T61, Nvidia Quadro and HD content

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sokos · #1 Post by **sokos** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:51 am

Hi guys,

As HD movies are coming out more and more (DiVX or AVI's) i wonder how well can the T61 run HD content. I recall reading some forums saying that the DirectX10 GPU's didn't have embedded HD decoding features or they were not as good as 7series GPU's, so i m bit sceptical about this, as on my free time I (as most of us) enjoy a good movie on the notebook.

Has anybody tried to play a 720p or 1080p movie on his T61 and how was the experience? I do know that HD content is very thirsty on hardware power. Please share your thoughts!

jjesusfreak01 · #2 Post by **jjesusfreak01** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:42 am

VLC can play 1080p videos on a moderately powered machine without using the graphics card. Both the new nVidia cards and the Intel chip in the T61s will be fully capable of playing whatever type of video you would like to play.

gotconsultants · #3 Post by **gotconsultants** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 11:44 am

This is one thing that you will not have to worry about... Even if the internal graphics card isn't great at decoding HD video, Broadcom just announced a week and a half ago that they were starting to ship an "add-in" HD decoder prodcut... Although what they showed was for putting internally to the laptop, I know of at least one partner who will be making a PCI-e card for notebooks...

edit: Almost forgot, I saw the demo of the product in Jan. at CES behind closed doors and it provided quite a smooth playback...

dsfinley · #4 Post by **dsfinley** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 12:20 pm

In looking at that same issue, I found some articles that increased my knowledge of the topic from zero to somewhat more than zero:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2886
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2977
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2984

Those articles bear out sokos' concern about CPU usage. In tests of some H.264 1080p content with mplayer on my 2.2 GHz single-core Opteron desktop machine with an NVS 280 graphics card, the poor processor could not quite keep up, running full-bore.

nVidia is touting the video-playback capabilities of their latest GPUs, including the FX 570M in the T61p:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/pg_20030622679910.html

NVIDIA PureVideo HD Technology
The ultimate high-definition movie experience on your PC by combining high-definition movie decode acceleration and post-processing on HDCP enabled platform, HDCP circuitry, and integration with HD movie players. It delivers superb picture quality for all video formats, as well as stunning HD DVD and Blu-ray movies-with low CPU utilization and power consumption. (Available on NVDIA Quadro FX 1600M, 570M, and 360M)

And ATI (http://ati.amd.com/products/MobilityRad ... index.html) said this about their X1400 that is in some T60 models:

"Featuring hardware acceleration for advanced H.264 video playback, the Mobility Radeon X1400 makes your notebook the ultimate mobile entertainment experience."

nVidia also touts the HD video playback capabilities of the NVS 140M (see "Features and Benefits" link at http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_nvs_notebook.html).

Here's more nVidia propaganda in their HD Video FAQ: http://www.nvidia.com/object/purevideo_hd_faq.html.

Anybody have info on video playback for the GMA X3100?

rukiri · #5 Post by **rukiri** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 12:38 pm

You're actually asking a somewhat complicated question, so at the risk of exasperating everyone I'll give you what I think is a complete answer.

There are actually two factors that go into what most people mean when they say "HD Movie"

1) Resolution, 720p 1080p

2) Codec, whether it's encoded in Mpeg2, DiVX, Mpeg4/H.264 etc.

Now, in terms of "can I play it?" the only real question is what codec was it encoded in?

normal DVD movies are encoded in Mpeg2, which is relatively simple to decode and play. Even if you took a 1080p movie and encoded it in Mpeg2, pretty much anything with more than 1ghz of processor speed will be able to play it without a problem.

The same holds true for movies encoded with DiVX. DiVX is a little harder to decode, but it's still not that big a deal.

The real issue is with Mpeg4/H.264 encoded content. This is the codec being used in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray disks. It provides much smaller file sizes than Mpeg2 or DivX, but is also much more complicated to decode. If you're ever going to run into problems decoding video, this is where you'll have it.

