ATI Hardware Acceleration of H.264

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

XBitLabs reports (http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20050526100319.html) that ATI's upcoming Radeon graphics processor will feature hardware acceleration of the H.264 Advanced Video Codec.

Apple's recently released Quicktime 7 (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/04/20050429075906.shtml) provides both H.264 playback and encoding and is advertised as a major feature (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/h264/) of the new Quicktime.

H.264 will be the codec used to encode video for upcoming HD-DVD and Blu-ray disc technologies. Apple has officially adopted (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/03/20050310144840.shtml) Blu-Ray technology.

[jimsowden]

sounds very nice. I wonder how much this would improve playback of one of those HD trailers.

[mattthemutt]

If only my iMac had an ATI card.

[MacsRgr8]

Great..... then it will be time to upgrade my GeForce 6800 Ultra

:rolleyes:

[d.perel]

COOL! I always love faster graphics and stuff like that

[zach]

That's.. insane.

If that does for h.264 what hardware mpeg-2 acceleration did for it, it will become THE de-facto format for video almost overnight.

[ravenvii]

Sounds awesome. It's exciting to think of what a PowerMac would look like in two years (because that's when Im going to sell off the Mac mini and go POWER! :D)

[MacRy]

Wonder if this will help the playback on the next gen of Powerbooks rather than it having to be a G5.

[iPodMechanic]

WOOOHOOO!!! Time for H264 glasses now, everything looks better!

[swingerofbirch]

if you can hardware accelerate H264 (like early computers did for dvd...no?) couldn't an ipod have a hardware h264 decoder like an mp3 decoder to play video?

[Yvan256]

I was excited until I reached "the next generation of GPUs...". Bleh, found it strange that my Mac mini could have better H.264 playback than my PowerBook. ;)

[m-dogg]

That's.. insane.

If that does for h.264 what hardware mpeg-2 acceleration did for it, it will become THE de-facto format for video almost overnight.


zach - can you expand on this a little bit? I'm not really familiar how hardware acceleration improved mpeg-2.

thanks!

[andiwm2003]

how long till this is included in my 23" imac g5 that i'm waiting for?

will that become a standard feature on all graphics cards including consumer level or is the technology expensive and only for high end?

[Lacero]

Ah yes, this reminds me of 1996 when ATI introduced a chip driver to power MPEG-1 full motion video. Seeing full-motion 320x240 video images was quite a sight to behold in those early days. It's great to see the same sort of thing happening with 1920x1080 H.264 footage. Now if only there was a way to do GPU encoding of H.264 files.

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

zach - can you expand on this a little bit? I'm not really familiar how hardware acceleration improved mpeg-2.

thanks!
The primary thing was DVD playback. (Which is encoded in mpeg-2)

[SpamJunkie]

Imho this lends a tiny bit of credibility to the rumors of streaming video in the next airport express.

[Xtremehkr]

This just reminds me of how little I like the fact that I can't upgrade components like that.

[Windowlicker]

more and more I'm gettin a feeling of not replacing my 5200FX with a better card this summer. this technology would be something that would be of use for me apart from gaming. sounds good, now let us see the results (and the actual card of course:)

[AliensAreFuzzy]

That would be really cool if we could starting getting that kind of chip soon. Plus wouldn't something like this be what will be going into those next generation Blu-Ray/HD DVD players?

[surfsofa]

I wonder if they might be kind enough to also release some new drivers to fix whatever they screwed up in 10.4.1. I'm using all-Apple gear (15" PB + 20" ACD) and getting interference and distorted DVD playback since 10.4.1 :(

[ctlirt]

this could be quite nice, especially in consideration that my DP 2.0 G5 cant play back full 1080p @ full frame rates...

[nagromme]

I'm with the people who voted negative. This is VERY bad news. Video will be a whole lot better off without ATI going and making things faster.

[zach]

zach - can you expand on this a little bit? I'm not really familiar how hardware acceleration improved mpeg-2.

thanks!

Well, mpeg-2 acceleration was built in so early almost noone noticed, but here's how it worked.

