1080p material playback with the M1330

Having bought a XPS M1330 about a year ago with a cheap CPU (T5250) is beginning to have its consequences. I got a great deal, that's why I have this slow CPU..

Anyhow, I bought a fullHD television a week ago and tried some fullHD material (*.mkv/*.mp4 files). I thought it wouldn't (and shouldn't) be a problem with the 8400M GS. Boy, was I wrong. I tried to watch the Italian Job (1080p, 18gb) but it stuttered all the time. It wasn't even watchable.

Am I wrong to think the 8400M is capable of playing 1080p material? I thought it supported HD playback, but apperently, it doesn't. My CPU load is 60-100% while playing 1080p.

Will a new processor help, perhaps? Can I buy eg a T8300 and just replace the T5250 or is it a different socket? What about the cooler?

Thanks!

oh, I did search btw. But most people in similar topics had more powerful CPUs..

 

You can pop in any merom/penryn chip released so far... They use the same socket..

Anyway, is the video even being processed through the graphics card? Or is it solely using the CPU? What were yo playing it on? The screen or a HDMI TV? I can play back 1080p content fine... although on the screen it downscales to 720p..

 

I don't know if the video is being hardware accelerated by the GPU.. I was playing it on my 40" full HD television at 1080p (TV only; screen was black).

 

Try this:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3331270&postcount=37

 

Thanks PJ@7-z.

Tried it, but for some reason I can't select the Cyberlink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD8)? I do have PowerDVD8 Ultra installed. You should be able to right click and select the filter, right?

This is what I get:


EDIT:

DOH! I do have the filter apparently.. I don't really see any improvements, it might be the trailer though.. I'll get back to you on this.

 

Hmm, it seems like the CPU load goes down to around 60%-80% which is quite good . My audio is out of sync now, though..

 

Just double-click on "Cyberlink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD8)" and set it to "Prefer". Then restart MPC-HC and play a file. See the attachments:

EDIT: Your CPU isn't powerful, but the main problem is your 8400M GS which doesn't support MPEG4 H.264/AVC
EDIT2: change your file name to *.ts and play it with PowerDVD %-)

 

Done, thanks.

It seems that the audio is in-sync as well. Great, thanks man!

 

I should say that It doesn't give you full HA.
So try choosing EVR (Vista / .Net3) in Option->Playback->Output.
If it didn't work, try VMR9 (renderless)

Tell me the result

 

I can select the X264/AVC option though, but it doesn't appear when I right click (it does in your screenshot). Is this okay?

What's full HA btw?

Hmm, it looks like the audio is still out of sync, for some reason..

 

Yes, you can't use DxVA with some files. Try this to play some MKV files that don't open with PDVD8 :

Open PDVD8 and uncheck nVidia PureVideo and close it.
Install Haali Media Splitter, rename your file to *.avi then play it with PDVD8

 

Give me a screenshot
Is your file H264 ? Go to MPC-HC -> File -> Properties -> Details

HA: Hardware Accelerator

 

Here it goes..





as you see, it can't select the cyberlink option while rightclicking..


still audio problems though!

 

Do you set PDVD8 H264 Decoder to "Prefer" and restart MPC-HC ?

Try this if you can't play it with PDVD8 :

 

I did.

Anyhow, Cyberlink now plays it smoothly (I had to rename the mkv file is dos because I couldn't rename in vista FFS); with CPU loads between 60-80%! At least it finally plays smoothly now. A lower CPU load would be great but I'm more than happy now

-> Repped.

 

For slower systems i would highly recommend using KMPlayer with CoreAVC. I ran tests on a similar system (D630/2.0GHz/2GB/Nvidia Quadro135M) and had no problems playing 1080p/mkv content.

These files are very taxing on the CPU and also come in various bitrates so YMMV.

http://www.coreavc.com/

http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=25

G'luck.

 

Ditto! PJ@y-Z definitely went above & beyond the call of duty here and readily deserves to be repped

 

I have T7300 (2 gHz but with 4 MB cache, instead of the 7250's 2), 8400M GS and 4 GB.

I have encoded some movies at 1080i, and have successfully played them using the standard K-Lite Codec pack and Media Player Classic.

I know 1080p has some more pixels, but maybe someone wants to try that and see how it compares.

BTW, it plays AVCHD files right off my camcorder's SD card - really convenient.

CPU definitely goes up into the upper 50%, though - too bad the 8400M GS is not hardware accelerated.

 

Thanks, that was my duty

60-80% of CPU usage is good for you
In this case, 8400M GS isn't weak. just upgrade your CPU if you want lower CPU usage.

PureVideo2 doesn't support some x264 files, so the CPU usage goes higher.
But it doesn't reduce the video playback quality !
If it works, your CPU usage goes lower (~10%), but you should have 8600M GT (even 8800GTX,8800GTS 320/640MB don't have PV2)

Sorry for my english

EDIT: All of the software decoders (except PDVD) reduce the quality and use more CPU

 

Keep in mind that all hardware still needs a codec that can take advantage of it.

I have tested using FFDShow, PowerDVD, CoreAVC and to be completely honest, i can't find any differences in the picture quality. In the near future when all the kinks have been ironed out then using HA is the obvious choice but for now there exists many approaches and none of them are perfect. HA's benefits lies not in PQ but system resource management.

For more information check the doom9forums and avsforums.

Best bet is to try for yourself and use what makes you happy. =)

 

Where is a place that I can download small HD videos....movie trailers, etc?

Just want to try some HD clips on my 1330 with Media player or whatever. Thanks.

 

http://www.hd.ic.cz/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=19&thread_id=14

Try Samsung Demo, but it's MPEG2. just play it with PDVD8.

 

I downloaded my samples from usenet. Just search for "1080p sample" at binsearch.info .

 

Sorry but what's PDVD8 and where can I get it? Is it freeware? Thanks.

 

Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 Ultra
No, but it's the best video player.

 

A better way:

Install PDVD8 Ultra + Haali Media Splitter + VSFilter.
Uncheck DxVA in PDVD's setting.
Turn On "Autolaod VSFilter" is Haali Media Splitter's setting.
EDIT: Rename *.mkv to *.avi and play it with PDVD.

Enjoy !