Help reproducing HD files
 

Hello everyone.

Just wondering if I can solve my situation with 720p AVI files; my system is:

1.2 Ghz
384 MB RAM
128 MB graphics cards (it's an Asylum GeForce MX 4000 with 8xAGP)

but I'm unable to play 720p files without skipping frames or asincronism between audio and video.

I've read an article from a guy who has basically 1 Ghz, 128 MB of graphics card, the same or less RAM memory, and he made it posible to execute just fine files up to 1080i, and he said he solved the problem "Using a DirectShow filter filter that effieciently took advantage of DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration) I was able to watch 1080i sourced material".

The article is here http://www.hdbeat.com/2006/02/20/how...ng-on-your-pc/

I've read an article at the IEEE about Accelerate video decoding with generic GPU, so it seems a posible thing to do.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/wr...number=1425532

Just wondering what filter do I need to buy/download/install if it's posible-
Or a better configuration of my BsPlayer to take all of the GPU and not only the CPU.

Thanks a lot in advance for your time!

edit: my OS is winxp home sp2 and the bsplayer version is 1.37

Check setting of "Rendering mode" under
(rightclick >) Options > preferences > Video > Video rendering
[Perhaps try DirectDraw surface or VMR-9.]
:wink:

What is the video format? Have you turned off all processing, deinterlace? MPEG2 usually are not in avi and the container format doesn't say much at all. H264 for example requires very fast CPU.

First, thanks to both of you.

I've tried it and it didn't worked. I tried VMR-9 renderless also.

It's an AVI file. More specifically the samples you can download here http://www.divx.com/movies/browse.php?categoryID=3. "Thank You For Smoking" works fine, but it's 1280x544 and it has a lowbitrate.

Don't know what u mean with video container and turning off the deinterlace.

(•) http://trailers.divx.com/Fox/ThankYouForSmoking_HD.zip [1280*544 px]

It used 15% of my Pentium 4 2.66 GHz, when decoding using FFDSHOW without any post-processing functions turned on. This is normal.

(•) http://trailers.divx.com/Dreamworks/SharkTale_HD.zip [1280*688 px]
Used 22% of my Pentium 4 2.66 GHz.

(•) http://trailers.divx.com/Dreamworks/Madagascar_HD.zip [1280*720 px]
Used 22% of my Pentium 4 2.66 GHz.


The video format was DivX 5 (DX50) for all clips. Look for Post Processing in your decoder (Options -> Filters) and turn them off. What filter are you using for decoding? I didn't use any SSE/SSE2 optimizations or GPU assistance (except scaling), so your comp is most likely able to keep up too.

BSPlayer automatically zoomed out as the res was greater than my desktop currently set. But this happens in hardware even using old i740, so shouldn't be a problem.

AVI is a container format, which carries one or more video and audio streams, which themselves are in one format or another. The container format has little influence on the processor time needed for decoding. Deinterlace is a solution how to fix legacy video where each frame contained 2 fields, taken at different time moments (not needed here).

__
Strange that the required CPU on that page is as fast as 2.4 GHz. What does that DivXPlayer they are offering do... Really post-processing – creating data which doesn't exist in the file... :?

The player installer is 15 MB :o. Bloatware.

Shark Tale play in here very bad, average of 15 fps in 1280x688 !!!! resolution, using DivX decoder and consuming 85-95 % of my PIV@2,4

EDIT:
WIth postprocessing disabled playing OK.

Do you use deblocking or other post-processing?

Quality level to MAX is default.

So this is the problem. I won't say anything about the quality of post-processed video, that's subjective. But it will be better @ 24 fps, I think. ;)

Hi again, thanks to all for the interest of helping.

I were a little busy and couldn't test the compuer with these options, but I did it now and it doesn't work.

the video of shark tale trailer plays normally, but the audio is not in sync with the video.

other important thing is that in filters (at bs player) I don't get options to configure.

finally, I've disabled the post processing at the divx configuration utility.

I'm thinking my CPU is just not enough for these bitrates, becouse it's working at 99%/95% and the ram memory being used is about 280 when I've 384MB installed, so the problem is not the RAM memory and/or the GPU/video card internal memory (128MB).

