How does PureVideo work? Or rather how do you use it?

[suryad]

I looked through some of the threads here and I dont know if this is the right forum to post. Suppose I am using CCCP for my video watching needs. It has all those ffdshow and blah blah filters.

Gah I dont even know what really to ask. How does it work? I mean how does a user make it work? Apparently theres HD acceleration and all that that makes the video card do the heavy lifting instead of the CPU. I just watched the Polar Exploration video of Top Gear in 1080p format a 7 gb download. I saw the CPU was constantly pegged at around 20%.

So how does one make the video card take care of it instead of the CPU? Also I have a 2560 x 1600 res monitor...if I watch 1080p, can the software provide scaling capabilities?

 

[Scott_Arm]

I know that in PowerDVD under the video options you just enable hardware acceleration. Not sure about other software, but I'm assuming they will have a similar option. Some freeware may not have those options ... not sure. Would probably be best to look into what players support Purevideo.

 

[suryad]

Thanks Scott_Arm. Yes in PowerDVD there is that option and I have it enabled. I have the latest version of PowerDVD. Does that mean now if I watch a standard DVD it will use PureVideo in conjunction with my 8800 to upscale it to match my native resolution?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Thanks Scott_Arm. Yes in PowerDVD there is that option and I have it enabled. I have the latest version of PowerDVD. Does that mean now if I watch a standard DVD it will use PureVideo in conjunction with my 8800 to upscale it to match my native resolution?

PowerDVD runs at whatever you have your desktop resolution set to. When you go to fullscreen it doesn't switch to another resolution, so it has to be upscaling the image.

 

[suryad]

PowerDVD runs at whatever you have your desktop resolution set to. When you go to fullscreen it doesn't switch to another resolution, so it has to be upscaling the image.

Thanks I will check it out today. I have watched a movie like Batman Begins on DVD on my computer, but without the PureVideo checkbox marked. I wonder if there will be any change in image quality with the checkbox on. As an example i watched Apolocalypto on my roommate's PS3 and it looked pretty darn good on the big screen and it was sort of not believeable that it was a standard DVD I was watching! The jungle scenes were incredibly vivid.

 

[Scott_Arm]

My display resolution is 1920x1200. DVDs look very nice in the latest PowerDVD, even without a high-end video card. I'm using a Geforce6600GT with hardware acceleration enabled. I think you'll be pleased with the results.

 

[Davros]

your gfx card 8800gtx (according to your sig) has some features missing

 

[suryad]

your gfx card 8800gtx (according to your sig) has some features missing

More like my card does not even show up on that table! 8800 Ultra is not there so would it be correct to go ahead and assume that it is the same as the 8800 GTX that IS on that table? Thanks Davros!

PS: It does look like the main ones are there as in the HD content scaling of h264 and HQ scaling and noise reduction and all that.

 

[swaaye]

Regular DVD hardware accel has been in most GPUs since like 1999 or so. ATI was king of video decoding for years, actually. Some of the ATI Rage II chips did DVD decoding.

I'm not sure there will be a quality difference between a current software and hardware decoder. Some of the newer GPUs can do hardware IVTC (inverse telecine), I believe, and that would definitely be nice if you actually need it.

Don't forget to check out Media Player Classic Homecinema if you want a freeware VC-1/H.264 DXVA player. It won't decode MPEG-2 in DXVA though.

 

[Berek]

Regular DVD hardware accel has been in most GPUs since like 1999 or so. ATI was king of video decoding for years, actually. Some of the ATI Rage II chips did DVD decoding.

I'm not sure there will be a quality difference between a current software and hardware decoder. Some of the newer GPUs can do hardware IVTC (inverse telecine), I believe, and that would definitely be nice if you actually need it.

Don't forget to check out Media Player Classic Homecinema if you want a freeware VC-1/H.264 DXVA player. It won't decode MPEG-2 in DXVA though.

IVTC ability would be useful in decoding many television shows right? I think I recall a lot of the shows on DVDs being encoded in IVTC... or at least that is what I recall, hehe.

I use MPC for as much as I can. Fast, simple, lovin it ;P.

 

[swaaye]

Telecine

I've yet to have issues with telecined video playback on PC. Plain de-interlacing does the job fine. It's something that you have to worry about if you want to convert video, however. Video cards have nothing to do with that though.

 

[suryad]

I have MPC working with the CCCP pack and I love it. I was a big fan of VLC until I found that CCCP was recommended for anime lovers...and boy the subtitle rendering sold me on it. I still dont understand 80% of the stuff like containers, codecs, Haali splitter, ffdshow etc etc but I just double click and stuff works lol.

