I have an older system based on an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and 2GB DDR
RAM, running Windows XP 32bit. Recently, however, I upgraded my video
card to a Geforce 8800GTS with 340Mb of onboard RAM.
As I do not really play so many games, I'm quite happy with my current
setup but would like to add a Bluray drive in order to be able to
watch HD movies. The bare minimum specs I've read on the Internet for
bluray playback (e.g. for WinDVD Plus) are AMD Athlon 3800+, and
recommended specs are much higher. However, since the video card
features Purevideo HD, which offloads at least some of the processing
required from the CPU, I was thinking that I should be fine as long as
I enabled hardware acceleration.
Is that correct? Do you think the above setup is enough for smooth blu
ray playback in full 1080p mode? Also, do you know of any test or demo
videos in H.264 as well as VC-1 formats, that I could use to test?
Ideally full disc images that are small enough to download and mount
on a hard drive...
smirks wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have an older system based on an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and 2GB DDR
> RAM, running Windows XP 32bit. Recently, however, I upgraded my video
> card to a Geforce 8800GTS with 340Mb of onboard RAM.
>
> As I do not really play so many games, I'm quite happy with my current
> setup but would like to add a Bluray drive in order to be able to
> watch HD movies. The bare minimum specs I've read on the Internet for
> bluray playback (e.g. for WinDVD Plus) are AMD Athlon 3800+, and
> recommended specs are much higher. However, since the video card
> features Purevideo HD, which offloads at least some of the processing
> required from the CPU, I was thinking that I should be fine as long as
> I enabled hardware acceleration.
>
> Is that correct? Do you think the above setup is enough for smooth blu
> ray playback in full 1080p mode? Also, do you know of any test or demo
> videos in H.264 as well as VC-1 formats, that I could use to test?
> Ideally full disc images that are small enough to download and mount
> on a hard drive...
>
> Clyde
The Corel web page offers to trial the software for some period
of time. You could fire up the trial and see how well it works.
Now, all you need, is some Bluray test clips for download from the
net. You only need a couple minutes worth, with lots of action,
to get some idea if it'll stutter or not.
Another option. CyberLink BD Advisor (Beta). Supposed to test
your hardware.
On Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:17:07 -0700, smirks thoughfully wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have an older system based on an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and 2GB DDR RAM,
> running Windows XP 32bit. Recently, however, I upgraded my video card to
> a Geforce 8800GTS with 340Mb of onboard RAM.
>
> As I do not really play so many games, I'm quite happy with my current
> setup but would like to add a Bluray drive in order to be able to watch
> HD movies. The bare minimum specs I've read on the Internet for bluray
> playback (e.g. for WinDVD Plus) are AMD Athlon 3800+, and recommended
> specs are much higher. However, since the video card features Purevideo
> HD, which offloads at least some of the processing required from the
> CPU, I was thinking that I should be fine as long as I enabled hardware
> acceleration.
>
> Is that correct? Do you think the above setup is enough for smooth blu
> ray playback in full 1080p mode? Also, do you know of any test or demo
> videos in H.264 as well as VC-1 formats, that I could use to test?
> Ideally full disc images that are small enough to download and mount on
> a hard drive...
>
> Clyde
Yeah, I don't think so. If the minimum is 3800+ then your cpu won't be
able to keep up. When HD videos first appeared I had a similar slower
cpu coupled with a higher performance video. Playback dropped frames
and complained about the cpu being too slow.
I don't know your system but why would you want to watch Blu-Ray on a
PC? Or if you have a PS/3?
I've watched 2 Blu-Ray movies on my PC already, but I'd really rather
watch them on a large screen HDTV connected to a 7.1 home theater.
"smirks" <clyde.ellul@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:d2dfaa48-2559-43cd-a1dc-40360cc12c16@m44g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have an older system based on an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and 2GB DDR
> RAM, running Windows XP 32bit. Recently, however, I upgraded my video
> card to a Geforce 8800GTS with 340Mb of onboard RAM.
>
> As I do not really play so many games, I'm quite happy with my current
> setup but would like to add a Bluray drive in order to be able to
> watch HD movies. The bare minimum specs I've read on the Internet for
> bluray playback (e.g. for WinDVD Plus) are AMD Athlon 3800+, and
> recommended specs are much higher. However, since the video card
> features Purevideo HD, which offloads at least some of the processing
> required from the CPU, I was thinking that I should be fine as long as
> I enabled hardware acceleration.
