmc-linux tester too but it far too "alpha" to be used compared to media portal.

 

[mrkrad]

after doing the pinmod on my xw4400 HP workstation to boost 1.8ghz E4300 to 2.4ghz, the default player handles the haali mkv full speed without stutters. no voltage changes necessary rock solid. I guess the extra cpu speed helped out whatever was holding up the system. This modification does not speed up the FSB/PCI at all so i guess thats a good sign of where you want to be at minimum for full 1920x1080P playback. Add other tasks on top of that (recording) and you might want to choose something more appropriate. The E2140(1mb L2) and E4300(2MB) are cheap and easy overclockers. 55 bucks for e4300's these days alot of people with elite cooling and voltage hacks have been able to see 3.2 to 3.6ghz out of these chips but i didn't want to go that hardcore with a OEM pre-built workstation that i got cheap thankfully now i can enjoy my haali mkv 1080p videos and begin the transition from xbmc(xbox1) to media portal for good.

xw4400 smartbuy workstation (undisclosed price) running vista business
8600 GT OC ($66 after paypal/newegg description refund/MIR) @ stock speeds
CCCP codec pack with coreAVC 1.5 and purevideo HD (filmerit/DSF/graphedit to tweak merits)
Xplosion 7.1 (sondingo inferno works good too) $79 - upsamples everything to DD/DTS 5.1 and passes thru ac3/dts/dd streams
3 MCE remotes and IR receivers (using 1 but you had to buy 3 pack - oem).
2.5gb dual interleaved ($16 A/R 1GB DDR2-667 HP PROMO DIMMS *2), box came with 2 DDR2-667 256meggers.
2GB sandisk cruzer (got it free from someone) as readyboost. not sure if its helping or hurting.

will add all drives external USB or firewire to keep the unit cool and quiet. 500gb firewire/usb units are like $79-99 these days. stackable. I just playback so i'm not needing the fastest speed possible

I believe i could have gone cheaper but who knows what new formats will come out that might eat more cpu in the next few years..

 

[mce2005]

i must repeat the question in this forum: when there will be a decision? when can we expect a hardware decoder for PCI / PCIe slot?

I have a bad feeling that it will happen around of the end of 2009. At that time almost every integrated mainboard graphics will be able to handle h.264 decoding @ 1080p without any additional hardware decoder and the question and topic here will be closed.

 

[infinite.loop]

i must repeat the question in this forum: when there will be a decision? when can we expect a hardware decoder for PCI / PCIe slot?

I have a bad feeling that it will happen around of the end of 2009. At that time almost every integrated mainboard graphics will be able to handle h.264 decoding @ 1080p without any additional hardware decoder and the question and topic here will be closed.

why buy an PCI / PCIe device when a gfx card for less money can do the same and more?
i.e. new ATI cards.

 

[mce2005]

It is not funny. You (as an admin) do not even read my posts in this forum:

"I have ABIT IL-90MV with HDMI and would like use it for HDTV. The board itself supports 1080p, but the oboard graphics card has to less power for it. It would be great to have a PCI/PCIe 1x card to make all decoding work and to watch HTDV on it! I use T7200 C2D and my whole PC consumes 35 watt in idle. I do not want to buy a 200watt PC for HDTV Tv. It is smarter to have a small decoder card with very low power consumtion rather as buying a ATI HD2600 monster! But it should help decoding H.264 and VC-1 @1080p. So just do it and give as this card! ;-) I assume It will be a card with smth like the Universal Video Decoding (UVD) chip from ATI?"

But why are discussing then if you (admins) have your answer already?
It is simply loossing my worthy time. It was my last post here.

 

[Yucca]

i must repeat the question in this forum: when there will be a decision? when can we expect a hardware decoder for PCI / PCIe slot?

I have a bad feeling that it will happen around of the end of 2009. At that time almost every integrated mainboard graphics will be able to handle h.264 decoding @ 1080p without any additional hardware decoder and the question and topic here will be closed.

I´ve been asking the same thing for a long time. And X-Card is a best and cheap PCI card witch could do this...

 

[ThaClown]

MCE2005 sorry but: "just do it and give us this card"... This is a free community with free help, a nice tone would be better.
And Everybody else probably is better/cheaper off with a HD2600 or something like that so I really dont see what your big problem is.

"It is smarter to have a small decoder card with very low power consumtion rather as buying a ATI HD2600 monster!"
So you do want the HD playback (one of the more heavy things to do with a PC) but dont want to add the power? well that will be a problem then....