Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
ATI Hardware Acceleration of H.264
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
d.perel said:
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.
law guy said:
<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>
bodeh6 said:
That would be a major enough of a PowerBook upgrade to turn some heads I'm thinking...
AidenShaw said:
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?
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
Fall is gonna be a very interesting time for Video Cards. Radeon X900XT vs Geforce 7800 GTX
halse said:
Talking about HD-WMV or HD H.264 (quicktime)? Because 1080 almost runs on a G4/466 with 512RAM and 32MB Geforce 2MX
Hard to believe your laptop wouldn't run it smoothly..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.jiggie2g said:
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.Windowlicker said:Talking about HD-WMV or HD H.264 (quicktime)? Because 1080 almost runs on a G4/466 with 512RAM and 32MB Geforce 2MX
You might want to check the following link for an overview (table) of what people have been reporting:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve...31/m/526004803731/r/448004733731#448004733731
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.Wonder Boy said:
HD on WMV needs a lot of CPU, just like QT
Microsoft has a nice download site for WMV HD sample clips
The CPU requirements for these HD clips are pretty hefty according to that page:
Minimum Configuration (to play 720p video)
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:
macdesire said:
Microsoft has a nice download site for WMV HD sample clips
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 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
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
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 Videobased 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
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 Videobased 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
Compatability on older towers?
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.
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.
S_Chandler said:
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.
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
Chrissyboy said: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
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.