slow HD playback even though i have an okay PC (pic)

[edgeofthecosmos]

Hi all, my specs are as followed.

Intel Core 2 Duo e6600
2GB Ram
1TB
8800 GTS 640MB
Windows Vista

The problem is with HD playback on my computer, whenever I try to play star wars return of the jedi in 1080p It slows down, not so much skipping but just slow playback. I took a screenshot of the statistics screen with all the information for you to see. Does anyone know why its slow ? I thought my specs would be enough for 1080 playback. Also for the player I used KM player with haali's video renderer.

[edDV]

"Return of the Jedi" is out in 1080P ?

Or are you playing a DVD and outputting upscaled 1080P ?
That would largely depend on your display card assisted by the CPU. Is the CPU Usage high? What is the player?

[edgeofthecosmos]

"Return of the Jedi" is out in 1080P ?

Or are you playing a DVD and outputting upscaled 1080P ?
That would largely depend on your display card assisted by the CPU. Is the CPU Usage high? What is the player?

Thanks for reminding me about the CPU Usage thing, I put the priority to "High" and it no longer has that slowdown. Although it still has usage at %50 meaning its only using 1 of the core. Any program out there that can take advantage of both cores in video playback? Oh and the return of the jedi capture is from a UK Broadcast.

[SatStorm]

Just for the info:
You captured from BBC HD or Sky Movies HD?

This looks more like BBC HD...

[jagabo]

Disable KMPlayer's internal h.264 decoder (single threaded) and use CoreAVC (multithreaded).

[edgeofthecosmos]

Just for the info:
You captured from BBC HD or Sky Movies HD?

This looks more like BBC HD...

I believe it is BBC HD

Disable KMPlayer's internal h.264 decoder (single threaded) and use CoreAVC (multithreaded).

This is nice, something i missed while researching on the topic, its made things much better.

Edit: Yep, its using both cores now, going silky smooth.

[archer64]

I am a newbie to HD and 1080p format and although I've read and re read this thread I'm having trouble getting a movie i've downloaded to work on my computer. If I can get it to run smoothly I can then stream it to my tv and watch it. The problem I'm having is similar to the post. The movie will start off ok then slow down and freeze or run slowly. Here is some info:

The movie is 1080p 10.9GB with an .mkv file extension
I have downloaded KM Player
I have downloaded CoreAVC

I'm not sure what I have to do to get the file to run properly and smoothly...if i can do it at all.
I'd appreciate a step by step if possible.
Thanks

[jagabo]

Did you download CoreAVC Pro or the regular one? Only the Pro version is multithreaded.

Right click on the KMPlayer window, select Options -> Preferences. In the left pane select Filter Control -> Decoder Usage -> Internal Video Decoder. In the right pane untick the h.264 and AVC1 boxes. Press the Close button, exit KMPlayer. Now do your videos play smoothly (assuming Core AVC Pro is installed)? If not, right click on the video while it is playing. Hover over Filters. Do you see CoreAVC in the filter list? If not, it is not being used. Some other h.264 decoder is being used. You may have to disable that one.

[archer64]

thanks for the instructions..I downloaded CoreAVC Pro and it now shows up in my filters but the playback isn't running smoothly. Do I need to use the Haali Media Splitter program for this file because I'm not sure what that does? could it be my PC?

[jagabo]

Bring up Task Manager (Alt+Ctrl+Del) while playing a video. How high is the CPU usage?

In the Video Processing section of KMPlayer's preferences dialog try the different renderers.

[creamyhorror]

What is your CPU model?

In addition to checking your CPU usage, you need to confirm that CoreAVC is actually being used. I'm not familiar with KMPlayer, so I can't tell you how to check in that.

You should already have Haali's Media Splitter, which handles MKV files. I don't know if it comes with KMPlayer.

If you install MPC-HC, I'll be able to help you.

[archer64]

the CPU usage is at 100% when the file is playing. I tried different renderings but they didn't seem to make much of a difference. I closed out the player before trying the different renderings first.

I have a Toshiba laptop Satelite L305D-S5881
ADM Turion(tm) X2 Dual Core Mobile RM-70 2.00GHz
3.00 GB Ram
ATI Radion 3100 Graphics card

I've also installed MPC-HC but don't seem to have any luck there either, not sure of the settings.

[The_Doman]

I've also installed MPC-HC but don't seem to have any luck there either, not sure of the settings.

Check this site for some help with playing HD material:
Watching h.264 videos using DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA)

[creamyhorror]

I have a Toshiba laptop Satelite L305D-S5881
ADM Turion(tm) X2 Dual Core Mobile RM-70 2.00GHz
3.00 GB Ram
ATI Radion 3100 Graphics card

The 3100 apparently doesn't have full H.264 decoding, so that DXVA decoding link won't help you. I'm not sure if your CPU is fast enough to handle the video.

I've also installed MPC-HC but don't seem to have any luck there either, not sure of the settings.

Open the video in MPC-HC, and right-click in the window, choose Filters, and see what video decoder is listed there. Is it CoreAVC, ffdshow video, or something else? If it's CoreAVC and your CPU usage is at 100%, then I think your video is simply too much for your CPU to handle.

You may be able to play the video if you use a decoder that offloads processing to your graphics card partially. I think Cyberlink PowerDVD and a few other decoders can do this (note that they're not free).

Maybe someone else will have a good suggestion.

[jagabo]

the CPU usage is at 100% when the file is playing... ADM Turion(tm) X2 Dual Core Mobile RM-70 2.00GHz

I would have guessed a 2 GHz Turion X2 is enough. Just to be sure -- both cores are enabled right? Task Manager should show two CPU Usage History graphs.

