What is the computer requirment to play 1080i smoothly.

[Still Learning Here]

I have a pentium 2.4GHZ and 533FSB, 1G MEMORY. It played 720p smoothly. But when it played 1080i it become very choppy.

[greymalkin]

there are a couple other variables in this equation. namely:

What kind of video card do you have and how much memory does it have?
What is your source? If you are playing video files some (Quicktime HD) are more demanding than others (WMV HD, DIVX HD).

[whitejremiah]

yea, your video card definately factors in...if for example, you just have the standard onboard video card for that rig, its probably not powerful enough to push the video.........HD video (divx HD and wmv HD-i havent nor do i ever intend on playing back a quicktime HD clip) plays back slightly choppier than it should, but my main issue is audio synch...i am pretty sure that its cuz the video itself isn't playing back quite fast enough though....as far as processors go though, i'd say at LEAST a 2.8ghz p4, or a relatively recent AMD processor....i know my processor is a bit too old to properly play it back and im considering upgrading it when ive got the money.

[wwjd]

I have a P4 2.53GHz/533FSB/1GB and a nVidia 5200 (256mb) and I can not smoothly play 720p WMVHD with DRM protection and 1080p is even worse. However, I can smoothly play 720p WMVHD if it is NOT DRM protected. DRM protection adds another 5-10% to the CPU utilization.

I can play 1080i TS streams smoothly, but WMV seems to be a real hog for CPU. Have not tried Quicktime but if it is worse then it is way ahead of its time!

BTW, I upgraded from a AIW 7500 (64mb) to the nVidia 5200 and that made no difference at all, na da!

The key is to see what your CPU utilization is while your playing the file.

[wwjd]

Sorry but I forgot to add this comment in my original post;

I have been trying to determine just what computer specs are needed to play 1080i and WMVHD and so on and have not been able to come up with a minimum set of specs. If I were going to buy or build a system from what I know I would go with P4 Dual core >3.0GHz, nVidia 6600 or above. But I am not completely sure that is fast enough either. Not much info out there.

[Still Learning Here]

My video card is ATI9800 PRO 128MB.

[wwjd]

What is your CPU utilization during play back? What type of file are you playing?

[razadazza]

'BTW, I upgraded from a AIW 7500 (64mb) to the nVidia 5200 and that made no difference at all, na da!"

Thats an upgrade???

[wwjd]

No not in the total sense just as far as 64mb up to 256mb. The point I was trying to make is that on board memory on a video card did not have any effect at all on my problem with stuttering video.

My other point is that I do not think even a high end nVidia 6800 will make any real difference given that the CPU is pegged. The primary problem is the CPU and secondary to that may be the video card.

[Conquest10]

As far as specs go, I got a Pentium M 1.6GHz 512MB RAM and an ATI 9200. WMV 1080p plays perfect on mine but I get slight problems with 1080p Quicktime.

[wwjd]

Conquest10 wrote:

As far as specs go, I got a Pentium M 1.6GHz 512MB RAM and an ATI 9200. WMV 1080p plays perfect on mine but I get slight problems with 1080p Quicktime.

Is this a WMVHD movie trailer? If so, which one?

I can smoothly play the T2 WMVHD 720p movie trailer but I can not smoothly play the commercially bought T2 720p or 1080p. I doubt very much if you can either. I read many posts on other forums and the story over and over is the same, stuttering unless you have a very high end system. Your the first P3 that I have heard of.

Try one of the DRM protected WMVHD trailers, like Robots or Titanic.

Are you using Window Media 9 or 10 to play the file?

[Conquest10]

I haven't tried it on the P3. i doubt it will play. I was talking about the Pentium M in my post. The T2 DVD plays perfectly fine on it. WMP9, BTW.

[wwjd]

So your playing this on your laptop?

Are you talking about T2 WMVHD? or the normal T2 DVD?

I have tried a fresh install using MMC2005 and WMP9, same result. Stuttering.

I have a friend who can play the 720p T2 on his AMD 64 bit 2.4 but the 1080 does stutter.

[edDV]

Whoa, lets go step by step,

Microsoft says this is what you need for WmvHD playback.
http://www.wmvhd.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ChoosingPC.aspx

"Minimum Configuration
(to play 720p video)

Windows XP
Windows Media Player 9 Series
2.4 GHz processor or equivalent
384 MB of RAM
64 MB video card
DVD drive
1024 x 768 screen resolution
16-bit sound card
Speakers

Optimum Configuration
(to play 1080p video with 5.1 surround sound)

Windows XP
Windows Media Player 9 Series
DirectX 9.0
3.0 GHz processor or equivalent
512 MB of RAM
128 MB video card
DVD drive
1920 x 1440 screen resolution
24-bit 96 kHz multichannel sound card
5.1 surround sound speaker system "

I can play several WMV-HD DVDs at 720P with a P4 2.4 GHz Northwood, 512MB or 1GB RAM, AC'97 Realtek motherboard sound and ATI AIW cards. 1080p studders and won't play.

Over the air 1080i and 720p MPeg2_TS files (14-19Mb/s) play fine with VideoLAN VLC but I suspect VLC is compromising PQ for stable framerate. That is wise IMO*. Make sure you turn on deinterlacing for 1080i. "Mean" seems to be least CPU intensive but VLC always seems to peg the CPU at 100% while playing HD TS files.

