Firingsquad NVIDIA PureVideo HD with HD-DVD peak

[BrynS]

Alan Dang tests out a NVIDIA PureVideo HD system with HD-DVD ("Our HD-DVD drive came from NVIDIA…" - hmm ) using VC-1, H.264 and MPEG2 encoded HD-DVDs.

[...]
When it came to high-bitrate H.264, the CPU-only solution was inadequate. With H.264 likely becoming the preferred encoding CODEC for future Blu-Ray discs, clearly GPU-accelerated performance is needed. While CoreAVC has a reputation for high-performance H.264 decoding, it still wasn’t a match for PureVideo HD hardware.
[...]

 

[RobertR1]

VC-1 seems to be quite effeceint. Also, with the encoder and toolsets ever improving we're seeing average bit rate into the mid and low teens consistantly. So even less resources needed.

 

[pcchen]

Regarding VC-1, I've tested it on several computers with 1440x1080 interlaced content. Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz can decode it in full speed, but Pentium D 2.8GHz and slower computers can't. With PureVideo HD, 8Mbps and 12Mbps VC-1 can be decoded well on a Pentium D 2.8GHz, but it does not play very well on a 3.2GHz Celeron.

 

[Geo]

Kewl. Always like to see another Dang video piece.

To date, there is only one 2560x1600 monitor with HDCP, the Dell 3007WFP. Unfortunately, there aren’t any graphics cards that are capable of transmitting the HDCP signal to the 3007WFP over the dual-link DVI connection.

As a result, owners of the 3007WFP have to drop down to 1280x800 resolution to playback HD-DVD/Blu-Ray content. The Dell 3007WFP should support 2560x1600 with HDCP, but there’s no actual graphics card that can pull this off yet. AMD says that future GPUs (including integrated graphics) will support dual-link HDCP.

What's up with that? Why drop down so far? Why not 1920x1080, which of course is 1080p.

 

[BrynS]

Kewl. Always like to see another Dang video piece.



What's up with that? Why drop down so far? Why not 1920x1080, which of course is 1080p.

Perhaps it's a scaling issue, with 1280x800 being a straight 50% reduction in both the vertical and horizontal resolution of 2560x1600?

I'm still using a CRT, but from what I've heard of other users' experiences, some LCDs don't always scale well (below the native resolution) with different types of content, although I would have thought that Dell's premium LCD would use a decent scaler. As you say, I would expect at least 1080p via HDCP if I had plumped on that monitor.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Its due to the timing modes the monitor reports back for single link and dual link connections.