DVDs are encoded in mpeg-2.

On early dvd-rom enabled computers, dvds were basically unplayable: it takes quite a bit of power to decode a DVD, and the processors and video cards of low and midlevel computers then were not up to the task.

Hardware acceleration basically solved that problem instantly: even a slow computer with a mpeg-2 hardware accelerated card could play DVDs.

Now, my PowerBook stutters on 1080p h.264. With hardware acceleration, I assume even without any other architectural changes, 1080p would play flawlessly.

Hope that's enough of an answer ;)

[jimsowden]

I'm with the people who voted negative. This is VERY bad news. Video will be a whole lot better off without ATI going and making things faster.
I hate negative people. Stupid idiots

[Lacero]

I hate negative people. Stupid idiotsAgreed. What an idiot.

[Mord]

this will be the r520, which will probably be the x900, or maybe a whole new name, 24 pipe monster card, this is the card i'm going to get when i get a G5 next summer.

[Lacero]

Good thing I passed on the GEforce 6800. It already looks old, since it can't do H.264 decodes. Whichever card does support it, I'll be whipping out the wallet. Let's hope it doesn't initially retail for $600.

[powerofthekiwi]

sounds good - lets see these updated drivers!

[locomacg6]

They said is for playback....how about encoding video?
Could someone please explain how enconding video works on Tiger with H264.
What do iNeed to have a nice enconding H264 video.
:cool:

[mkjellman]

i'm sorry nagromme how is it bad that a company is going to try to improve performance? no one said you have to use ATI to play H.246

[crap freakboy]

i'm sorry nagromme how is it bad that a company is going to try to improve performance? no one said you have to use ATI to play H.246

I thought he was being sacastic

[SPUY767]

Agreed. What an idiot.

Ummm. . . We all know that nagromme is sarcastic, so the only idiot is the guy who called him one.

In addition, it won't be long before nVidia AND ATi have a software solution that will enable current cards to accelerate H.264.

[gangst]

The rumour doesn't specify whether it will be on ATI cards built for PC or Mac, or for both? However, it sounds great and is another bound for Hi-Def. The Year of Hi-Def is shapeing up very nicely.

[poundsmack]

technology freakin rocks! :D

[SPUY767]

The rumour doesn't specify whether it will be on ATI cards built for PC or Mac, or for both? However, it sounds great and is another bound for Hi-Def. The Year of Hi-Def is shapeing up very nicely.

Well, since H.264 only plays on macs we can assume macs.

[gangst]

Well, since H.264 only plays on macs we can assume macs.


Quicktime 7 will be available on PC shortly, and soon H.264 will be built into Windows Media Player, so it doesn't fully proove these new ATI cards will be for Mac. You can also encode H.264 on the PC using some apps too. Plus the Mac video market is very small.

[Diatribe]

I'm with the people who voted negative. This is VERY bad news. Video will be a whole lot better off without ATI going and making things faster.

Huh? :confused:

IF that was supposed to be sarcasm... then... :D

[Darwin]

This is good news to hear,

As for the encoding since Apple seem to be moving calculations over to the GPU anyway with Core Image/Video you can bet that once this thing is out they will speed up the encoding time, after all it still takes a fair while on a G5 so they will want to give this performance to their pro systems

[wrldwzrd89]

Once this technology makes its way into all the Macs, multi-way iChats will be far less processor-intensive. This will also open the door for more than 4-way video chat in iChat, as well as new H.264-related video effects that simply weren't possible before. Great news, I'd say...

[Lacero]

Ummm. . . We all know that nagromme is sarcastic, so the only idiot is the guy who called him one.Are you saying Jimsowden is an idiot? Be very careful. Only mods can call other people idiots.

[jimsowden]

Ummm. . . We all know that nagromme is sarcastic, so the only idiot is the guy who called him one.

In addition, it won't be long before nVidia AND ATi have a software solution that will enable current cards to accelerate H.264.
I didn't call anyone an idiot. I was being sarcastic, saying I hate people that are negative, in an extreamly negative sentence. I guess that's irony.

