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    Can my Studio 15 handle movies in 720p and/or 1080p

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by sa17dk, Apr 10, 2009.

  1. sa17dk

    sa17dk Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have a Studio with the ATI 3450 with the T5750 and I was wondering if it would be able to handle movies at that quality. Thanks in advance.
     
    sa17dk, Apr 10, 2009
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  2. Mastershroom

    Mastershroom wat

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    Handle what, precisely? Playing them from a Blu-Ray disk, from a downloaded video file, encoding/editing them?

    Playing them depends entirely on your screen resolution. The bare minimum screen option is 1280x800, which is more than 720p, so that's fine. However, only the 1920x1200 display can play 1080p.

    If you're playing them from a Blu-Ray disk, you'll need to have the Blu-Ray drive installed and not the regular DVD writer.

    The T5750 is probably a bit weak for editing and encoding HD videos, but it could probably do the job, if given enough time.
     
    Mastershroom, Apr 10, 2009
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  3. sa17dk

    sa17dk Notebook Enthusiast

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    Oh sorry for not being specific. I dont care about encoding/editing them. I just mean being able to watch via downloaded video files.
     
    sa17dk, Apr 10, 2009
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  4. oldskoo1

    oldskoo1 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yes its just about enough CPU power to play the files.

    We have a sony TG3 which creates full 1080p files. They play on both our dell's. One was an Inspiron (the silver one but its gone back as it broke) but it was the same chip 2.0ghz as yours with 3GB ram and onboard graphics.

    Although the graphics have no part in playing the files the CPU usage was about 80-90% so it played fine with no stutters at all. And it outputted it via the HDMI port with no problems or stutters.


    My studio is a bit more powerful and it is also fine.
     
    oldskoo1, Apr 10, 2009
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  5. speedline

    speedline Notebook Guru

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    This is not entirely true.. at least not in the case of the ATI 3450 that is available in the Studio 15.. in fact thats one of the features that differentiates it from a lot of other lower end graphics cards..

    a quick search in Google found this summary of the 3450:
    http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/video/ati-3450/

    With ATI Avivo™ HD technology, the latest Blu-ray and HD DVD movies play as smoothly as intended; at True HD 1080p. The Unified Video Decoder (UVD) relieves your CPU from the taxing video decode process and enables time-saving multi-tasking. Enjoy quality to spare with resolutions upscaled beyond 1080p for the most processing-intensive content. And with a choice of digital outputs, you have more options when enjoying your digital entertainment.

    Of course, this depends on whether or not you have the correct driver/codec installed.. but assuming you do, you should see CPU utilization while viewing HD content in the single digit range, while the GPU does all the heavy lifting
     
    speedline, Apr 13, 2009
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  6. oldskoo1

    oldskoo1 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yes i have this card in my Studio 15

    My AVCHD movies don't touch the GPU at all - Blueray encoded discs will be a different story though.
     
    oldskoo1, Apr 14, 2009
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  7. speedline

    speedline Notebook Guru

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    Try it with PowerDVD.. I just did this last night.. I have some AVCHD footage from a Canon HF100 that I have been trying to play on my Studio 15 with a 3450.. using the ffdshow codec pack, I was getting around 60-70% utilization (on a P8600 2.4Ghz).. using PowerDVD 9 to playback the same AVCHD video, the quality was not only much much better but my CPU utilization went down to the 20-30% range (granted not single digits as I said above, but much lower nonetheless).

    You can read this thread over at AVS about it here.. but basically, you need a codec (AVCHD utilizes the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 codec. Blu-Ray can either be MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 or SMPTE VC-1) that will take advantage of ATI's Avivo technology if you want the GPU to help decode HD content and not all codecs are created equal.
     
    speedline, Apr 14, 2009
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  8. raduque

    raduque Notebook Evangelist

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    My old laptop was capable of watching 1080p downloaded movies - it only has a 2.26ghz Pentium M and an ATI X300.
     
    raduque, Apr 16, 2009
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  9. Garydhooper

    Garydhooper Newbie

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    speedline - were you using Powerdvd 9 standard or the Deluxe or Ultra versions?
     
    Garydhooper, Nov 10, 2009
    #9