HD-DVD Playback - On the Xbox 360 & on NVIDIA GPUs
by Derek Wilson & Manveer Wasson on December 15, 2006 9:21 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
From what we are seeing, there are many more stressful H.264 movies currently available on Blu-ray than HD-DVD. The VC-1 titles are definitely less of a problem for modern hardware, but it wouldn't be a good idea to build a system for playing video without building for the worst case scenario.
While H.264 under The Interpreter did provide a good amount of CPU utilization, there just weren't any huge bitrate scenes to test worst case scenarios. As more action packed and intricate movies are released on HD-DVD with H.264, we would be willing to bet that HD-DVD movies could be as stressful as X-Men III.
Right now the format with the highest potential for pushing hardware beyond its limits is Blu-ray. With 50GB disks possible today, we could see 2+ hour movies with sustained bitrates of 45 Mbps under H.264 which would really push even an X6800 system with an 8800 GTX running the display. Of course, bitrates that high aren't really necessary most of the time, so it won't likely be an issue. But HD-DVD is currently limited to 30GB disks which decreases the potential for high bitrate video (which translates to large file size).
Generally, graphics hardware performed as expected based on our previous testing. It would have been nice to test ATI hardware as well, and we will test it as soon as Cyberlink or Intervideo can get us a player that is up to the task.
As far as the Xbox 360 drive goes, it makes an excellent addition for those interested in HD-DVD playback on a PC. The price is right, it's easy to use and set up, and it won't take up room inside a crowded case. It may be a good idea for most people to wait until the dust settles before throwing their lot in with either HD-DVD or Blu-ray, as the market doesn't seem robust enough to handle two competing formats. On the other hand, those who don't mind potentially purchasing dead-end hardware take a much smaller risk by spending $200 on the XBox 360 HD-DVD drive. Getting a Blu-ray player right now is a much more expensive proposition. typically running over $500 (though with the ability to record as well as play back content).
Those who don't want to take a chance on their PC being able to play HD-DVDs can at least rely on their Xbox 360 for that. The drive combined with the remote provided a very simple and easy to use experience. The Xbox 360 handled playing back HD-DVD movies as well as any consumer electronics device could be expected. Of course at a price of around $200 you can't find standalone HD-DVD players for less money, so if you have a 360 or PC that you'd like to use for HD-DVD playback you can get both for less than a set-top player.
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Stereodude - Sunday, December 17, 2006 - link
[url=http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=328&type=...">http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=328&type=...]PC Perspective[/url]showed a much more dramatic reduction in CPU usage with an E6300, 7600GT, and the Interpreter. Seems things aren't quite lining up between the two reviews. Average CPU went from 82.8% down to 41.7% Only by using an x6800 and a 8800 GT* were similar results obtained in this review.JarredWalton - Sunday, December 17, 2006 - link
Could be the USB interface is demanding more of the CPU. Unless two sites use identical hardware, you can't really compare the results and call one more accurate. Given that the HD-DVD for 360 is currently available at $200 (the internal drive used on that other review is apparently pre-release hardware), the results we show are at least indicative of what people looking to take that route will experience. I'm sure once Derek can get a PATA drive he can look at performance differences.DerekWilson - Sunday, December 17, 2006 - link
I havent' read their review, but we did see ~41% with the x6800 8800gtx/gts.We didn't test the E6300 + 7600 GT with the interpreter, but i would think we'd see higher than 82.8% ...
As always, it's not really useful to compare numbers from multiple sites, as we likely used different motherboard, ram, sections of the movie, etc...
DNW - Sunday, December 17, 2006 - link
Questions:(1) You need just the HD DVD player, not the Xbox, correct?
(2) The back of the HD DVD player appears to have 3 connectors. Are these all USB connectors? If so, you hook up your the HD DVD player to your computer, and your computer to your television, correct? Does it matter how the computer is output to the TV? Is video-out sufficient, or do I need DVI, or HDMI etc.
(3) What are the computer system requirements? I am asking because on one of my HDTV's, I have an old computer built 2-3 years ago from whatever spare parts I had laying around. Is this critical? My TV supports 1080p. Is getting that resolution dependent upon the computer?
(4) The HD DVD player appears to come with a remote control. Will I use that remote to play/stop/start/pause/etc the DVD's, or will all that be done through the computer? In other words, is this a computer component or a home theatre component?
For under $200 plus the cost of a Netflix subscription, I would like to 'get my feet wet' with high definition dvd's. Even if I use this configuration for just a few months, it will be worth the rather insignificnat investment required. I just want to make certain I understand it before I make the purchase. Thanks!
DerekWilson - Sunday, December 17, 2006 - link
1) just need the HD-DVD player.2) It is also a USB hub AFAIK... the mini connector hooks into the computer.
3) you'll need a CPU at least as fast as the E6300 and a graphics card that can do some hardware decode acceleration if you want to avoid choppy playback and dropped frames. you'll also need usb 2.0 support (480Mbit), a graphics card that can output 1920x1080 @60Hz either over DVI or component (analog). A top of the line computer from 2 or 3 years ago will probably not cut it.
4) the remote controls the XBox 360, not the HD-DVD player.
totalcommand - Saturday, December 16, 2006 - link
The fact is with the right H264 encoding HD films can easily be fit on DVD-9 discs with minimal loss of quality.The companies are just trying to create a new market by increasing format size, but it's really unnecessary unless we want 6hr+ of film on our discs. Not to mention, with a new market, they get new copy protections like HDCP, which lets them infringe on our fair-use rights.
It really doesn't matter that Bluray has a 20Gb advantage over HDDVD - we don't need that extra space right now.
DerekWilson - Sunday, December 17, 2006 - link
some sort of "newness" is required -- standard DVD players can't play HD formats, as the players don't have the ability to decode H.264 ... Either we were going to get new players that use current DVD media or new players with new media. Since its a very good idea to future proof the design, more size is better -- and it just makes sense that if we require an update to player hardware we might as well also update our media to hold more data.the horrid drm and copy protection schemes are not a problem with the media as much as the MPAA -- had we stuck with standard DVD media, the industry could just have easily forced those wanting to play HD video on DVDs to adopt AACS -- because this is required in the data on the disks and the players -- not the physical media itself.
JarredWalton - Saturday, December 16, 2006 - link
"Right now" is the key. All things being equal (and I'm not saying they are!), having more capacity is better. We'll see which one wins our long term, but there's a good chance the consumer has already lost.trueimage - Saturday, December 16, 2006 - link
How are you "enabling" and "disabling" HW Accel... All I see is a checked hardware acceleration box that is greyed out. I have no idea if it is turned on or not, and I certainly can't uncheck it...Renoir - Saturday, December 16, 2006 - link
You can't enable/disable while playing a video. Stop playback and then the checkbox will no longer be greyed out. Hope that helps. Took me a while to figure that out myself :-)