[manu chao]

Now if only there was a way to do GPU encoding of H.264 files.

Maybe CoreImage could be used for that. Otherwise, wait for 10.5 with CoreVideo.

[rendezvouscp]

Maybe CoreImage could be used for that. Otherwise, wait for 10.5 with CoreVideo.

Um... check out the green sphere (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/coreimage/).

This is very exciting news. This should really improve playback and encoding, as Core Video would offload QT encoding to the GPU. Sweet.
-Chase

[evilbert420]

I thought that HD-DVD was using a WMV HD codec.

[lexfuzo]

Now if only there was a way to do GPU encoding of H.264 files.
The CELL wil take care of that. :cool:

[wrldwzrd89]

I thought that HD-DVD was using a WMV HD codec.
Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can use a WMV-based codec, H.264, or even a mixture of the two!

[Kiwi-Todd]

Will it be released as an AGP card though - isn't everyone going nuts over this PCI express thing?

[fpnc]

Well, since H.264 only plays on macs we can assume macs.
Untrue, H.264 was available on the PC before Tiger and QuickTime 7. Third-party PC applications like Nero support both H.264 and HE-AAC (audio) and several downloadable utilities work with H.264 (on both PCs and Macs).

In any case, just because an ATI card supports (or will support) H.264 in hardware does not automatically mean that it will be supported on Macs. You can bet that it will appear on PCs first, then __maybe__ it will get support on the Mac. Look, even today Macs have very little support for hardware (video card or GPU) accelerated MPEG2, on the Mac its done mostly in software. Macs have seldom taken advantage of the hardware MPEG2 or DVD support that exists in many GPUs, so why does anyone think it will be different with H.264?

[evilbert420]

Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can use a WMV-based codec, H.264, or even a mixture of the two!

Okay, I understand the concept that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are physical specs, and WMV or H.264 is the software/encoding specs.. but isn't a standard codec MORE important than a standard hardware format? I mean, standard codec means the "delivery platform" shouldn't matter... download, streaming, or read off an optical drive...

[law guy]

It seems all of the mid-level PCs (over $1000 Dells and the like) now use PCI-16x graphics cards. Does it seem likely that new cards are going to be made also on the AGP 8x standard?

I've seen the technology move leave me behind - AGP 4x in my dulie 1.42, so I can get a 128 MB ATI 9800, but not the edition with 256 MB (8x only).

I suppose the possible architecture (still wondering if the RAM-type will change, too) changes are just around the corner, week after next.

[rendezvouscp]

I thought that HD-DVD was using a WMV HD codec.

h.264 has been approved by both the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD parties. Here's Apple's link (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/h264/), Blu-Ray's link (http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#1.8), and the Wikipedia entry on HD-DVD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD-DVD).
-Chase

[j_maddison]

Well, since H.264 only plays on macs we can assume macs.

This is not so. I know of several companies who have capabilities to go commercial with h.264 offerings, and I've seen h.264 being played over real player. One of the developers runs a mac, PC with windows and a PC with linux for testing purposes. I can't verify that he's using h.264 on all of his workstations though, I'm just making an assumption on this.

These ATI cards might not be intended for just PC's or Macs. The companies I'm familiar with will predominantly use set top boxes, as opposed to pc's, to deliver a commercial offering.

Trials have already taken place on pc's, and its only the hardware and a few partnership wrangles that is holding back h.264 from being a commercial offering.

My understanding is that the codec itself is still a bit ropey though, and its not just a hardware issue. This is what I've been told by an operations director of a company I'm familiar with. So as far as I'm the problems with H.264 are not just hardware related.

Jay

[SaleenS351]

What is something like this most likely to cost?

[j_maddison]

Are you saying Jimsowden is an idiot? Be very careful. Only mods can call other people idiots.


Point is no one is an idiot. I'm sure not everyone lives on these forums, so I for one dont know the personalities of regular posters either!

Lets put our toys back in the pram children and learn to be nice to one another

Jay

[GregA]

Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can use a WMV-based codec, H.264, or even a mixture of the two!And they can also use MPEG2.

