NVIDIA's PureVideo HD: HD-DVD Playback on the PC
by Derek Wilson on July 22, 2006 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
So the burning question on everyone's mind is: what does all this mean for the user who wants to play HD content on their PC? A graphics card that can accelerate the playback of 1080p HDCP content will be something hardcore enthusiasts will want. While what we saw in our tests shows that the GPU can only really "relieve" 20% of the total CPU load on a Pentium D 830 (2 NetBurst cores running at 3.0GHz each), this early content isn't encoded at anywhere near the highest bit-rates supported on HD media, and NVIDIA expects to move more of the pipeline onto the GPU with future driver updates.
If the system will be used to play back imported Japanese films, the need for GPU decode acceleration is increased. As our tests show, the system pegged the CPU without GPU assistance and frames were dropping left and right. The fact that Japan is using H.264 for all their content does give decoders a harder time. Granted, we didn't use the fastest CPU around, but the number of dropped frames did render the movie unviewable.
Let us reiterate that while the videos we recorded do demonstrate the difference in the viewing experience with and with a GPU on the D 830, compressing video caught at 30 fps with a DV cam of content being played back at 60fps on a TV is inevitably going to smooth over some of the motion flaws in the original. The differences are much more dramatic in person.
Of course, there is some question of how other CPUs will handle the content, and we haven't had a chance to thoroughly investigate the matter yet. A Pentium D 830 is no slouch of a CPU, but neither is it extremely fast. Depending on the decoding algorithm (i.e. CPU optimizations) being used, many dual core processors out there may outperform the Pentium D 830 - but we will have to investigate this further when we have hardware. It almost goes without saying that we fully expect even the lowliest of Core 2 Duo processors to be able to handle 1080p content (with any encoding), though they will still likely be very close to 100% CPU usage. For those of you still running single core CPUs, things aren't looking too good right now as far as high definition support. It appears that NVIDIA, ATI, or someone else is going to need to do far more than offloading 20% of the CPU requirements before any single core CPU is going to be able to manage 1080p decoding without dropping frames.
Anything less heavy duty than H.264 (read: all current American content) is watchable without GPU accelerated decoding enabled on the system we tested. VC-1 seemed to run near the limits of the system, but didn't run into the same trouble we saw while watching the Japanese version of The Chronicles of Riddick. For the general American HD content consumer with a PC, a decent (dual core) midrange system will be able to playback video just fine.
Right now doing anything while watching HD content isn't a good idea. If NVIDIA moves more decode onto GPU, we could free up resources for background tasks. Lack of power savings and low bit-rate content diminish the need for GPU decode on most current CPUs right now unless Japanese importing is important (larger regions make this easier).
It may still be possible to build a quieter system using PureVideo HD because, while power isn't saved over the whole system, all the power isn't dissipated in the same spot. This could lead to relaxed cooling requirements. In fact, there are a good number of silent 7300GS cards that run at over 500 MHz. While they don't have enough pixel power to run the latest games at any decent quality or resolution, the clock speed makes it an excellent option for PureVideo HD (provided one of the vendors making HDCP cards opts to build a 7300GS). As for cards that are coming out soon, MSI and ASUS both have 7600 based products with HDCP planned for the near future. MSI even has an HDMI product coming down the pipe Real Soon Now.
PureVideo HD is a very good thing. We would love to see NVIDIA pull more of the decode pipeline onto the GPU, and CyberLink could still benefit from some time improving PowerDVD. Naturally, as this is all still beta, we can cut them a little bit of slack. However, once players are available in good quantities for decent prices with competition from ATI's AVIVO thrown in for good measure, we expect to see improvement.
We are very interested in seeing how ATI's AVIVO compares to PureVideo HD. As soon as we are able, we will have a comparison of the two, and we will also test with additional CPUs. Until then, HDCP support is a good thing, PureVideo HD nice, and the near term HDMI cards will also be useful for the home theater crowd. However, for most of us, at this point these things are merely interesting features. It's a little bit early to make a recommendation on buying HDCP enabled hardware for the multimedia enthusiast, especially given the current cost of optical drives. If this is something you need, the best bet will be to wait until everything is available in retail and we've seen the cards ATI is holding.
So the burning question on everyone's mind is: what does all this mean for the user who wants to play HD content on their PC? A graphics card that can accelerate the playback of 1080p HDCP content will be something hardcore enthusiasts will want. While what we saw in our tests shows that the GPU can only really "relieve" 20% of the total CPU load on a Pentium D 830 (2 NetBurst cores running at 3.0GHz each), this early content isn't encoded at anywhere near the highest bit-rates supported on HD media, and NVIDIA expects to move more of the pipeline onto the GPU with future driver updates.