Cheers folks.

GPU memory is used for displaying the video and most likely also scaling (resampling). This is not a 3D game where textures have to be kept in mem.

Maybe you have too many filters installed and more than one of them is doing the post processing.

The files were Advanced Simple MPEG-4 and bitrates weren't too high at all. You can try downloading VideoLAN Client (VLC). And if the video plays Ok (without post-processing), then it means there's some redundant processing going on in DirectShow.

love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N love you J7N

FINALLY, IT WORKED!!!

sorry i'm so happy... after so many tests it plays normally!

I've tried with sharcktale (thanks for smoking played fine from the begining), and a 720p episode series release of about 448kb/s, I know (you're right) it's not a high bitrate at all, indeed I've tested Terminator II Extreme Edition DVD trailer (7000kb/s, from wmvhd at microsoft) and it freezes in the start.

So, I'll keep testing and I tell you.

Thanks a lot!

:) :wink:
It will be useful if you tell other users how did you make the videos play properly.

I think the creators of these clips have tried to squeeze hi-res content in a bitrate apropriate for PAL resolution. I noticed many compression artifacts. The bitrate alone will not require a very fast computer. Your machine will probably be too slow for H264/AVC decoding at regular 1-2 MBit/s. H264 is a very good format and achieves its quality at expense of CPU time.

Simply I installed VLC. ?Do you know if there's some kind of thing to do to increase even more the "power" or something? If so, please tell me :)

Do you think I'll have trouble playing this:
Dont understand, the other file I've tested was only 448kb/s (1280*720, avi, ac3 audio) (based on win xp explorer's info from the avi file) and these release has more than 4mb/s :shock:

I'm thinking maybe windows only show the audio bitrate, instead of the video bitrate.

Why don't you check yourself with VLC? I know 1.2 MBit/s MPEG4 ASP with AC-3 can barely be played on a 400 MHz Celeron.

Make sure you don't mess megabits and megabytes. A megabyte contains 8.38 megabits [(2^20)*8/(10^6)].

I don't know. If you install FFDSHOW and decode your video with this filter, then the average bitrate of the portion played so far will be shown in ffdshow's property sheet. The video size is always [container size] - [audio size] - [small overhead]. If you know the audio bitrate you can aproximately calculate also the video bitrate.

Becouse I was downloading the file...

dude, I know the diference between bytes and bits (more simply than that, 1byte=8bits)

And yes, windows gives a wrong info about a video file; I've downloaded a 4099kb/s AVI file and its says "448kb/s".

It is up to you to determine how fast your box is, as I did with my old computer. I can only help with tips how to use all of your computing power for decoding – the thing you need right now.

I remembered that Win98 gave bitrates in kilobytes in its media property page and 448 kB/s was real close to 4 MBit/s.

Yes, but 1 kB != 8000 Bit.

1 kbyte is 1024 bytes. 1 byte is 8 bits

True!

Also true!
:wink:

No, it's not true. 1 kilo is not 10^2 but is 2^10. Even if you count 8 times 1024 that's 8192 bits, not 8000. But surely, 1 kB is 8 kbit, 1 MB is 8 Mbits and 1 GB is 8 Gbits. Remember, always 1024.

@adicoto: I think we totally agree but: yes it is true! 1kB is not equal to 8000 Bit.
Or otherwise noted: 1 kB != 8000 Bit.
:wink:
("!=" like "<>" like "≠" all mean "unequal")
P.S.: By the way: i.a. missing crumb, nibble, word ... etc in your lecture

Yes, but someone in here (gues who ? ) didn't read the ! :oops:

:D I already thought so!
:wink:

But 1 MB will always be 8 Mbits.

Nobody is argueing about that!
:wink:

Let alone the new kibi (Ki) and mibi (Mi) for now, I don't like them. I think bits should always be expressed in decimal manner, where 1 kBit = 1000 Bit.

and media stream bitrates closely relate to telecommunications.