Some recent studies have shown that, although h264 is great for getting a high quality video into 1 Mbps & 8Mbps, as the throughput gets to 12Mbps the quality of h264 and mpeg2 are about identical. And at 24Mbps, MPEG2 looks better than h264. This is due to the way frames are encoded in each format, h264 leading to more blurring in high motion scenes.

I was very surprised to read that.

Anyway, if you've got a movie on a 50GB disk and want the best quality, for now that will be MPEG2. On a 9GB DVD h264 gives great HD video which MPEG2 can't get close to.

[danielwsmithee]

There have been lots of rumors flying lately. My guess is that they are all part of the same product soon to be released.

The rumored tablet will sport a top of the line Intel X-scale processor, with an ATI video card making possible full resolution 1080p H.264 playback. This tablet will be the utlimate portable video machine. Featuring a slot load Blue-Ray drive for next generation HD video. A slide in dock that connects to your home HD-TV. iTunes downloadable vidoes. And of course an RF remote for use with the dock :)

This ATI news is the last step to make this machine a reality. :eek:

Just my opinion!!

[risc]

This is fantastic news I'd been considering upgrading my Power Macs 9800XT to a 6800 Ultra DDL or a X800XT, hopefully these are available in a Mac edition sooner rather than later.

[Josh396]

There have been lots of rumors flying lately. My guess is that they are all part of the same product soon to be released.

The rumored tablet will sport a top of the line Intel X-scale processor, with an ATI video card making possible full resolution 1080p H.264 playback. This tablet will be the utlimate portable video machine. Featuring a slot load Blue-Ray drive for next generation HD video. A slide in dock that connects to your home HD-TV. iTunes downloadable vidoes. And of course an RF remote for use with the dock :)

This ATI news is the last step to make this machine a reality. :eek:

Just my opinion!!
As awesome as that would be I would love to see a price tag for something with those specs.

[fpnc]

There have been lots of rumors flying lately. My guess is that they are all part of the same product soon to be released.

The rumored tablet will sport a top of the line Intel X-scale processor, with an ATI video card making possible full resolution 1080p H.264 playback. This tablet will be the utlimate portable video machine. Featuring a slot load Blue-Ray drive for next generation HD video. A slide in dock that connects to your home HD-TV. iTunes downloadable vidoes. And of course an RF remote for use with the dock :)

This ATI news is the last step to make this machine a reality. :eek:

Just my opinion!!
Not one chance in a million, or at least that's my opinion. ;) In any case, even Steve Jobs has gone on record with his disfavor of portable video devices. The device you describe would be unnecessarily expensive and a poor substitute for a standard HD/SD DVD player.

[danielwsmithee]

Not one chance in a million, or at least that's my opinion. ;) In any case, even Steve Jobs has gone on record with his disfavor of portable video devices. The device you describe would be unnecessarily expensive and a poor substitute for a standard HD/SD DVD player.

While I agree with you at this point it would be very expensive. You could make it much cheaper by swapping the blue-ray for a normal DVD player, as blue-ray would likely be too expensive this early.

Other then that nothing else would be all that expensive. The ATI card could just be a modified vesion of a cheaper 9250 or so, the actual hardware H.264 decoding would not be that expensive to add. You would not need an X800 for this. The video card could likely cost less then $80. A top of the line X-Scale is still a very cheap processor. I don't see anything in this machine being overly expensive. Sure it would be pricier then a portable DVD player, but only by a few hundred dollars.

ATI will likely be targeting set top boxes as mentioned earlier. This means a basic H.264 decoder not a high end gaming card.

[Duujo]

Apple are supporting Blu-ray...

It's funny to see HD-DVD splattered across one of their webpages

http://www.apple.com.au/finalcutstudio/dvdstudiopro/

[~Shard~]

I think this new ATI card will be available in the new dual G5 PowerBooks being announced at WWDC :eek: :p ;)

[Peel]

Apple are supporting Blu-ray...