>
> Is that correct? Do you think the above setup is enough for smooth blu
> ray playback in full 1080p mode? Also, do you know of any test or demo
> videos in H.264 as well as VC-1 formats, that I could use to test?
> Ideally full disc images that are small enough to download and mount
> on a hard drive...
From what I understand to take full advantage of 1080p one must have a video
card with an HDMI output and a monitor with HDMI input. That's not to say
your setup can't play BluRay, it probably just won't take the full advantage
of it.
>
> Clyde
On Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:59:54 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.com>
wrote:
>smirks wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have an older system based on an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and 2GB DDR
>> RAM, running Windows XP 32bit. Recently, however, I upgraded my video
>> card to a Geforce 8800GTS with 340Mb of onboard RAM.
>>
>> As I do not really play so many games, I'm quite happy with my current
>> setup but would like to add a Bluray drive in order to be able to
>> watch HD movies. The bare minimum specs I've read on the Internet for
>> bluray playback (e.g. for WinDVD Plus) are AMD Athlon 3800+, and
>> recommended specs are much higher. However, since the video card
>> features Purevideo HD, which offloads at least some of the processing
>> required from the CPU, I was thinking that I should be fine as long as
>> I enabled hardware acceleration.
>>
>> Is that correct? Do you think the above setup is enough for smooth blu
>> ray playback in full 1080p mode? Also, do you know of any test or demo
>> videos in H.264 as well as VC-1 formats, that I could use to test?
>> Ideally full disc images that are small enough to download and mount
>> on a hard drive...
>>
>> Clyde
>
>The Corel web page offers to trial the software for some period
>of time. You could fire up the trial and see how well it works.
>Now, all you need, is some Bluray test clips for download from the
>net. You only need a couple minutes worth, with lots of action,
>to get some idea if it'll stutter or not.
>
>Another option. CyberLink BD Advisor (Beta). Supposed to test
>your hardware.
>
>http://www.cyberlink.com/english/sup.../diagnosis.jsp
>
>Corel has one too. WinDVD HD/BD advisor tool.
>
>http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli.../1193332030582
>
>My guess would be they won't use real content, because that
>would make the downloads too big. Maybe you can post back
>what your results were like.
>
>Have fun,
> Paul
Having just ran these two, it looks like they are only a
generic checklist type of app, they don't actually measure
any decoding performance.
A Google search should find H.264 and VC-1 1080p files that
could be used to gauge playback performance, it wouldn't
necessarily need to be a disc image that's mounted.
kony wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:59:54 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.com>
> wrote:
>
>> smirks wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I have an older system based on an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and 2GB DDR
>>> RAM, running Windows XP 32bit. Recently, however, I upgraded my
>>> video card to a Geforce 8800GTS with 340Mb of onboard RAM.
>>>
>>> As I do not really play so many games, I'm quite happy with my
>>> current setup but would like to add a Bluray drive in order to be
>>> able to watch HD movies. The bare minimum specs I've read on the
>>> Internet for bluray playback (e.g. for WinDVD Plus) are AMD Athlon
>>> 3800+, and recommended specs are much higher. However, since the
>>> video card features Purevideo HD, which offloads at least some of
>>> the processing required from the CPU, I was thinking that I should
>>> be fine as long as I enabled hardware acceleration.
>>>
>>> Is that correct? Do you think the above setup is enough for smooth
>>> blu ray playback in full 1080p mode? Also, do you know of any test
>>> or demo videos in H.264 as well as VC-1 formats, that I could use
>>> to test? Ideally full disc images that are small enough to download
>>> and mount on a hard drive...
>>>
>>> Clyde
>>
>> The Corel web page offers to trial the software for some period
>> of time. You could fire up the trial and see how well it works.
>> Now, all you need, is some Bluray test clips for download from the
>> net. You only need a couple minutes worth, with lots of action,
>> to get some idea if it'll stutter or not.
>>
>> Another option. CyberLink BD Advisor (Beta). Supposed to test
>> your hardware.
>>
>> http://www.cyberlink.com/english/sup.../diagnosis.jsp
>>
>> Corel has one too. WinDVD HD/BD advisor tool.