If the system will be used to play back imported Japanese films, the need for GPU decode acceleration is increased. As our tests show, the system pegged the CPU without GPU assistance and frames were dropping left and right. The fact that Japan is using H.264 for all their content does give decoders a harder time. Granted, we didn't use the fastest CPU around, but the number of dropped frames did render the movie unviewable.
Let us reiterate that while the videos we recorded do demonstrate the difference in the viewing experience with and with a GPU on the D 830, compressing video caught at 30 fps with a DV cam of content being played back at 60fps on a TV is inevitably going to smooth over some of the motion flaws in the original. The differences are much more dramatic in person.
Of course, there is some question of how other CPUs will handle the content, and we haven't had a chance to thoroughly investigate the matter yet. A Pentium D 830 is no slouch of a CPU, but neither is it extremely fast. Depending on the decoding algorithm (i.e. CPU optimizations) being used, many dual core processors out there may outperform the Pentium D 830 - but we will have to investigate this further when we have hardware. It almost goes without saying that we fully expect even the lowliest of Core 2 Duo processors to be able to handle 1080p content (with any encoding), though they will still likely be very close to 100% CPU usage. For those of you still running single core CPUs, things aren't looking too good right now as far as high definition support. It appears that NVIDIA, ATI, or someone else is going to need to do far more than offloading 20% of the CPU requirements before any single core CPU is going to be able to manage 1080p decoding without dropping frames.
Anything less heavy duty than H.264 (read: all current American content) is watchable without GPU accelerated decoding enabled on the system we tested. VC-1 seemed to run near the limits of the system, but didn't run into the same trouble we saw while watching the Japanese version of The Chronicles of Riddick. For the general American HD content consumer with a PC, a decent (dual core) midrange system will be able to playback video just fine.
Right now doing anything while watching HD content isn't a good idea. If NVIDIA moves more decode onto GPU, we could free up resources for background tasks. Lack of power savings and low bit-rate content diminish the need for GPU decode on most current CPUs right now unless Japanese importing is important (larger regions make this easier).
It may still be possible to build a quieter system using PureVideo HD because, while power isn't saved over the whole system, all the power isn't dissipated in the same spot. This could lead to relaxed cooling requirements. In fact, there are a good number of silent 7300GS cards that run at over 500 MHz. While they don't have enough pixel power to run the latest games at any decent quality or resolution, the clock speed makes it an excellent option for PureVideo HD (provided one of the vendors making HDCP cards opts to build a 7300GS). As for cards that are coming out soon, MSI and ASUS both have 7600 based products with HDCP planned for the near future. MSI even has an HDMI product coming down the pipe Real Soon Now.
PureVideo HD is a very good thing. We would love to see NVIDIA pull more of the decode pipeline onto the GPU, and CyberLink could still benefit from some time improving PowerDVD. Naturally, as this is all still beta, we can cut them a little bit of slack. However, once players are available in good quantities for decent prices with competition from ATI's AVIVO thrown in for good measure, we expect to see improvement.
We are very interested in seeing how ATI's AVIVO compares to PureVideo HD. As soon as we are able, we will have a comparison of the two, and we will also test with additional CPUs. Until then, HDCP support is a good thing, PureVideo HD nice, and the near term HDMI cards will also be useful for the home theater crowd. However, for most of us, at this point these things are merely interesting features. It's a little bit early to make a recommendation on buying HDCP enabled hardware for the multimedia enthusiast, especially given the current cost of optical drives. If this is something you need, the best bet will be to wait until everything is available in retail and we've seen the cards ATI is holding.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
45 Comments
View All Comments
BigLan - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
"Curiously, player vendors seem to be releasing different versions of their software for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.... Hopefully CyberLink, InterVideo, et al, will merge their player versions at some point in the future, but we aren't sure of the technical reasons that might have required this initial move."AFAIK, the BD camp (maybe HDDVD as well, not sure) does not allow licencees to create a device capable of playing BD and HDDVD, which is why there are separate version planned. This may change if/when one of the large CE makers produces a combo standalone player, but I don't think that either Intervideo or Cyberlink can afford to stand up to the licensors and having their license revoked.