It's funny to see HD-DVD splattered across one of their webpages

http://www.apple.com.au/finalcutstudio/dvdstudiopro/

Apple supports both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. They are on the board for both technologies. Here's a quote from an Apple press release (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/17hd.html) in April:

Apple is committed to both emerging high definition DVD standards—Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. Apple is an active member of the DVD Forum which developed the HD DVD standard, and last month joined the Board of Directors of the Blu-ray Disc Association.

[Ti_Poussin]

They said is for playback....how about encoding video?
Could someone please explain how enconding video works on Tiger with H264.
What do iNeed to have a nice enconding H264 video.
:cool:

What you need is Quicktime Pro 7 and Time, a lot of time ;)

[Kaborka]

Q & A

When a video card supports video decoding, this feature is instantly usable

No. Nvidia promised WMV de-and encoding for the 6XXX series via "Pure video" a long while ago. Still does not work on windows. Also ATIs WMV decoding feature.

Macs are the first machines that support H.264

No. There are at least three codecs for windows that support H.264

Current computers can't play HD videos@1080p

No. Midrange and toplevel single Athlon and Pentium CPUs can play MPEG2, WMV and H.264 videos@1080p without framedrops

Apple will support playback of BD and HD-DVD in near future

Unlikely. To avoid a new DVD CSS desaster, the motion picture industry makes great security demands on hard-and software vendors. Apple does probably not have the resources to fullfill these damands with OS X. Probably Longhorn will be the first and only OS that supports BD and HD-DVD

Kaborka

[~Shard~]

[QUOTE=KaborkaProbably Longhorn will be the first and only OS that supports BD and HD-DVD[/QUOTE]


... when it's released in 2009... :p ;)

[Porchland]

I didn't call anyone an idiot. I was being sarcastic, saying I hate people that are negative, in an extreamly negative sentence. I guess that's irony.

The only difference between ironic and sarcastic is the beret.

[Porchland]

In any case, even Steve Jobs has gone on record with his disfavor of portable video devices.

... and flash-based music players. I mean, seriously, iPod MEANS hard drive. ;)

[madmaxmedia]

In addition, it won't be long before nVidia AND ATi have a software solution that will enable current cards to accelerate H.264.

Was this sarcastic as well? If they did this, it would not actually be hardware acceleration...

If there was some superfast way of playing H.264 without a really fast CPU or dedicated hardware that does not yet exist, it would have already been built into the codec (or into Quicktime.)

[JDOG_]

Looking forward to H.264 not requiring $2,000+ hardware to run at nice sizes.

Really digging the direction of video technology...smaller files, bigger resolutions and high def.

Just put it in a nice sub-$1,000 machine and I'll be a happy camper.

[Wonder Boy]

i'm pissed i cant install qt 6 on tiger. my qt 6 pro key is useless.

[GregA]

Apple will support playback of BD and HD-DVD in near future

Unlikely. To avoid a new DVD CSS desaster, the motion picture industry makes great security demands on hard-and software vendors. Apple does probably not have the resources to fullfill these damands with OS X. Probably Longhorn will be the first and only OS that supports BD and HD-DVDWhile it may not be the near future, and I agree the convergence of computers with HD-DVD/BluRay will be resisted by the studios - the convergence in all these related technologies is happening nevertheless.

[fpnc]

i'm pissed i cant install qt 6 on tiger. my qt 6 pro key is useless.
If you still have a copy of your Pro-enabled QuickTime 6 Player that will still work under Tiger and give you all of the Pro features you previously had (and it will support H.264). All you need to do is copy the QT6 Player over to your Tiger system.

[magi.sys]

What we really need is an HW encoder, not a decoder! I can't believe it takes 8 hours to encode an hour of DV footage (2-pass) on a 2GHzx2 G5

[GFLPraxis]

Apple will support playback of BD and HD-DVD in near future

Unlikely. To avoid a new DVD CSS desaster, the motion picture industry makes great security demands on hard-and software vendors. Apple does probably not have the resources to fullfill these damands with OS X. Probably Longhorn will be the first and only OS that supports BD and HD-DVD

Kaborka

I highly doubt that. With Apple having deals with Sony, head of the Blu-ray camp, and being a major member of the DVD forum, I highly doubt Apple wouldn't get BD and HD-DVD support in the OS until after Longhorn. Unless Longhorn launches before 10.5. "ONLY"? Don't be ridiculous. Apple is dedicated to high definition. It would make absolutely no sense for Windows to support HD-DVD and BR-DVD playback and Mac OS X not to when Mac OS X is the #1 video editor's machine.

