ATI MPEG Video decoder performance issue

[mikiem]

"mikem, WMV acceleration does not exist on modern cards so don't enable it."

It's on by default, but the checkbox turning it on/off is set in the registry as DXVA_WMV_NA = 1, meaning it's missing from CCC. Over roughly the last couple years I've had to sometimes turn it off to get different format video to play, including once or twice mjpeg avi. Why enable it at all?... I guess I'm just lazy & let the default stay that way unless I have a problem -- then I start turning hardware accel off, 1st in wmplayer, then PowerDVD, then CCC, then the registry, only going as far as I need to.

"Conflicting filters is not an issue with a good player such as MPC-HC."

I agree that many players are (I use the term) self-contained, & MPC-HC is very good. Where I've had/seen the most trouble is wmplayer, which I don't use very much. Where I get into problems is I use a lot of different video-related software, though I try as best I can to stay away from anything installing still more DS filters -- many of these apps use the same code or processes as wmplayer, so if it won't play a video, they won't decode it properly to re-encode or convert it.

"no i mean, i NEVER use gpu accel..."

It can be very hard not to, depending on what you're doing. It simply inserts or activates itself in some apps/players, & most don't have any control or reg setting to turn it off. I *guess* that's why I can get some avi playing/working by turning off wmv acceleration in wmplayer, even though the video is not wmv (?).

"something is odd if a 50fps 720p video is maxing out a modern cpu"

I very much agree FWIW. On a P4 3.0 I rarely reached 50% with 1080i or 1080p in Vista, which taxed that single core CPU more than earlier versions of Windows, & I was using formats that were much more CPU intensive than mpg2. OTOH that doesn't mean it always played perfectly -- there's more to it than raw horsepower, which *I think* is why ATI & nvidia added video acceleration in the 1st place -- why ATI made a big deal of the HD in their models.

"The ATI codec does not seem hardware accelerated or if it is, it is poorly done "

ATI's encoder/decoder can be accelerated -- it's used for example by stream apps like A's Video Converter & the CCC converter [*if it's accurate*, A's reported encoding fps briefly touched 800 converting DVD-spec mpg2 to 320 x 240 wmv]. It does have compatibility issues, & it tends to get bypassed in favor of other installed decoders. For me it get's slow on mpg2 [with the current official release drivers] because it won't work well with the other filters in the chain. Earlier this month in 7 64, wmplayer was crashing on DVD-spec mpg2 because the filters it was trying to use weren't compatible [my concern wasn't wmplayer, but another app that used the same processes &/or code]. Changing the DS filter merit [priority] I changed what filters it tried & which ones it used, getting it to play but poorly -- no seek for example... click forward on the bar & it'd crash. I got it working better using the ATI decoder, but I still couldn't find an ideal combination. After adding the PowerDVD 7 audio decoder I got it working properly, but not using anything ATI. That doesn't mean the ATI filters were/are garbage -- just that they wouldn't play nice with the other filters wmplayer wanted to use.

H264/AVC is more of a problem than mpg2, because some decoders just will not work with some video. The mpg4 spec has a lot of features that different encoders support to varying degrees.

"Get real people regardless the resolution SD/HD/DVB normal frame rate is 25FPS for PAL and 30FPS for NTSC only IMAX use a frame rate of 48 or 50 FPS as I recall"

It can be very confusing... NTSC (& I think PAL) gives way actually to ATSC for HD. Some of the HD standards do call for 50/60 fps.

"I tried running regsvr32 on cl264dec.ax manually, but it just exited silently, not doing anything.

Doesn't look like the newest powerdvd can be used. "

If you're running 64 bit Windows did you use the correct regsvr32? I ask because usually it gives a message when/if it fails. Nero also has H264 I think. There's also the stuff from Core -- they charge normally $8 (last I looked) but it's included/installed with some free video apps like Super.

"well it look like the standards are going mad :"

Google on ATSC. My take, & that of many others, is every time the tech folk rightly wanted to nail something down, complaints flooded in & they caved, making the standards very, very inclusive -- I think of an old spaghetti sauce ad they used to run here, where they showed off a very large range of ingredients with the saying: "It's in there".

[Galmok]

Originally Posted by mikiem

If you're running 64 bit Windows did you use the correct regsvr32? I ask because usually it gives a message when/if it fails. Nero also has H264 I think. There's also the stuff from Core -- they charge normally $8 (last I looked) but it's included/installed with some free video apps like Super.

I used the defult regsvr32. It would register MPC-HC codec without issues, but the pdvd codecs cannot be registered it seems. I even tried on the .ax files after having installed powerdvd trial.