HD-DVD Playback - On the Xbox 360 & on NVIDIA GPUs
by Derek Wilson & Manveer Wasson on December 15, 2006 9:21 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
A Look at PC Performance: The Test
As with last time, we will be focusing on the impact of GPU hardware acceleration on decoding HD-DVD movies. Right now, the only players we have access to that support Blu-ray or HD-DVD playback don’t offer any type of frame rate or dropped frame counters, both of which make it much easier to compare CPU performance. We will be taking a look at the performance of different CPUs in our next major CPU review whether we have the tools we want or not.
CPU utilization does work well enough as an indicator of the capabilities of the GPU, provided we choose a fast enough CPU to eliminate any bottlenecks. For our purposes, once again, we will go with Intel’s Core 2 Extreme X6800. We could have used a less powerful CPU, as our HD-DVD movies proved to be less stressful on our hardware than the Blu-ray movies we've tested, but we stuck with the X6800 for consistency with our previous article.
As we mentioned previously, we will be looking at benchmarks using Serenity and The Interpreter. Serenity is a VC-1 title, while The Interpreter is encoded with H.264. Remember that most HD-DVD titles currently available are VC-1, but the move in the future will likely be towards H.264.
With Serenity, we benchmarked a scene in Chapter 15 during which an epic battle ensues and our heroes are trying to escape from both sides. The Interpreter benchmark takes place in Chapter 13 during the aftermath of an explosion on a bus. These scenes were selected because they tended to yield higher bitrates than many of the other scenes, though none of the scenes had the same type of huge increase in bitrate that we saw in X-Men III.
The software we are using is unfortunately not as mature as our Blu-ray player. Cyberlink's current HD-DVD beta player is based on PowerDVD 6.5 while the Blu-ray player is based on 6.6. There are a few things missing like bookmarks, and (unfortunately) ATI GPU support. Try as we might, hardware acceleration would not remain enabled when testing with ATI hardware. We have contacted both AMD and Cyberlink to confirm the issue, but until we get a fix we will have to do without ATI numbers.
For reference, here's our test system once again:
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Duo X6800 |
| Motherboard(s): | ASUS P5B Deluxe |
| Chipset(s): | Intel P965 |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 7.2.2.1007 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.7 160GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Cards: | Various |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 6.11 NVIDIA ForceWare 93.71 NVIDIA ForceWare 97.02 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1920x1080 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
And now on to performance.
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DerekWilson - Friday, December 15, 2006 - link
We would be using retail players if any were available, but they aren't. Currently the only way to get a copy of a player that supports HD-DVD or Blu-ray is to buy a system or a drive that comes with it. Cyberlink is currently only offering their software through OEM channels.ssiu - Friday, December 15, 2006 - link
Does VC-1 look worse than H.264? (If they are comparable, then why use H.264 when VC-1 takes so much less power to decode?)Are these 720p or 1080i or 1080p videos?
DerekWilson - Friday, December 15, 2006 - link
All of our HD video tests so far have been done using a 1080p tv with 1080p movies.It's hard for us to do a direct image quality comparison right now because HD movie players don't allow any image capture or video clips to be saved. From what we know about H.264, it has a high potential for image quality, especially on Blu-ray where disks are currently up to 50GB in size.
therealnickdanger - Friday, December 15, 2006 - link
Given the current releases on both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, VC-1 has superior sharpness - H.264 tends to soften the image more than VC-1 at any given bitrate (hence the Blu-Ray nickname in some circles "Blur-Ray"). The implemetation of H.264 is more currently more complex and less efficient in many cases. Many argue the VC-1 codec to be superior only because it has the backing of Microsoft, who is working much harder behind the scenes to improve its functionality and efficiency, whereas H.264's support and tools are not as advanced. If and when H.264 receives the same treatment as VC-1 in terms of financial investment and support, then the more advanced features of H.264 can be realized. It's way too early to make a call on which codec will "win" in the end, but I don't think we'll know for a very long time. Lucky for us, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD support both... so the consumers win either way.plonk420 - Saturday, December 16, 2006 - link
where, pray tell, did you hear about this superior sharpness of VC-1? in reviews i've read, H.264 is pretty much identical PQ. the technology pools between VC-1 and H.264 overlap a good percentage, as well as even prosumer solutions having existed for at least year before the first BRD (or even HDDVD) players came out .. well, besides the piss-poor Quicktime.i can't say i can compare VC-1 vs H.264 on a standalone, but i've worked with both, including H.264 encoder betatesting and playing around with VC-1 a little bit as well...
rcabor - Friday, December 15, 2006 - link
I doubt its selling at a loss, since you dont need one for gaming, I cant see where microsoft would make any money with software.Xorp - Friday, December 15, 2006 - link
Good review cept, H.264 will probably more towards being equal with VC-1 in terms of releases. I don't think it's going to replace VC-1 in the long run.nicolasb - Friday, December 15, 2006 - link
Doesn't the fact that the XBox 360 has no digital video output rather limit its safety as a long-term investment for video playback? What happens when the disc publishers decide to switch on the protection flags that prevent output in any analogue format at any resolution beyond 960x540? Something with an HDCP-enabled digital output would surely be safer?ajira99 - Friday, December 15, 2006 - link
I think that by the time any content-protection flags are enabled (if ever), there will be affordable, standalone players that will do a better job than either the Xbox 360 or PS3. I'm pretty satisfied with the HD-DVD addon -- the 360 is an adequate DVD player when I'm away from my computer, and the PC compatibilty of the drive is a definite plus.Of course, Microsoft could just wait and put out an updated 360 console w/CPU die shrink and HDMI in a year or so.
Furen - Friday, December 15, 2006 - link
I believe the HDCP-requirement was scrapped from the spec, which is why MS can get away with having a non-HDMI solution.More importantly, I wonder if MS is in anyway subsidizing the cost of the drive... If so then Microsoft may be getting screwed pretty badly by people who buy the drive to use it on a computer.