[swissmann]

Something like this needs to be done. I have a dual 2 GHz G5 and H.264 while awesome is slow.

[d.perel]

What we really need is an HW encoder, not a decoder! I can't believe it takes 8 hours to encode an hour of DV footage (2-pass) on a 2GHzx2 G5
The encoding speed is something I can't stand either. I suppose we will have to wait for some cell-based/multicore versions of the G5 in possibly/hopefully december to be able to encode video faster

[~Shard~]

The encoding speed is something I can't stand either. I suppose we will have to wait for some cell-based/multicore versions of the G5 in possibly/hopefully december to be able to encode video faster

Maybe Jobs will announce these new processors at WWDC, say they're shipping in September, then they'll actually start showing up in December/January. ;)

[AidenShaw]

It seems all of the mid-level PCs (over $1000 Dells and the like) now use PCI-16x graphics cards.

<pedantic tangent>

Actually, it's PCIe x16 (or PCI-Express x16).

The preferred pronunciation is "pea sea eye express by sixteen", according to the standards body.

</pedantic tangent>

[halse]

the laptops certainly need something like this, even the 17" with 128 MB video chokes on h.264 at 1080

[themacman]

Sounds awesome. It's exciting to think of what a PowerMac would look like in two years (because that's when Im going to sell off the Mac mini and go POWER! :D)
why go power when u can go Xstation

[bodeh6]

Hopefully the next Powerbook will have updated graphic chip. Possibly getting PCI x16 before the PowerMacs. ATI makes the portable X800 for PC Laptops right now.

[~Shard~]

Hopefully the next Powerbook will have updated graphic chip. Possibly getting PCI x16 before the PowerMacs. ATI makes the portable X800 for PC Laptops right now.

That would be a major enough of a PowerBook upgrade to turn some heads I'm thinking...

[law guy]

<pedantic tangent>

Actually, it's PCIe x16 (or PCI-Express x16).

The preferred pronunciation is "pea sea eye express by sixteen", according to the standards body.

</pedantic tangent>

That's actually good to point out - I should be more detail oriented on the name of the standard. Doesn't the PCIe x16 seem due in the PMs?

[cube]

ATI, just make a card that fits in the Cube, for once.

[Mord]

i doubt it'll be agp 2x :o

i'm happy with the radeon 9700 in my cube :P

[Platform]

Sound very good.....maby that is why the new Mac's all have ATi cards in them :rolleyes: ;)

Maby this will load of a lot of preasure on the cpu :rolleyes: :confused:

[jiggie2g]

So far the best Video Card for Hardware Video Playback is the Geforce 6600GT as it has the video processor built in the GPU and once u get PureVideo working it really looks incredible , if anyone owns a PC they should watch a DVD wit WMP 10 w/ Nvidia DVD decoder. the movies looks perfect , and streaming quality is top notch. The Radeon X800 , X800XL come in a close 2nd as they have ATI's newest video processors.

Fall is gonna be a very interesting time for Video Cards. Radeon X900XT vs Geforce 7800 GTX

[Windowlicker]

What we really need is an HW encoder, not a decoder! I can't believe it takes 8 hours to encode an hour of DV footage (2-pass) on a 2GHzx2 G5

My thoughts exactly.

[Windowlicker]

the laptops certainly need something like this, even the 17" with 128 MB video chokes on h.264 at 1080

Talking about HD-WMV or HD H.264 (quicktime)? Because 1080 almost runs on a G4/466 with 512RAM and 32MB Geforce 2MX :P Hard to believe your laptop wouldn't run it smoothly..