DerekWilson - Monday, July 24, 2006 - link
technically the devices are the drives -- and if I've got 2 drives (one HD and one BD), I don't see the reason why I should need two pieces of software. Different hardware is still required. But I could see this as a reason for initially making two players.bersl2 - Saturday, July 22, 2006 - link
HDCP is still a trap.DerekWilson - Sunday, July 23, 2006 - link
hear hearSunAngel - Saturday, July 22, 2006 - link
First off, Nvidia is doing an excellent job with PureVideo. And like the author commented, PureVideoHD should get better over time.However, some of the points in the article are a little alarming. First, HDCP is going to be required across the entire digital range equal to and greater than 720p. Second, if one link in the HDCP chain is not authenticated the resolution will be downsized to 540p. Most current HDCP-enabled widescreen lcd tvs (or at least the ones that are reasonably affordable) can output only as high as 1366x768. Thus, trying to downsize a 1080i/p resolution picture into a 720p resolution will be a waste of computing resources. Setting the display adapter to match the resolution of the tv set will regain some computing resources and reduce the load on the processor and gpu. At this point, very few of us including enthusiasts have 1080p enabled sets (I am going to bite my tongue because you can buy "full-sized" tvs with 1080p output for as little as $2500US) so forcing 1080p content to show on a 720p display is moot. Third, all 6 series and 7 series Nvidia gpus support some sort of HD acceleration. Nvidia GPUs 7600GT and higher have the sophisticated high-definition de-interlacing and inverse telecine support that is complementary to PureVideoHD, otherwise the CPU will be handling the task. SSE and 3DNow! extentions should easily handle those functions. Fourth, and the author did mention on this, the playback software and PureVideoHD are both still in beta form (well Cyberlink's player is nolonger in beta and can be bought on their site for $40US). If past performance with Cyberlink's player with PureVideo support is any indication of what's ahead, I am sure anxious to enjoy the next upgrade. Overall, the article was good reading. I just fell reviews at this time should be done with what's typically out in people's homes. Again, most of us don't own 1080p sets (I will not comment on those that don't even have HD sets), but quite a few of us have 720p sets. In my opinion, a better article would have been to review using 720p output on a 720p HDCP enable-set. This way we all would have a truer view of what PureVideoHD have waiting in store for us. On a scale of 1 to 10 is give the author a 7 for his piece. Good Luck. Cheers!
SunAngel - Saturday, July 22, 2006 - link
I should clarify my comment on image downsizing. The image will be downsized if the constraint token is used. And from the look of current piracy issues I expect this to come into effect once higher resolution sets become more mainstream and vga is abandoned.DerekWilson - Sunday, July 23, 2006 - link
Thanks, we will make sure to compare video output over 720p and 1080p in future HD content reviews (and especially in our comparison between NVIDIA and ATI playback).Our reasoning for doing the test the way we did was something along the lines of -- people buying HD or BD players and media for the PC right now very likely have a lot of disposeable income and probably have no problem dropping the $1800 for the cost of the 1080p Westinghouse we used.
Over the next few months as players are available and drop in price, it does make much more sense to look at 720p output as this is a much more mainstream target.
Thanks for the feedback.
Derek Wilson
Tujan - Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - link
I find it very strange the cliche of 'displosable cash'.When HD-DVD,or BD is discussed,as a 'media choice. Was it really the hollywood set,or the computer set wich had derived that the content would be as it is - in-the-media (on disk_) . Since obviously all of the support electronics consists of components that actually do not exist,or are merely speculation of future itenerary comming for some unknown. Oblivious of 'media. Or media of intention.
I hope that somebody breaks open those boxes. Just to make sure there isn't an IBM processor in them. One of those 'Core processors or something.
Certainly isn't the 'media'. It is obviously a 'platform.
All of the baly who about 'getting-the-equipment up. Ya know. For the most of it,this will always,be a 'simulation. Of the real thing. No matter the ideals 'theator mode,may take up from specs ballyhoowed via 'movie makers. If you throw them something new,they will certainly consider you an old timer. Being there is nothing to compare.
Being so that I would tend to agree that it is a constant of artificiality,that is actually the the status quo.
Hope there is an alternative to the status quo.To keep speculating of something real. Assuming this 'must be constant.
Zaitsev - Saturday, July 22, 2006 - link
Page 4, 3rd paragraph, 2nd line reads: "with and with a GPU on the D 830"I believe it should be "with and without a GPU..."
I'm really looking forward to the comparison with ATI cards. Interesting article, though.
Cheers.
Pirks - Saturday, July 22, 2006 - link
Ya, it's a toy review, since no real content is out there. For SERIOUS review you people have to include CoreAVC which kills any CyberLink or whatever and craps on its corpse - I almost can play 1080p videos on my Athlon XP 3200 on Socket A - WITHOUT _ANY_ GPU ACCELERATION. CyberLink and buddies can't even spit close to that. This means I'll buy A64 3800 soon for pennies, pop it in, pop CoreAVC and give nVidia and other boys a big fat finger. Haha - just try CoreAVC yourself, you won't believe your eyes!So unless I see comparison of some serious sort, which means including CoreAVC in addition to other big boys - that'd be just another toy review. Move along people.