ocujos Posted January 8, 2006 Posted January 8, 2006 http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2665&p=2 Interesting developments. Isn't competition a wonderful thing? Now the question is: should I buy a 6600GT or an X1600 for my new HTPC???
daft009 Posted January 8, 2006 Posted January 8, 2006 w00t! now to look out for a cheap 2nd hand 6600gt
digitaladvisor Posted January 8, 2006 Posted January 8, 2006 http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2665&p=2Interesting developments. Isn't competition a wonderful thing? Now the question is: should I buy a 6600GT or an X1600 for my new HTPC??? Great News! DA
tonygib Posted January 8, 2006 Posted January 8, 2006 Cool, pitty about the 2-3 month wait, but that just mean even more features of my 6600GT to come. I assume this will include x264 decoding as well.
DavoNogo Posted January 8, 2006 Posted January 8, 2006 'bout time they announced... been waiting for this announcement for yonks (way before I got my card)
Owen Posted January 8, 2006 Posted January 8, 2006 Maybe I’m missing something, but what the hell use is x264 decoding???? Anything HD worth watching comes as a Mpeg2 transport stream. DVD’s are also Mpeg2, so what x264 video is out there that has not just been re encoded to x264, loosing quality in the conversion???
DavoNogo Posted January 8, 2006 Posted January 8, 2006 Personally, I believe H.264 is more important, as that is what's used by the likes of Quicktime and HD media.
BlueJ Posted January 8, 2006 Posted January 8, 2006 Maybe I’m missing something, but what the hell use is x264 decoding???? H.264 is the main compression standard used for both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. MPEG2 can't compress a 2+hr movie at 1080i/1080p enough to fit on either a Blu-ray or HD-DVD disk. So H.264 is the future. H.264 support is still academic for most people, for three reasons: 1. You will need a HDMI-capable display to watch Blu-ray or HD-DVD high definition content 2. The early Blu-ray & HD-DVD drives will cost in excess of $500 (for Blu-ray, well in excess) 3. We don't yet know if the mid-range cards (6600, X1600 etc) will accelerate 1080i/p decoding enough to allow the use of a CPU slower than a Pentium 4 9xx or Athlon X2 I should think that Christmas 2006 will be the time when it becomes affordable to watch either Blu-ray or HD-DVD content. Widescreen LCDs are getting cheaper and cheaper, the drives will be around the $100 mark and cards capable of H.264 1080i/p decoding will be in the budget pricerange. I hope.
DavoNogo Posted January 8, 2006 Posted January 8, 2006 BlueJ, Owen was asking what uses x.264, which is an open source variant of H.264. None of the official HD media will use x.264, they'll all be using H.264. Anything that is encoded with x.264 should be taken with a grain of salt since it will most likely be a compressed version of an already compressed stream (for example Mpeg-2 -> x.264)
BlueJ Posted January 9, 2006 Posted January 9, 2006 BlueJ, Owen was asking what uses x.264, which is an open source variant of H.264. Sorry guys, I never heard of x.264 before. So I did some reading. I am now better informed, thank you all!
zeus1503559778 Posted January 9, 2006 Posted January 9, 2006 This is great news. I find it funny that nvidia can get a relatively old gpu like the 6600gt to decode h.264 1080p content with 50% cpu usage while for ATI you need a X1800 to get hardware assisted 1080p decode. I'm currently using a R9800pro in my htpc and a 7800GTX in my gaming machine. Looks like I'll be upgrading that R9800 soon.
Mcrackn Posted January 9, 2006 Posted January 9, 2006 Looks like I'll be upgrading that R9800 soon. How much do you want to sell it for?
DavoNogo Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/01/07/nvidia_decode_h264/ The integrated 6150 chip can only handle 720p, whereas the 6600GT, 6800, 7600 and 7800 can all do 1080p. They don't mention the 6200 and I'm guessing the vanilla 6600 won't be able to do 1080p either. They also state "most GPUs from the 6600GT and upwards"... I swear, if my 6800NU doesn't get it, I'm going to cry (and upgrade to a 6800GS if that card gets it)
Owen Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 H.264 is the main compression standard used for both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. MPEG2 can't compress a 2+hr movie at 1080i/1080p enough to fit on either a Blu-ray or HD-DVD disk.So H.264 is the future. H.264 support is still academic for most people, for three reasons: 1. You will need a HDMI-capable display to watch Blu-ray or HD-DVD high definition content 2. The early Blu-ray & HD-DVD drives will cost in excess of $500 (for Blu-ray, well in excess) 3. We don't yet know if the mid-range cards (6600, X1600 etc) will accelerate 1080i/p decoding enough to allow the use of a CPU slower than a Pentium 4 9xx or Athlon X2 I should think that Christmas 2006 will be the time when it becomes affordable to watch either Blu-ray or HD-DVD content. Widescreen LCDs are getting cheaper and cheaper, the drives will be around the $100 mark and cards capable of H.264 1080i/p decoding will be in the budget pricerange. I hope. BluRay has plenty of capacity (50gig) to use high bit rate mpeg2 (40Mbit per second max) It’s not possible to compress video without loosing detail, no matter what encoding system is used. The last thing I would won’t to see is over compressed video. 20Gig per hour would be nice. As fare as I know, advanced encoders like H264 loose a lot of there advantage over Mpeg2 at high bit rates. Am I wrong? My 7800 and Athlon X2 4600 will be replaced long before H.264 decoding becomes an issue.
