GeForce 8600 h.264 Acceleration

[lobosrul]

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2977&p=5

Much lower CPU utilization than ATI's best. This should make 1080p playback possible on even single core machines. I wonder if CoreAVC supports it.

Even more interesting isn't the GeForce 8600, but the $100 GeForce 8500 that we'll be looking at in the coming weeks. According to NVIDIA, the GeForce 8500 will have the same H.264 decoding power as the 8600, so if you don't need the added 3D gaming performance then the 8500 will be an even better solution for HTPCs.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2977&p=5

Much lower CPU utilization than ATI's best. This should make 1080p playback possible on even single core machines. I wonder if CoreAVC supports it.

Even more interesting isn't the GeForce 8600, but the $100 GeForce 8500 that we'll be looking at in the coming weeks. According to NVIDIA, the GeForce 8500 will have the same H.264 decoding power as the 8600, so if you don't need the added 3D gaming performance then the 8500 will be an even better solution for HTPCs.

This only matters if the video application chooses to use the purevideo HD hooks. So far Sage has not gone this route. If they did, then I suspect we'd see a lot of issues go away.

Do the Sage folks have nvidia hardware to test against?

Thanks
mike

[popechild]

Originally Posted by mikesm

This only matters if the video application chooses to use the purevideo HD hooks. So far Sage has not gone this route. If they did, then I suspect we'd see a lot of issues go away.

Do the Sage folks have nvidia hardware to test against?

Thanks
mike

Yeah, but so far there's no way to playback hd/bd material through Sage anyway, regardless of hardware acceleration, right? So the issue isn't specifically that Sage can't take advantage of the extra h.264 capabilities of these cards, it's that Sage can't playback hd/bd material period.

[Mahoney]

Sage can certainly play back h.264 material. It can't play HD-DVD or Blu_ray disks, but that's different. So long as you have an h.264 decoder registered (such as the Cyberlink PowerDVD7 one) you can view h.264 content.

I'd have thought that it was a property of the decoder whether it uses the PureVideo hooks or not, not a property of the player. Doesn't the PureVideo site actively suggest using the Cyberlink decoder, as the current nVidia decoders don't do h.264?

[Lucas]

+1. SageTV 6.1 supports H.264 admirably well with the PowerDVD decoder on Nvidia Hardware.

I can play H.264 content on my 2.8GHz 478 P4 at around 80% CPU utilisation. I could never achieve it before 6.1 or with any other player!

[toricred]

Which version of PowerDVD do you have? I'm trying to use the compression from evilpenguin's video tools and when I compress, I get audio but no video. I don't get any errors, just a black screen. I'm using a 7600GT with 84.21 drivers installed and I've tried the trial version of PowerDVD because I want to make sure it works before buying.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mikesm

This only matters if the video application chooses to use the purevideo HD hooks.

Application OR decoders.

So far Sage has not gone this route.

Sage doesn't decode anything, it relies on 3rd party decoders to do that work. As such, Sage doesn't have to do anything to "support" PureVideo or H.264 (or VC-1/MPEG-2).

If they did, then I suspect we'd see a lot of issues go away.

The current issues have to do with the detection and demuxing of H.264 in MPEG Program and Transport Streams, this has nothing to do with decoding.

Do the Sage folks have nvidia hardware to test against?

They don't need it, Sage doesn't decode anything, it relies on 3rd party software for all decoding.

Originally Posted by popechild

Yeah, but so far there's no way to playback hd/bd material through Sage anyway, regardless of hardware acceleration, right?

Yes, there's no way to playback AACS content in any Directshow based app. The only programs that can play AACS content are those that bypass Directshow and use a direct path to the graphics card.

So the issue isn't specifically that Sage can't take advantage of the extra h.264 capabilities of these cards, it's that Sage can't playback hd/bd material period.

Blu-ray and HD DVD aren't the only sources of H.264, Quicktime uses it, Dish Network is beginning to use it for HD, some European channels use it. It's rapidly gaining popularity. As far as I know the only issue with H.264 in Sage currently is the detection/demuxing of R5000 created Transport/Program streams with H.264 video.

[HawgGuy]

Originally Posted by stanger89

As far as I know the only issue with H.264 in Sage currently is the detection/demuxing of R5000 created Transport/Program streams with H.264 video.

What do we need to surmount this problem? Is it a Nextcom issue with the r5000hd or are the h.264 streams broadcast by Dish non-standard?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by HawgGuy

What do we need to surmount this problem? Is it a Nextcom issue with the r5000hd or are the h.264 streams broadcast by Dish non-standard?

I'm not really sure, I've just sort of been "overhearing" the issue(s), a spectator, not a participant.

From what I've heard, I think 6.1 was supposed to be better, and I think there are supposed to be more fixes in a future version.

As for who the issue "belongs" to, I don't really know, the R5000 is currently about the only source for H.264 in an MPEG TS/PS file, most other sources are packing it in MOV/AVI/MKV/MP4 containers so it's probably mostly a "bleeding edge"/growing pain issue.

[popechild]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yes, there's no way to playback AACS content in any Directshow based app. The only programs that can play AACS content are those that bypass Directshow and use a direct path to the graphics card.