>>
>> http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli.../1193332030582
>>
>> My guess would be they won't use real content, because that
>> would make the downloads too big. Maybe you can post back
>> what your results were like.
>>
>> Have fun,
>> Paul
>
> Having just ran these two, it looks like they are only a
> generic checklist type of app, they don't actually measure
> any decoding performance.
>
> A Google search should find H.264 and VC-1 1080p files that
> could be used to gauge playback performance, it wouldn't
> necessarily need to be a disc image that's mounted.
That is a great way to test the CPU's ability to decode HD content, but
if I understand the OP, he has a nVidea video card with a GPU that will
decode HD in hardware, thus off-loading the CPU.
However, you have to have software that is aware of the GPU hardware and
that will utilize it when playing a Blue-Ray DVD, or HD files.
I don't know if the CPU plus the video card the OP has will decode
Blue-Ray without difficulty, as I'm not familiar with the hardware (I'm
using Intel Core2 Duo CPU/ATI video card, with a Blue-Ray HD accelerated
GPU as well).
There is a x264 benchmark available for Intel CPU's, but I don't know if
it will work with AMD, or if there's an AMD counterpart. Perhaps
performance could be inferred by comparing similar CPUs.
> I don't know if the CPU plus the video card the OP has will decode
> Blue-Ray without difficulty, as I'm not familiar with the hardware
> (I'm using Intel Core2 Duo CPU/ATI video card, with a Blue-Ray HD
> accelerated GPU as well).
>
> There is a x264 benchmark available for Intel CPU's, but I don't know
> if it will work with AMD, or if there's an AMD counterpart. Perhaps
> performance could be inferred by comparing similar CPUs.
>
> http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.a...tno=499&pgno=5
Well, it might help if I read a bit before posting. This page has both
AMD and Intel scores as well as the benchmark program you can run on
your own system with a better explanation of the benchmark:
On Tue, 9 Sep 2008 19:38:02 -0400, "RobV"
<robv@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
>kony wrote:
>>> http://www.cyberlink.com/english/sup.../diagnosis.jsp
>>>
>>> Corel has one too. WinDVD HD/BD advisor tool.
>>>
>>> http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli.../1193332030582
>>>
>>> My guess would be they won't use real content, because that
>>> would make the downloads too big. Maybe you can post back
>>> what your results were like.
>>>
>>> Have fun,
>>> Paul
>>
>> Having just ran these two, it looks like they are only a
>> generic checklist type of app, they don't actually measure
>> any decoding performance.
>>
>> A Google search should find H.264 and VC-1 1080p files that
>> could be used to gauge playback performance, it wouldn't
>> necessarily need to be a disc image that's mounted.
>
>That is a great way to test the CPU's ability to decode HD content, but
>if I understand the OP, he has a nVidea video card with a GPU that will
>decode HD in hardware, thus off-loading the CPU.
You're trying to make a distinction that doesn't exist. If
it'll decode on the GPU with one it will with the other
(video source), using the same playback software he'd use
for the blu-ray disc.
>
>However, you have to have software that is aware of the GPU hardware and
>that will utilize it when playing a Blue-Ray DVD, or HD files.
Yes, and a new enough driver for the video card. In the end
it still comes down to actually trying to play a HD file
encoded with one of the two more common codecs and we might
as well skip MPEG-2 since it is the least compute intensive
of the three most common ones used.
>
>I don't know if the CPU plus the video card the OP has will decode
>Blue-Ray without difficulty, as I'm not familiar with the hardware (I'm
>using Intel Core2 Duo CPU/ATI video card, with a Blue-Ray HD accelerated
>GPU as well).
>
>There is a x264 benchmark available for Intel CPU's, but I don't know if
>it will work with AMD, or if there's an AMD counterpart. Perhaps
>performance could be inferred by comparing similar CPUs.
>
>http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.a...tno=499&pgno=5
>
That's measuring x264 encoding time, it wouldn't necessarily
tell if the system plus GPU is fast enough at decoding the
two most common higher compression Blu-ray codecs in a 1080p
video.
Googling for a H.264 or VC-1 1080p (movie trailer for
example) would be a much better gauge of whether the system
is up to the task.