DavoNogo Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 From the link I posted above, I noticed that the HD-DVD demo disc that was on display had a bitrate of 20mbit... according to some sources, 20mbit using H.264 would be equivalent to 32mbit using Mpeg-2 (well the site I saw said 11mbit H.264 was equivalent to 18mbit Mpeg-2)
digitaladvisor Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 As fare as I know, advanced encoders like H264 loose a lot of there advantage over Mpeg2 at high bit rates. Am I wrong? Yes you are wrong here. The compression method comparison in BIT up for MPEG 2 but down for H.264 is like comparing 8 bit colour to 32 bit colour plane. Macro blocking to achieve compression is FOUR TIMES finer then MPEG 2 and superior for High definition stable result in shedding the cursed macro blocking. Suggest you read authentic white papers on the CODEC. DA
tonygib Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 Or, to sum up... H264 kicks ass, if you have the processing power. At the moment I think its about the most advance codec their is and will only get better as time goes on (ie improvements in encoders and decoding systems). So, basically, a 50GB blu-ray isn't needed. I would think, that an average movie, encoded with H264 could fit very nicely on our current 9GB DVD's, epecially at 720p and maybe even 1080p. Exceptions would be things like LOTR, but then that go's over 2 DVD's anyway, add another H264 disc for the extra's and your all done. Remember, the new disc formats have very little to do with "content", it is more about content control (copy protection) and license fees over the "next" digital media.
DavoNogo Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 Another quote I've found: "NVIDIA told us that with their current H.264 decode acceleration coupled with the fastest CPUs today they can handle around a 25Mbps H.264 stream" http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2666&p=2
BlueJ Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 My 7800 and Athlon X2 4600 will be replaced long before H.264 decoding becomes an issue. Let me know when you want to sell! I agree, it is too early to get excited. The Anandtech article showed a dual-core 3GHz P4 running at 50% utilisation with the 6600GT assisting with the decode. Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't the CPU be consuming the best part of 100W all by itself? With the release of next-gen graphics cards and improvements to the drivers and decoding routines, and the arrival of 65nm-based dual-core laptop CPUs in the second half of the year, then the hardware will be in place to handle H.264 effectively. If you have a HDMI-compatible display. To bad the content will be locked up tighter than a Guantanamo inmate...
BlueJ Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 BluRay has plenty of capacity (50gig) to use high bit rate mpeg2 (40Mbit per second max)My 7800 and Athlon X2 4600 will be replaced long before H.264 decoding becomes an issue. Remember, the new disc formats have very little to do with "content", it is more about content control (copy protection) and license fees over the "next" digital media. OK, assuming that 1080p encoded with MPEG2 runs at 32Mbit per second, ie 4MB per second, then a 3hr movie would require about 43GB. So Owen you are right, they can fit a movie in 1080p MPEG2 format onto Blu-ray. Question is would you be able to watch it without a HDMI-compatible display? Or does the output path protection apply to MPEG2 as well? Sigh.
joeybloggs Posted January 10, 2006 Posted January 10, 2006 Question is would you be able to watch it without a HDMI-compatible display? Or does the output path protection apply to MPEG2 as well? The protection is independant of content. Although presumably they won't try to retroactively fit it to ordinary DVD drives and content ~~~ The solution is very simple JUST SAY NO refuse to buy it.
BlueJ Posted January 11, 2006 Posted January 11, 2006 The solution is very simple JUST SAY NO refuse to buy it. I agree this is not in the interest of consumers. Doubt that my vote will make the slightest difference though. IMO - and I am probably wrong - the business model for the corporations behind Blu-ray and HD-DVD is about selling licences, and going to the bank. That's it. Sure, they would like their formats to be successful, so they can sell more licences. But I think they know that the content providers have the upper hand; they have to satisfy the 'security concerns' of the content providers first and foremost in order to get the big bucks for the licences. So they will wear low penetration for a number of years due to current low rates of ownership of compatible equipment. In other words, the consumers have no say in this at all. Personally I think the content providers have a business model that is all wrong. They want to maintain high margins on everything they sell, and they think they can only do that if no-one is able to make a copy and sell it on the street corner for less. iTunes is showing these people how they should be doing it - make content affordable and most people won't bother with piracy. A little bit of money from a lot of people is better than a lot of money from a few people? The irony is that by the time enough people have the right equipment to watch Blu-ray or HD-DVD, and the content providers are consequently in a position to make some real money out of their content, the security will probably be well and truly bypassed. Am I talking nonsense here?