However when storing these bits we cannot escape use of bytes. A certain amount of bytes is required for a given stream, then the usage of 2^(n*10) nobody is arguing about applies.

Back on topic, I did have problems some month ago, playing HD files (1920x1088 @ 25) in MPEG2 format. My laptop (1.6 centrino 512 MB) did not managed to play some of those files fluently, sometimes half of the fps. But played OK 1920x1088 XviD files.

Well, same here. I compared regular 350 MB MPEG-4 rip (1.1 MBit/s) with a MPEG-2 music video of approx the same resolution. XviD required less computing power. I could barely play the MPEG2 with Elecard, no free decoders could do it.

I never tried to play HD movies, I'll try with those trailers :)
_________________________________________________
Back off-topic (sorry adicoto :P)
And if we want to be really rigorous kilobyte(s) should be written with a k (lower-case) and not with a K (upper-case) since in the SI (Syst?me International d'Unités) K stands for Kelvin (thermodynamic temperature) and k stands for kilo ( even if I always write KB, Kg, KJ, etc., instead of kB, kg, kJ :P )

Ok, I could spare you this, sorry :D

Back offtopic. Sorry Tizio, I can't find any K in my post. Just k. :wink:
It was caused probably by the cold, you know, in here is like - 10 K. :)
Et ceratinement on a pas de kb et kB en francais. Parce que ils ont des octets et on ecrit ko et kO.

There's enough confusion already with 1024 and 1000, "k" and "K", Bit/bit/b. Please don't introduce these octets. :shock:
I wonder how French call bits...

As you see. we are totally offtopic. Just a little chat :D.

By the way, did you wonder how they spell computer ? Ordinateur.

It was not referred to you :wink:

I wrote "Sorry adicoto" only because you turned discussion On-topic and I wanted to apologize to have went Off-topic again :P :lol:

Most of the forums I am active do have an off-topic topic :D
Aha, I understand, and that's why I put a trap for you in my statement. There is no such thing like -15 K. 0 K is the coldest possible. :D

What do you think, should we go back on topic ?

Ordinateur? The one who puts things in order. I like that. :)

Any time, as soon as some new info about hi-res videos arrives...

Well, do you have more tips? Now I'm downloading a TS file with approx 6mbit/s, I don't think its gonna play it Ok but Ill try. One important thing I've noted is, using Bsplayer I get the divx aplication executed in the background, unlike using VLC. Maybe that app is causing the problems I have with the others players.

How many bitrate do you think my system support for playing HD Ok?

Thanks!

I can play without problems this:

thaaaaaaaaanks again J7N!!!! whats the thing with VLC?

It doesn't do any processing of the decoded data by default. VLC uses the same free libraries as ffdshow.

If your comp is slow compared to the content you are going to play, I recommend installing ffdshow video decoder for MPEG-4 (DivX, XviD, H264) and Elecard MPEG2 Decoder for MPEG-2 (DVD) playback. Prior to that you must uninstall any DivXNetworks software. You may keep XviD codec (if you do have one) in case you want to compress something. If you decide to install ffdshow, you must enable the video and audio formats you want to decode and leave others (like Mp3) unchecked, and also disable any post-processing. ffdshow can be re-configured later using Start menu shortcuts or the property sheet of this filter.

The background application might be a harmless tray icon, but may also be doing some redundant demuxing, dunno: Check CPU usage in a task manager.

FFDShow has no drawbacks compared to latest DivX software. Even distributive size (dxn = 15 MB) and mem usage is better.

This also depends on the format, decoder used and the interface to call that decoder. MPEG-2 requires more computing power than MPEG-4 ASP (DivX, XviD) and H264 needs even more. Old DIV3 decoder was slower compared to ffdshow. Bad combination of OS, video drivers can result in very slow VirtualDub(Mod) interaction with normal VFW codecs...

Thanks for this advice; but at the moment everything works fine so I'll let the config as is, then if I've get problems with some movie or larger file I'll try this.

:arrow: I've downloaded a TS file, it plays ok with VLC, but when I select the subs it doesn't show them at the screen, do you know what could be posible causing this?