Informasjon om codec "H264" for film entusiastene

[Vaio]

Hei fra min siste Post,har jeg lagt ut et problem, som mangen mente det var codec feil...

 

Men det ser ut til at det er mer grønnsak bak codecen H264, enn codec feil

 

Her er noe info fra Inquirer

 

 

WE WERE intrigued with H.264 content and the ability to play it back, and we spend two days of testing and finally came to some conclusions. At this time there is no graphic card hardware acceleration for this fancy codec.

It's very CPU dependent and we have some advice for both Intel,AMD and Apple computer users.

 

The facts

Apple and its IBM CPUs are a better choice for Apple Quicktime 7 H.264 content. We don’t have a Mac in the lab so we will have to believe in the specifications posted on the Apple site. In order to play "Standard/internet definition" content 852x480 (480p) video at 24-30 frames per second you will need a 1.25 GHz PowerMac G4 or faster Macintosh computer with 128MB of RAM and a 64MB video card. If you are a PC user you need a 2.8GHz Pentium CPU or faster, at least 256MB of RAM and a 64MB graphic card.

 

If you want to play "High definition" 720P 1280x720 video at 24-30 frames per second you'll need 1.8 GHz PowerMac G5 or faster with at least 256MB of memory and a 64MB graphic card. IF you are a Windows user you'll need Dual 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon or faster CPU, at least 1GB of RAM and a 64MB card. I guess that dual core CPU should be fine but we only have AMD X2 4800+ to try and no Intel.

 

In order to play Full High Definition 1920x1080 (1080p) video at 24-30 FPS you will need a MAC machine only. You actually need dual 2.0 GHz PowerMac G5 or faster computer with at least 512MB of RAM and a 128MB or greater video card.

 

We took some time and tested several H.264 files available at the Apple site and we took a moment to try alternative to Apples H.264 content, Microsoft's own WMV-HD content at 1080 P. This is what we found out.

 

Actual Test

We tested on two machines. One is am Epox barebone with Athlon XP 3000+ that we use for everyday work powered with 2 x 512 MB or Corsair PC 3500 memory and lame but passively cooled Radeon 9200 card. We needed external graphic simple as we needed DVI out for our DVI display.

 

This machine was playing the_brothers_grimm_m480p.mov file with less than 24 FPS. I would say it was about 15 FPS while the CPU load was from 95 to 100 percent. This PC was not even enough to play standard/internet definition file. When we tried to play the_brothers_grimm_m720p.mov the same file just in High definition 720P quality we got 100 percent CPU usage and despite that we could not play the file, you could see some frame here and than, but not more than 2 FPS or even less. Totally unplayable.

 

The same machine didn’t have any problems to play WMV-HD The_Magic_of_Flight_1080.wmv file with 80 to 100 percent of CPU time occupied. It still went smoothly.

 

WMV-HD can be played on a machine powered with Athlon XP 3000+, 1024 MB of Ram and ATI Radeon 9200 passively cooled graphic card, without any problems. We played LewisClark_HiDef.wmv 211 MB file, 1280x720 resolution with 8000 kbps, 24 bit video with six channel audio at 8459 kbps bit rate. CPU load was between 50 and 70 percent while we where playing this 24 FPS file. Acceptable indeed.

 

The second machine was based on 4000+, on DFI Nforce SLI motherboard, powered with two Gainward 7800GTX cards in SLI, 2x 512 MB or Corsair memory and OCZ 600W PSU. This time we got some better playability.

 

During the testing the_brothers_grimm_m480p.mov file played smoothly with 25 to 47 per cent of CPU utilisation. Very playable. The same file with 720P resolution played smoothly but it took 70 to 90 per cent of CPU time. We didn’t have any 1080 P content to test it but we doubt that it would run smoothly on this machine.

 

When we moved to Microsoft WMV-HD The_Magic_of_Flight_1080.wmv file we experienced 40 to 45 per cent CPU time versus 80 to 100 per cent that we got with Athlon XP 3000+ - a huge difference.

 

The other file LewisClark_HiDef.wmv 720 P file played smoothly on 4000+ based SLI machine. The CPU utilisation was 25 to 30, much faster compared to the 50 to 70 per cent that we got with Athlon XP 3000+.

 

We tested on a dual core 4800+ to see what we can gain from these quite expensive CPUs and we haven’t regretted it.

 

During the testing the_brothers_grimm_m480p.mov file played smoothly with 19 to 25 per cent of CPU utilisation. It is much better than 4000+ as will never pass 25 per cent. The same file with 720P resolution played smoothly was using 35 and 45 per cent of CPU time again almost twice as good as the 4000+. This CPU actually has two cores so we are not surprised.

 

The Microsoft WMV-HD The_Magic_of_Flight_1080.wmv file we experienced 19 to 25 per cent of CPU time. The other file LewisClark_HiDef.wmv 720 P file played smoothly on dual core X2 4800+ based SLI machine. The CPU utilisation was at amazing. The CPU time was between 14 to 17 per cent of CPU time again significantly better than with single core 4000+ CPU. Both CPU are clocked at 2400 MHz with the fact that Athlon X2 4800+ has two cores clocking at 2.4 GHz versus 4000+ with only one. Dual core sure makes a difference when playing HD content.

 

We will have to ask AMD and Microsoft about this.

 

Conclusion

We have to note that both Apple's Quicktime H.264 movie or Microsoft WMV-HD content looked very good and that you will experience some amazing quality when you play any of those standards. I can assure you it's much better than Mpeg 2 that you find on your DVDs.

 

Until this autumn, you won't have any graphic acceleration. You can either play it on a Mac or play it as it goes on PC. It looks amazing and will definitely be the stuff of 2006 as more and more content will be encoded for this incredible looking standard. Together with HD TV or HD resolution capable display it makes a great combination. I hope that this will be enough to give some answers on the hundreds of e mails that you sent about this matter. µ

 

Kjipt... at det kun avhengig prosessor kraft, så med min 1.8GHz lagger filmen.

Kan dere til å kjekke ut hva minimum er for enkelkjerne?

Endret 2. august 2005 av Vaio