[fpnc]

So far the best Video Card for Hardware Video Playback is the Geforce 6600GT as it has the video processor built in the GPU and once u get PureVideo working it really looks incredible , if anyone owns a PC they should watch a DVD wit WMP 10 w/ Nvidia DVD decoder. the movies looks perfect , and streaming quality is top notch. The Radeon X800 , X800XL come in a close 2nd as they have ATI's newest video processors.

Fall is gonna be a very interesting time for Video Cards. Radeon X900XT vs Geforce 7800 GTX
But this doesn't do Macs any good since Apple's OEM cards do not use the video decoding that is supported on the GPU hardware. So, it might look great on a PC but pretty run-of-the-mill on a Power Mac (since Macs, for the most part, use software-based DVD decoding). Some of ATI's retail video cards make more use of hardware DVD decoding, but you can probably forget about ever seeing DVD quality on a Mac that will equal the best of what can be had on a PC. Frankly, I'm afraid that the same will be true for HD DVD.

[fpnc]

Talking about HD-WMV or HD H.264 (quicktime)? Because 1080 almost runs on a G4/466 with 512RAM and 32MB Geforce 2MX :P Hard to believe your laptop wouldn't run it smoothly..
If you're talking about Apple's H.264 codec then I think you need to look again. It's pretty well documented that you need a dual G5 Power Mac to decode H.264 video at 1080p. Even 720p is a challenge unless you have a fast dual-G4 or a G5 iMac.

You might want to check the following link for an overview (table) of what people have been reporting:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/526004803731/r/448004733731#448004733731

[Wonder Boy]

If you still have a copy of your Pro-enabled QuickTime 6 Player that will still work under Tiger and give you all of the Pro features you previously had (and it will support H.264). All you need to do is copy the QT6 Player over to your Tiger system.

i tried downloading it. it wouldnt let me install it. am i missing something.

[fpnc]

i tried downloading it. it wouldnt let me install it. am i missing something.
You need a physical copy of the same registered QuickTime 6 Pro Player (file) you were using prior to the installation of QT7 -- either from a backup or a copy that exists on another disk. You can't just reinstall QuickTime 6 over your current QuickTime 7.

[macdesire]

Anyone have know if WMV9 codecs use less CPU power than H.264 codecs?

[AidenShaw]

Anyone have know if WMV9 codecs use less CPU power than H.264 codecs?

Microsoft has a nice download site for WMV HD sample clips (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx)

The CPU requirements for these HD clips are pretty hefty according to that page:

Minimum Configuration (to play 720p video)
Windows XP
Windows Media Player 9 Series
2.4 GHz processor or equivalent
384 MB of RAM
64 MB video card
1024 x 768 screen resolution
16-bit sound card
Speakers
Optimum Configuration (to play 1080p video with 5.1 surround sound)
Windows XP
Windows Media Player 10
DirectX 9.0
3.0 GHz processor or equivalent
512 MB of RAM
128 MB video card
1920 x 1440 screen resolution
24-bit 96 kHz multichannel sound card
5.1 surround sound speaker system

The minimum requirements in general for WMP 10 is a 233 MHz PII, and WM9 scales to handhelds and phones - so the high CPU usage for HD content doesn't apply to other formats. As you'd expect, the more demanding the video the more CPU required to decode.

This CPU load should get better soon with:

Hardware-based Windows Media Video Acceleration
Experience improved performance with the next generation of video cards that support DirectX Video Acceleration (DxVA) technology. With these cards, the rendering of Windows Media Video–based content can be offloaded onto the video processor, making video playback smoother and playback at higher resolutions possible. This also leaves more computing power for other tasks.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/codecs/video.aspx

[S_Chandler]

I know it's hard to say, but what do you people think the chances are of this card working on a 867Mhz G4 Quicksilver tower?

I'd like to encode all my DVD's to play on my computer, and doing it with H.264 at the moment takes about half a day per DVD. I wouldn't want to replace my Mac just for this purpose.