Blu-ray and HD DVD aren't the only sources of H.264, Quicktime uses it, Dish Network is beginning to use it for HD, some European channels use it. It's rapidly gaining popularity. As far as I know the only issue with H.264 in Sage currently is the detection/demuxing of R5000 created Transport/Program streams with H.264 video.

Yeah, I was just thinking about bd/hd content and forgot about other h.264 sources. Still though, when you say there's no way to playback AACS content in any Directshow app, it'd still be nice if there was a way for Sage to playback non-AACS encrypted hd and bd content, so we could play them through the Sage interface and not have to launch a 3rd party player. (And if this gets to close to the "edge", then forget I said BD and we can just talk about those HD-DVD releases that *don't* use any encryption whatsoever. Can't we have a way to play those in Sage?

[stanger89]

There's nothing theoretically preventing Sage from playing AACS content, but it's definitely a non-trivial thing to do. Sage would have to rewrite the entire core of SageTV probably to use internal decoders and a dedicated, protected path to the video card. They'd also have to guarantee that their work is robust enough to keep the content "safe" and risk an $8,000,000 fine for failing.

I think it will be Vista and it's more secure modular filter system (which IIRC include PVP-OPM and PVP-UAB) before we'll see Dshow-like apps capable of playing HD DVD or Blu-ray.

As far as actually playing the video on HD DVD or Blu-ray, ignoring AACS for the moment, with the right filter setup TheaterTek can play EVOBs (HD DVD's VOB equivalent), and TT is a DShow player, it should be theoretically possible to play EVOBs in Sage too, though I'm not sure if Sage would incorrectly detect them as VOBs.

The other issue is the new interactivity on HD DVD and Blu-ray and at the moment PowerDVD and WinDVD are the only apps that support that. Sage could support those too, but without being able to play AACS content, it's kind of pointless.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by toricred

Which version of PowerDVD do you have? I'm trying to use the compression from evilpenguin's video tools and when I compress, I get audio but no video. I don't get any errors, just a black screen. I'm using a 7600GT with 84.21 drivers installed and I've tried the trial version of PowerDVD because I want to make sure it works before buying.

I use PowerDVD 7 H.264. It is a version that comes as OEM with a Technotrend S3200 DVB-S2 card for receiving and playing H.264 streams here in Europe.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by stanger89

There's nothing theoretically preventing Sage from playing AACS content, but it's definitely a non-trivial thing to do. Sage would have to rewrite the entire core of SageTV probably to use internal decoders and a dedicated, protected path to the video card. They'd also have to guarantee that their work is robust enough to keep the content "safe" and risk an $8,000,000 fine for failing.

I think it will be Vista and it's more secure modular filter system (which IIRC include PVP-OPM and PVP-UAB) before we'll see Dshow-like apps capable of playing HD DVD or Blu-ray.

As far as actually playing the video on HD DVD or Blu-ray, ignoring AACS for the moment, with the right filter setup TheaterTek can play EVOBs (HD DVD's VOB equivalent), and TT is a DShow player, it should be theoretically possible to play EVOBs in Sage too, though I'm not sure if Sage would incorrectly detect them as VOBs.

The other issue is the new interactivity on HD DVD and Blu-ray and at the moment PowerDVD and WinDVD are the only apps that support that. Sage could support those too, but without being able to play AACS content, it's kind of pointless.

Being able to play non-AACS Blu-ray or HD-DVD content would be very helpful for those who archive their HD content on hard drives like they do with DVD's. In that context AACS is not necessary. Just the decoding and ability to process menus, file structure etc... It's exactly the same as DVD support from a hard drive.

Thanks,
Mike

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Being able to play non-AACS Blu-ray or HD-DVD content would be very helpful for those who archive their HD content on hard drives like they do with DVD's. In that context AACS is not necessary. Just the decoding and ability to process menus, file structure etc... It's exactly the same as DVD support from a hard drive.

Thanks,
Mike

I compress my recordings to h.264 (in MP4). I'm not sure why I would want to ever go to the trouble of creating HD-DVD or Blu-ray discs though. There are now hardware players that can playback h.264 encodes (I'm not actually sure which containers they support). Including disc based ones (I think Nero sells them).

And as Stanger said, there are dshow filters that can play EVO files, so it may not be hard for Sage to support non-AACS HD-DVD's/Blu-ray. I'm really not sure though.

Just FYI, the cheapest Blu-ray burners are still around $800 and discs still come to about 45 cents/GB (more for dual layer). Compare that to typical DVD-5 discs at near 10 cents/GB if bought in bulk.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

I compress my recordings to h.264 (in MP4). I'm not sure why I would want to ever go to the trouble of creating HD-DVD or Blu-ray discs though. There are now hardware players that can playback h.264 encodes (I'm not actually sure which containers they support). Including disc based ones (I think Nero sells them).

And as Stanger said, there are dshow filters that can play EVO files, so it may not be hard for Sage to support non-AACS HD-DVD's/Blu-ray. I'm really not sure though.

Just FYI, the cheapest Blu-ray burners are still around $800 and discs still come to about 45 cents/GB (more for dual layer). Compare that to typical DVD-5 discs at near 10 cents/GB if bought in bulk.

Understand. I am not talking about home made DVD's. That's not why Sage has support for playing DVD's off the hard drive. Many people like to archive copies of all their media onto NAS's, whatever the format.

Thanks,
Mike