tonygib Posted January 11, 2006 Posted January 11, 2006 iTunes is showing these people how they should be doing it - make content affordable and most people won't bother with piracy. A little bit of money from a lot of people is better than a lot of money from a few people? This is a bit off topic, but I just read http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0...Enbv%5E,00.html that itunes has sold, 850 million songs. Now if thats right, and assume say 12 songs per CD today, then thats the same as over 70 million CD's sold over the few years that iTunes has been running (which only just started in Australia), on top of the normal CD sales. Expect they didn't need to make another 70 million of them, so there's a saving. And yet the RIAA, etc say they are losing millions/billions to 13 year old Jonny downloading a song or 2. Sorry, but when I see numbers like that, I just don't buy it. However, given how DRM protected the iTunes music is (and it only works on an ipod or your comp), it doesn't bode well for having no one buy into blu-ray, etc. Sure it may take a bit of time, but it is still likely to happen
Owen Posted January 12, 2006 Posted January 12, 2006 As fare as I know, advanced encoders like H264 loose a lot of there advantage over Mpeg2 at high bit rates.Am I wrong? Yes you are wrong here. The compression method comparison in BIT up for MPEG 2 but down for H.264 is like comparing 8 bit colour to 32 bit colour plane. Macro blocking to achieve compression is FOUR TIMES finer then MPEG 2 and superior for High definition stable result in shedding the cursed macro blocking. Suggest you read authentic white papers on the CODEC. DA I’m not as convinced as you that H.264 will be significantly better then Mpeg2 at very high data rates. I have done quite a bit of encoding with other Mpeg4 type codecs, like DIVX, Xvid and FFDShow, and even with these encoders set to 100% quality (maximum data rate), there is significant quality degradation with SD video, even for low quality sources like Foxtel. Encoding very low detail Foxtel source video, those encoders “topped out” at about 4-5 Mega Bytes per second, or 32-40Mega Bits per second, and still could not deliver outstanding quality as fare as I am concerned. If the video was 1920x1080 in stead of only 720x576, the bit rate would be a staggering 128-200Mega Bits per second, and STILL not deliver original quality. Much, much lower data rates can be uses with very little further degradation in quality, and that is what H.264 is all about. Mpeg4 type encoder are much better then Mpeg2 when high compression ratios are required, but at minimum compression- maximum quality settings the differences are insignificant. When I encode 720x576 video from my good quality DV camera to 9Mbit high profile Mpeg4 or 9Mbit Mpeg2, there is nothing in it for quality. Even at 9Mbps I can see the lose of quality compared to the original, and higher bit rates don’t yield significant benefit with either encoder. That is probably why 9Mbps is the maximum on DVD. 9Mbps with SD video is about equal to 45Mbits for 1080i. The point I am tying to make is that encoders “top out” at a certain data rate, and higher rates yield no benefit. H.264 encoding 1080i at say 18Mbps may provide similar quality to Mpeg2 at 32Mbps, but it does no follow that H.264 will be significantly better at 32Mbps as the encoder “tops out”. BluRay has a maximum data rate of 40Mbps on disk, and I suspect that there will be very little difference between H.264 and Mpeg2 at that data rate. However, I suspect that Hollywood will fill up the disks with useless crap, just as they do with DVD’s, so we will need an Mpeg4 type encoder just to get half decent quality out of the remaining disk space. Hollywood doesn’t want to give use REALLY good quality, just enough to lure us away from DVD’s so we can no longer rip them off.
tonygib Posted January 12, 2006 Posted January 12, 2006 Owen, I see were your coming from, but I do have a couple of issues with what your saying. First, you really can't compare h264 (or x264) with divx, xvid, etc, they are just not the same codec. If you want to test and compare, then you really need to use a h264 codec (and since x264 is a free open source one, its as good as any to use). Second, if I understand correctly, your comparing an encoded file, say xvid, too the quality of an already compressed, encoded file MPEG2. Or in other words, your creating macro blocks, etc on a video file that already has them, no matter how good a codec is, it can't re-create something thats not there, and since at any bit rate, xvid, h264, mpeg2 etc, still have and used their encoding techniques, comparing and encoding of an alreayd compressed video, just isn't fair. What you really need to do, is get an uncompressed original source (and no DV doesn't count, from memory thats compress at around a consant 5Mbps) and then do your tests with MPEG2, xvid, x264 etc and compare those to each other and the source. Of course, finding uncompressed video is going to be the hard part, unless you work at a TV station or film studio, the most likely for "home-made" stuff is direct uncompressed computer animation thats something more then just a solid spinning logo.
Recommended Posts