[toneloco2881]

I know it's hard to say, but what do you people think the chances are of this card working on a 867Mhz G4 Quicksilver tower?

I'd like to encode all my DVD's to play on my computer, and doing it with H.264 at the moment takes about half a day per DVD. I wouldn't want to replace my Mac just for this purpose.

Wouldn't really make a difference anyways. What these cards do is allow for smoother decoding and playback. Encoding would still be cpu computationally bound.

[Chrissyboy]

Is it just my imagination, or are the parts fitting together for an iTunes Movie Store? A full movie would come in at around 5-6Gb at 720p format, by my calculations. Apple is pushing HD in a big way. iTunes is selling videos. ATI are working on an H.264 card. It could easily mean nothing, but the signs are there in my opinion
:cool: :) :D

[~Shard~]

Is it just my imagination, or are the parts fitting together for an iTunes Movie Store? A full movie would come in at around 5-6Gb at 720p format, by my calculations. Apple is pushing HD in a big way. iTunes is selling videos. ATI are working on an H.264 card. It could easily mean nothing, but the signs are there in my opinion
:cool: :) :D

This still would not be feasible for the masses though. Even for people with High Speed access, how many of them would want to download a 5-6 GB file, and how long would it take? iTMS is built upon instant gratification - no searching, hunting etc. - bam, you find a song, bam, you download it in a matter of minutes/seconds. Apple needs a solution that appeals to the masses, just as in the iTMS model, or else it won't catch on and the studios won't buy in. There is a still only a small percentage of people with ADSL 2+, so it's a tough challenge for Apple. I'm not saying it's not coming, or Apple won't be able to do it - I have every confidence that they will - but they'll definitely have to work on a model that, well, works.

Oh, and also handle all the little details such as having a server backend and access which can handle thousands of people simultaneously attempting to download 5 Gb files @ 200 kbps. ;)

[Wonder Boy]

You need a physical copy of the same registered QuickTime 6 Pro Player (file) you were using prior to the installation of QT7 -- either from a backup or a copy that exists on another disk. You can't just reinstall QuickTime 6 over your current QuickTime 7.

i think i know what you mean. ill give it a shot.

[modernpixel]

Isn't ATI notorious for releasing Mac versions of their graphics cards months after the PC version? Some never even make the move.

I seriously doubt ATI is building this card with Apple in mind -- maybe someday they'll port it, but it's more likely going to be for PCs to play HD and Blu-Ray DVD ROMs and for consumer players like DVRs. Most likely they'll make a slightly outdated or less cool one for the Mac - like they always seem to do.

[DrNeroCF]

Am I missing something, here? My Powerbook plays video clips as big as it's screen at full fps. Once they get bigger than that, it'll sputter, but what's the point of squeezing in more pixels than are on the screen...

Now a hardware encoder...

[Darwin]

Am I missing something, here? My Powerbook plays video clips as big as it's screen at full fps. Once they get bigger than that, it'll sputter, but what's the point of squeezing in more pixels than are on the screen...

Now a hardware encoder...

Well the more the number of pixels the better the quality if thats what your asking

Could you rephrase the question?

[GregA]

Am I missing something, here? My Powerbook plays video clips as big as it's screen at full fps. Once they get bigger than that, it'll sputter, but what's the point of squeezing in more pixels than are on the screen...True, once you've reached your maximum resolution, higher resolution isn't necessary. Note that there is a difference between "full screen" and "using all the pixels" - if you play a Quicktime clip at "normal" size and it takes up the whole screen then this clip does use all the pixels (if it zooms up the picture then it does not).

So the other advantages to hardware acceleration... firstly you can have the same quality file compressed with MPEG2 or h264 - and the h264 is a much smaller file and requires better hardware to decode it. When payTV companies start doing h264 it'll be so they can squeeze more channels to the box (it won't be because the chips are simpler or cheaper!). Or the files may be similar size and the colours and motion should be better with h264.

The last advantage to hardware acceleration is that your computer doesn't have to use its own power to decode. Of course, if you never have anything running in the background while you watch a movie (or video conference) then it doesn't make much difference.