The more highly compressed DivX HD player seems again to play with PQ compromise vs framerate.

I'm eager to hear of others experiences.

Ultimately, the MPeg4 based formats (H.264,VC1, DivX HD ... ) will require both hardware decompression and encoding support. All current PC CPUs are well below the power required for full 1080p realtime playback. Decoding hardware will be built into display cards. Encoding support will show up in HD tuner-capture cards. For XP OS, all of this will be controlled through DirectX-DirectShow.

see
http://www.ati.com/products/pdf/H264_Whitepaper.pdf
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/events/NAB2005/VC-1.aspx

*Reducing PQ to save framerate seems to look good on the PC but IMO quality is not yet optimised when feeding a good HDTV. The signal looks better off the HD cable box.

[wwjd]

edDV;

Could not have said it better!

Exactly my point but with one tiny little detail and that is even if you just meet the minimum requirement for WMVHD 720p the video may still stutter if the particular video file is DRM protected. So, far that has been my experience, which is why I think you actually need more system than what Microsoft says you do.

[edDV]

edDV;

Could not have said it better!

Exactly my point but with one tiny little detail and that is even if you just meet the minimum requirement for WMVHD 720p the video may still stutter if the particular video file is DRM protected. So, far that has been my experience, which is why I think you actually need more system than what Microsoft says you do.

I can play the WmvHD DVDs (about 6) and the demo files without studder at 720P. Which DRM'd files are you playing?

Sometimes I need to reboot and turn off anti virus to get the DVD to play.

[wwjd]

The 720p DRM protected movie trailers that stutter are Robot and Titanic.

I also have the WMVHD DVD for Coral Reef, Storm Chasers and T2. All have DRM and I can not play any smoothly in 720p let alone 1080p. I have tried playing them from the DVD and from my HDD. I also have been turning most everything off that I can and still the same result, stuttering and a pegged CPU.

As I said before, I can play the 720p movie trailers that do not have DRM smoothly.

[Conquest10]

So your playing this on your laptop?

Are you talking about T2 WMVHD? or the normal T2 DVD?

Yes, I can play it on my laptop. I'm talking about the WMVHD version on the second disc. Even the P3 can play the regular DVD.

The HD version plays fine with no stutter.

The HD captures off my DVR also play just fine without problems but I have only seen 720p and 1080i. No 1080p.

[edDV]

The 720p DRM protected movie trailers that stutter are Robot and Titanic.

I also have the WMVHD DVD for Coral Reef, Storm Chasers and T2. All have DRM and I can not play any smoothly in 720p let alone 1080p. I have tried playing them from the DVD and from my HDD. I also have been turning most everything off that I can and still the same result, stuttering and a pegged CPU.

As I said before, I can play the 720p movie trailers that do not have DRM smoothly.

The one's (WmvHD DVD) I've been able to play Discoverers, Step into Liquid, Shadows of Motown, Magic of Flight, Living Sea and a Demo DVD.

Background processes may be an issue. The other main difference is the AIW 7500 vs the ATI 8500 (Video Immersion II filters, etc) The 8500 series is almost identical to the AIW 9600 with a similar Theatre chip series.

[edDV]

wwjd, I think you are onto something with the new DRM.

I downloaded the Titanic demo (with DRM) and I was getting some studdering. I put in the Vol2 Discoverer's DVD and it played smoothly.


PS: A hint. Check Task Manager for any open processes and try to get CPU usage down close to zero before you play the file. I just discovered acrobat reader running and taking 12% of the CPU. Titanic just barely plays now with only a few motion glitches.

[wwjd]

Conquest10 wrote:

Yes, I can play it on my laptop. I'm talking about the WMVHD version on the second disc. Even the P3 can play the regular DVD.

The HD version plays fine with no stutter.

The HD captures off my DVR also play just fine without problems but I have only seen 720p and 1080i. No 1080p.

Are the Pentium M's really that fast?

For now I am going to place my WMVHD Disks on a shelf and try to forget them. A new computer is not in the cards for a while.

Later!

[hazydave]

I'm playing an 8Mb/s WMV/HD file, in WMP10, right this moment on my NEW PC. This is 1080/60i, 1440x1080, transcoded from my camcorder footage. Audio is 5.1 channel WMAPro. This
is rock solid, and Windows claims the CPU usage is generally under 30%. This didn't play well on my old PC, which was an Athlon 2500+ "Barton". This new machine is based on an Athlon64x2 4200+ "Manchester" CPU, the drive's a bit faster (Samsung 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s) with 32K clusters on NTFS. Graphics card is the ATi X550 (16-lane PCI Express). This is running on a dual display system, both monitors at 1600x1200 and 75Hz.

ATi cards tend to run video better than others, they're doing color-space conversions and other bits in hardware... at least that's true on lower-end cards, I haven't actually looked at expensive gaming cards, I use this system for video and electronics CAD.

This video will also play on my IOData LinkPlayer2 "Advanced" DVD player, over the network or on a DVD. The original MPEG-2 TS should play on it too, though at present my network is a bit slow (I need to replace an old 10/100 hub with a 10/100/1000 switch.... one of these days).

-Dave