I am just trying to understand the scaling chip built into the Gateway for example vs the scaling a video card would do. Got me all confused...

 

[swaaye]

MPC Home Cinema has MPEG2/4, WMV, and VC-1 codecs built into it, sorta like VLC. Regular MPC needs a codec pack, like CCCP or just FFDSHOW. FFDSHOW is nice because it's an all-in-one codec with lots of filters for both audio and video if you want to mess with such things.

MPC HC's internal VC-1 and H.264 codecs will do DXVA hardware acceleration on Radeon HD and GeForce 8/9. So you can playback HD video encodings with 4% CPU usage. AFAIK it's the only player that can do hardware accel of these formats outside of PowerDVD/WinDVD commercial software.

I am just trying to understand the scaling chip built into the Gateway for example vs the scaling a video card would do. Got me all confused...

You mean the LCD vs. the GPU? Compare the two and see which looks better to you. That's about all that matters.

 

[Bludd]

More like my card does not even show up on that table! 8800 Ultra is not there so would it be correct to go ahead and assume that it is the same as the 8800 GTX that IS on that table?

8800 Ultra is basically a factory-overclocked 8800 GTX.

 

[Scott_Arm]

If you're watching a video using a software player like PowerDVD or MPC, the video is scaled to your desktop resolution (in fullscree mode). Does it do this through software or hardware if you have hardware acceleration enabled? Then the monitor will scale that again if your desktop resolution doesn't match the displays native resolution.

I'm just curious how those software players scale the image. I remember an older version of PowerDVD allowed you to set an independent resolution for fullscreen mode, but that option seems to have been gone for along time.

 

[suryad]

MPC Home Cinema has MPEG2/4, WMV, and VC-1 codecs built into it, sorta like VLC. Regular MPC needs a codec pack, like CCCP or just FFDSHOW. FFDSHOW is nice because it's an all-in-one codec with lots of filters for both audio and video if you want to mess with such things.

MPC HC's internal VC-1 and H.264 codecs will do DXVA hardware acceleration on Radeon HD and GeForce 8/9. So you can playback HD video encodings with 4% CPU usage. AFAIK it's the only player that can do hardware accel of these formats outside of PowerDVD/WinDVD commercial software.


You mean the LCD vs. the GPU? Compare the two and see which looks better to you. That's about all that matters.

Thanks for the explanation. I will give it a shot by downloading that tonight and running some DVDs and Top Gear's Polar special that is in an mkv format but 1080p. If I understand correctly...mkv is a container ya that has an h264 coded video and some other ac3 or something audio right?

If you're watching a video using a software player like PowerDVD or MPC, the video is scaled to your desktop resolution (in fullscree mode). Does it do this through software or hardware if you have hardware acceleration enabled? Then the monitor will scale that again if your desktop resolution doesn't match the displays native resolution.

I'm just curious how those software players scale the image. I remember an older version of PowerDVD allowed you to set an independent resolution for fullscreen mode, but that option seems to have been gone for along time.

Thanks for the explanation.

 

[vazel]

You can get the pretty subtitle AA from CCCP by just installing the standalone directvobsub.

I would most definitely say your GPU scales better than your LCD. LCD manufacturers aren't renown for caring much about the scaling chips they put in their displays. You'll only find good scalers in high end HDTVs from Sony and Pioneer and I think one other brand.

If you want to ensure the highest quality scaling use Zoom Player(I think you can use MPC too which is free but I wouldn't know how to set it up) and then add ffdshow as a video postprocessor and scale with lanczos algorithm. This is scaling done with the CPU so you need a processor that can keep up. For scaling DVDs my Athlon XP 2800+ Barton hovers at around 80% usuage average. Here are my settings:

Add ffdshow as a video postprocessor in the DVD player.



Add the resolution of the resolution you are outputting to the display you are scaling to. In my case that's 1216x684(it's the res I got after using overscan adjustment for 720p in nVidia driver panel).



Here you choose the scaling algorithm. lanczos is the best. Set the top taps setting to 2. You can also add sharpening to the image for SD content, setting luma sharpen to 1.00 or 1.25 are good settings.

 

[suryad]

Thanks for the post Vazel! Cant wait to go home and try it out. I will also take a look at ZoomPlayer. I am a bit of a minimalist thats why I went with MPC.

 

[vazel]

oops I thought I was overwhelming you with info so I edited the info out. I'll edit it back in.