[archer64]

Open the video in MPC-HC, and right-click in the window, choose Filters, and see what video decoder is listed there. Is it CoreAVC, ffdshow video, or something else? If it's CoreAVC and your CPU usage is at 100%, then I think your video is simply too much for your CPU to handle.

You may be able to play the video if you use a decoder that offloads processing to your graphics card partially. I think Cyberlink PowerDVD and a few other decoders can do this (note that they're not free).

Maybe someone else will have a good suggestion.

I have gone to the External Filters and added ffdshow and CoreAVC and Haali and each one alone...what should be in there? I'm not sure if I have ffdshow but I do have CoreAVC and Haali.

[archer64]

the CPU usage is at 100% when the file is playing... ADM Turion(tm) X2 Dual Core Mobile RM-70 2.00GHz

I would have guessed a 2 GHz Turion X2 is enough. Just to be sure -- both cores are enabled right? Task Manager should show two CPU Usage History graphs.

Both Cores are enabled and the usage goes up to 100% in both when the file is playing

[archer64]

I've also installed MPC-HC but don't seem to have any luck there either, not sure of the settings.

Check this site for some help with playing HD material:
Watching h.264 videos using DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA)

I also followed the instructions at this link and set up the player

[creamyhorror]

I have gone to the External Filters and added ffdshow and CoreAVC and Haali and each one alone...what should be in there? I'm not sure if I have ffdshow but I do have CoreAVC and Haali.

No, I'm not talking about the External Filters window in Options.

Open your video and play it. While it's playing, right-click in the playback area and go to the Filters submenu. The submenu will list the filters currently being used to play the video. See if CoreAVC or ffdshow video is listed there.

If you have other 1080p videos, test them and see if CPU usage is also at 100%. Also check 720p videos.

[archer64]

I have gone to the External Filters and added ffdshow and CoreAVC and Haali and each one alone...what should be in there? I'm not sure if I have ffdshow but I do have CoreAVC and Haali.

No, I'm not talking about the External Filters window in Options.

Open your video and play it. While it's playing, right-click in the playback area and go to the Filters submenu. The submenu will list the filters currently being used to play the video. See if CoreAVC or ffdshow video is listed there.

If you have other 1080p videos, test them and see if CPU usage is also at 100%. Also check 720p videos.

yes CoreAVC is listed

[creamyhorror]

I guess your CPU can't handle 1080p then. Or maybe something else is interfering/using up CPU cycles, but I don't know what.

[jagabo]

I know you said you tried different renderers but did you try the Overlay Mixer as the renderer?

Also make sure you aren't using any other filters that will eat CPU cycles. Turn off all postprocessing, deinterlacing, sharpening, etc filters. Make sure Video Output Queue is enabled. Right click on the video while playing and try selecting Video (Advanced) -> Super Speed mode and High Speed mode.

What is your CPU usage when not playing a video? It should be near zero.

Divx 7's h.264 decoder is slightly faster than CoreAVC. You might try that.

You can also try MPCHC instead of KMPlayer.

[archer64]

I will have to play with it a bit more and see if I can even play them on my PC. I would like to burn it onto disc to watch through the ps2 onto the HD tv..is that a safer bet? the file is just over 10 gig so i'd have to split it into three discs i believe...can the file be split and burned to watch that way without any distortion? What program can I use to split it?

[creamyhorror]

If you mean a PS3, it depends on what settings the H.264 video was encoded with. If your dual-core laptop can't play it, I'm doubtful that your PS3 can, but you can try. In that case, use MKVmergeGUI to split the MKV into 3 parts and then remux them to MP4 with YAMB.

[archer64]

yes i mean PS3, worth a try thanks.

[archer64]

If you mean a PS3, it depends on what settings the H.264 video was encoded with. If your dual-core laptop can't play it, I'm doubtful that your PS3 can, but you can try. In that case, use MKVmergeGUI to split the MKV into 3 parts and then remux them to MP4 with YAMB.

I'd really like to try burning the file to dvd so I downloaded the two programs you suggested. What extension do I save the file in when using the MKVmergeGUI so that they are recognized in Yamb. I split them but when I opend the Yamb program it didn't recognize the files. Does the fact that the movie has subtitles make a difference?
thanks

[creamyhorror]

Oh, okay, so you have 3 MKV files now? For each MKV file, use MKVextractGUI (should have come with MKVmerge) to demux the video, audio, and subtitle streams, then mux them as MP4 with YAMB.

If the video has more than 4 reference frames (as reported in MediaInfo), though, it definitely won't play in a PS3 AFAIK. If it's marked as profile L5.1 (also viewable in MediaInfo) even though it's only L4.0/4.1, the PS3 may also reject it - in that case, you can try one of the H.264 profile adjuster programs, one of which someone else may be able to recommend.

[nitro1973]

i would just install splash, update graphics drivers to latest version and wathc it through dxva
i got many mkv files and i can watch it without a problem

[clearchrome]

Problem solved,

I have a single threaded CPU, Intel P4 HT @ 3GHz
2Gb ram , 64Gb SSD x64 corsair, geforce fx5200 video card (very old)

I was able to run almost every video but I had problem with my Ti3 canon video (1080p 30fps MOV videos). They was jerky and I got 5 fps at most.

I switched to Windows 7 and had to cut down on video effects for performance for playing video normally like Winxp sp3.
But the MOV problem was still there.

So I downloaded every Player on the web and tried one by one. Every Decoder .. nothing worked.

KMplayer just solved it. I just played like smootly. Why I dunno.