On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:41:36 -0400, kony thoughfully wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Sep 2008 19:38:02 -0400, "RobV" <robv@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
>
>>kony wrote:
>
>>>> http://www.cyberlink.com/english/sup...u-ray_support/
diagnosis.jsp
>>>>
>>>> Corel has one too. WinDVD HD/BD advisor tool.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli.../1193332030582
>>>>
>>>> My guess would be they won't use real content, because that would
>>>> make the downloads too big. Maybe you can post back what your results
>>>> were like.
>>>>
>>>> Have fun,
>>>> Paul
>>>
>>> Having just ran these two, it looks like they are only a generic
>>> checklist type of app, they don't actually measure any decoding
>>> performance.
>>>
>>> A Google search should find H.264 and VC-1 1080p files that could be
>>> used to gauge playback performance, it wouldn't necessarily need to be
>>> a disc image that's mounted.
>>
>>That is a great way to test the CPU's ability to decode HD content, but
>>if I understand the OP, he has a nVidea video card with a GPU that will
>>decode HD in hardware, thus off-loading the CPU.
>
> You're trying to make a distinction that doesn't exist. If it'll decode
> on the GPU with one it will with the other (video source), using the
> same playback software he'd use for the blu-ray disc.
>
>
>
>
>>However, you have to have software that is aware of the GPU hardware and
>>that will utilize it when playing a Blue-Ray DVD, or HD files.
>
> Yes, and a new enough driver for the video card. In the end it still
> comes down to actually trying to play a HD file encoded with one of the
> two more common codecs and we might as well skip MPEG-2 since it is the
> least compute intensive of the three most common ones used.
>
>
>
>
>>I don't know if the CPU plus the video card the OP has will decode
>>Blue-Ray without difficulty, as I'm not familiar with the hardware (I'm
>>using Intel Core2 Duo CPU/ATI video card, with a Blue-Ray HD accelerated
>>GPU as well).
>>
>>There is a x264 benchmark available for Intel CPU's, but I don't know if
>>it will work with AMD, or if there's an AMD counterpart. Perhaps
>>performance could be inferred by comparing similar CPUs.
>>
>>http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.a...tno=499&pgno=5
>>
>>
> That's measuring x264 encoding time, it wouldn't necessarily tell if the
> system plus GPU is fast enough at decoding the two most common higher
> compression Blu-ray codecs in a 1080p video.
>
> Googling for a H.264 or VC-1 1080p (movie trailer for example) would be
> a much better gauge of whether the system is up to the task.
I can guarantee his nVideo will decode Blu-Ray but his cpu won't be able
to keep up with video for smooth playback.
On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:25:40 GMT, jaster <jaster@home.net>
wrote:
>>
>> You're trying to make a distinction that doesn't exist. If it'll decode
>> on the GPU with one it will with the other (video source), using the
>> same playback software he'd use for the blu-ray disc.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>However, you have to have software that is aware of the GPU hardware and
>>>that will utilize it when playing a Blue-Ray DVD, or HD files.
>>
>> Yes, and a new enough driver for the video card. In the end it still
>> comes down to actually trying to play a HD file encoded with one of the
>> two more common codecs and we might as well skip MPEG-2 since it is the
>> least compute intensive of the three most common ones used.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>I don't know if the CPU plus the video card the OP has will decode
>>>Blue-Ray without difficulty, as I'm not familiar with the hardware (I'm
>>>using Intel Core2 Duo CPU/ATI video card, with a Blue-Ray HD accelerated
>>>GPU as well).
>>>
>>>There is a x264 benchmark available for Intel CPU's, but I don't know if
>>>it will work with AMD, or if there's an AMD counterpart. Perhaps
>>>performance could be inferred by comparing similar CPUs.
>>>
>>>http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.a...tno=499&pgno=5
>>>
>>>
>> That's measuring x264 encoding time, it wouldn't necessarily tell if the
>> system plus GPU is fast enough at decoding the two most common higher
>> compression Blu-ray codecs in a 1080p video.
>>
>> Googling for a H.264 or VC-1 1080p (movie trailer for example) would be
>> a much better gauge of whether the system is up to the task.
>
>I can guarantee his nVideo will decode Blu-Ray but his cpu won't be able
>to keep up with video for smooth playback.
If the video card does the decoding the CPU won't be loaded
all that much, that's the point of the GPU decoding.
BluRay on older system 
Linear Mode
