problem playing mkv x264 1080p

[ioio]

I have a 2 years old laptop, Dell Inspiron 6400 with 2Ghz intel core 2 duo T7200 and 2Gb memory.
The video card is Ati Radeon x1400.
I am trying to play an HD 1080p/720p movie, after about 10 min of clean playing it's start to get out of sync and video is getting sluggish.
I already tried Coreavc, GOM player , KMPlayer none helps.
My cpu when playing is between 50-70%.

Does anybody got an idea how to solve this problem?

Thanks, Oded

[Baldrick]

Try MPCHC and see if h264 hardware acceleration works.

[ioio]

It didn't help, is there a configuration i need to do to set h264 hardware acceleration?

[jagabo]

MPCHC: View -> Options -> Internal Filters -> H264/AVC (DXVA) for graphics card hardware decoding.

MPCHC: View -> Options -> Internal Filters -> H264/AVC (ffmpeg) for software decoding. Double click on it and set the Decoding Thread Number to 2.

[jman98]

Try jagabo's suggestion first, but if that doesn't help, you can try using VLC. Sometimes it provides smooth playback on systems where nothing else works.

[ioio]

Nothing helps, all the same and with vlc it's even worse.
Do you think my computer hardware isn't capable to play those movies?

Thanks,
Oded

[jagabo]

Try the different output devices in MPCHC. View -> Options -> Playback -> Output -> DirectShow Video. You have to exit MPCHC and restart it after changing the option.

[ioio]

still nothing, i also tried bsplayer but hasn't helped.

[usta]

Do you think my computer hardware isn't capable to play those movies?

You know, ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 is part of the lower middle class graphics cards (read: not from these times).
However, because of the AVIVO video technology, the card can help the CPU decode
MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1 and H264 video formats without any problem.
So, your HW should be OK for this job.

[jagabo]

Bring up Task Manager and watch CPU usage while playing the video with MPCHC (and the internal multithreaded h.264 decoder set to two threads). Are you getting near 100 percent CPU usage?

[nitro1973]

I think that x1400 doesnt support full h264 decoding.
MPCHC and Splash uses only full h264 decoding so far.


Im affraid that if Splash and MPCHC dont work then you need to upgrade your graphics card or buy some commercial software :/
Try both players, from my experience I can play more h.264 files with Splash using acceleration.

EDIT: jus noticed you got: 2Ghz intel core 2
get SPlash and have fun with mkv. it must work

[ioio]

The highest cpu i got was 66.
I tried splash it didn't helped.

Oded

[jagabo]

The highest cpu i got was 66.

Are you sure you enabled 2 threads in the h.264 decoding options of MPCHC?

[ioio]

If you mean to FFmpeg settings ---> Decoding thread number it is set to 2.
Otherwise i will appreciate if you will guide me what to do.

Thanks

[jagabo]

If you mean to FFmpeg settings ---> Decoding thread number it is set to 2.

Yes, that's what I meant. You should also verify that MPCHC is using the internal h.264 decoder while playing. Right click on the window while playing and hover of Filters (or select Play -> Filters). That will show you a list of filters in use. You should see "MPC Video Decoder" if the internal decoder is being used. If you select the decoder from the list of filters you can configure it's internal settings. You will get the same dialog as double clicking on the filter in the Options -> Internal Filters dialog.

[nitro1973]

If you mean to FFmpeg settings ---> Decoding thread number it is set to 2.

Yes, that's what I meant. You should also verify that MPCHC is using the internal h.264 decoder while playing. Right click on the window while playing and hover of Filters (or select Play -> Filters). That will show you a list of filters in use. You should see "MPC Video Decoder" if the internal decoder is being used. If you select the decoder from the list of filters you can configure it's internal settings. You will get the same dialog as double clicking on the filter in the Options -> Internal Filters dialog.

Jagabo: Splash uses multicore decoding as a default so i think he has something really messed up with the system.
1080p mkv must work on core 2 duo 2ghz.

ioio: do you work with laptop pluged in to power supply? or on batteires? make sure you work with "best performance" settings.
otherwise your cpu may be slowed down... (ie. 1 core disabled).

[ioio]

Yes, i am on high performance mode and plugged to power supply.
I would try to uninstall coreavc and the codec pack i have and try it with ffdshow again.

[jagabo]

CoreAVC is single threaded. CoreAVC Pro is multithreaded. CoreAVC pro is faster at decoding than ffdshowMT (the regular ffdshow's h.264 decoder is single threaded). The fastest h.264 decoder is Divx 7. But with only 66 percent CPU usage on multithreaded decoder decoding speed isn't the problem.

A note on multithreaded h.264 decoding: on a dual core system with a single threaded h.264 decoder you will usually see a little over 50 percent CPU usage because all the h.264 decoding is being done by one core (at any particular time, Windows may bounce that one thread back and forth between the two cores to keep heat distribution even). It's a little more than 50 percent because other parts of the process (audio decoding, read ahead buffering, etc) may be done by the other core. Using a multithreaded decoder will allow the video decoding to be done with both cores at the same time, nearly doubling the possible throughput. Decoding a 1080p24 or 720p60 stream usually requires more power than one core can deliver. Two cores is usually sufficient.

Is it only one particular file that's giving you problems? Maybe that particular file is corrupt. Can you play other 1080p h.264 files smoothly? You may have a miscommunication between the file splitter and h.264 decoder, or between the decoder and the video renderer (ie, output device in MPCHC).

[ioio]

I think i will give up, i tried divx 7 now, it was promising for 10 min but then it went out of sync and the video started to slow down.
I am trying this on 3 different movies, 1 in 1080p and 720p and another one in 720p.

Thanks,
Oded

[sdbyrd]

take a look at this --> http://forum.videohelp.com/topic374089.html

[ioio]

I tried it and no good.
The new thing i noticed is that i have Not using DXVA, i tried to work it as my ati x1400 support dxva but i don't no why it's not enabled.

Oded

[nitro1973]

The highest cpu i got was 66.
I tried splash it didn't helped.

Oded

What doesnt mean didnt help?
what was the results?

Are you sure that you have latest graphics drivers?

There is really somethin bad with your PC hardware or with the Windows i think:/

[jagabo]

The new thing i noticed is that i have Not using DXVA, i tried to work it as my ati x1400 support dxva but i don't no why it's not enabled.

I thought DXVA started with ATI's 2000 series?

[FTW]

I had a problem similar to the one you're having. I have a setup similar to yours (2.8ghz tho, dual core, ati 1650 video card, few gigs of ram). using VLC my playback of 1080p x264 mkvs was god-awful. I was able to resolve my issue (thanks to the help from users on this forum) without buying any shelling out any $$. If you haven't already, give CCCP a shot. worked for me. make sure "MT" is checked in the setup window and using MPCHC, mkv 1080p rips playback smooth as silk now, as long as the bitrate doesn't exceed 7500 or so

[El Heggunte]

@ ioio, just an "educated guess":

it's not uncommon that some obscure registry setting, or
an application/process running "in the background",
interferes with the playback of CPU-intensive content such as H264-video.
Sadly most people install their copies of Windows with the default settings
created by the "geniuses" from Microsoft, and don't know they actually don't need
many of the processes that are installed and activated by default. Disabling such
resource-consuming services/applications might help you solve your current problems.
It doesn't hurt to try it, anyway.

HTH.