Having said that, if you're running a dual core system with 2ghz+ on each core, you'll be fine. You'll be more than fine.

So for you specifically, you shouldn't need any extra hardware/software or anything to run HD content of any kind. Just plain old Windows Media Player should be fine.

.. that doesn't mean that it's the *best* solution though : )

I'm running an old 2ghz AthlonXP system, and I can watch 1080p H.264 files without a problem. That would not be possible if I was just using windows media player.

Your computers ability to decode H.264 content well (without dedicated hardware you might find in a video card, or other 3rd party hardware) is in finding a good decoder.

My apologies to jjesusfreak01, but VLC is a very poor H.264 decoder. If you are willing to spend money, I would suggest CoreAVC. They have, bar none, the best H.264 decoder.

If you want to go the free route, the best open-source decoder is called "ffdshow"
But it can be complicated to use/configure all on it's own. The best all-inclusive package, in my opinion, is called the "Combined Community Codec Package" available here:

http://www.cccp-project.net/wiki/index. ... =Main_Page

jjesusfreak01 · #6 Post by **jjesusfreak01** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 12:45 pm

The GMA X3100 can handle high def content with ease. It is a Shader Model 4.0, 667mhz programmable card, which is on par speed wise with low end dedicated cards (last gen), and really, if you want high def video, you will have no problems. Read this.

sokos · #7 Post by **sokos** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:56 pm

i ll just quote a paragraph from the link dsfinley was kind enough to paste (yes, thanks for reminding me mate, that was one of the articles i read and made me thinking is the CPU/GPU enough)

" As for recommendations, based on our testing, we would not suggest anything less than an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 for use in a system designed to play HD content. The E6400 may work well enough, but not even the 8800 GTX can guarantee zero dropped frames on the E6300. ATI owners will want to lean more towards an E6700 processor, but can get away with the E6600 in a pinch. But keep in mind that X-Men: The Last Stand is only one of the first H.264 movies to come out. We may see content that is more difficult to decode in the future, and faster processors are definitely a good place to pad your performance to ensure a quality HD experience on the PC. "

Now i can't quite believe that a T7300+NVS140M are faster than the CPU/GPU combination mentioned in the Anandtech article, so i think 1080p H.264 content is not going to be "smooth" even on a T61p, let alone a T7x00 with X3100.

But then, one might think, since 1440x990 doesn't reach 1080p native resolution (1080p = 1920x1080), a 14.1" Thinkpad will only be capable of 720p content. Now the guys who go for a 15.4" will have to look further into it. I can live with 720p, but if you have a nice projector at home or LCD TV (like the Sony 40W2000 1080p I got) you won't be able to utilize the Thinkpad as a FullHD source (1080p) and that make me think i ll be getting another machine soon enough

rukiri · #8 Post by **rukiri** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:59 pm

I realize Anandtech is a reputable source, but on this issue I'm going to call fubar on that statement. It's simply not true. You do not need a dual core anything to playback 1080p H.264.

If you look up reviews for CoreAVC or FFDShow, you can see reviewers testing the decoders on modest hardware and getting perfect playback.

I realize you have grounds for your concern, but I'm not trying to fool you : ) I can play back 1080p H.264 smoothly on my old old rig. The decoder you use makes all the difference. With a good decoder, you won't have any problems.

If you have the means, I would suggest running some tests on your own so you can see for yourself. HD h.264 content is widely available on the internet, as are various playback solutions. You can try to play these on your current machine and from there make an educated guess if running on a T61 would be possible.

sokos · #9 Post by **sokos** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 2:09 pm

Ok, so I did download as torrent StarWars II in 1080p, just for testing on my desktop, P4-2.8, 1Gig ram, Nvidia 6600.

It sucked big time..

Tomorrow i ll run it on my T5600 T61z with GMA950 to see..
(used PowerDVD v7 HD with .H264 included)

wswartzendruber · #10 Post by **wswartzendruber** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:42 am

[censored]. I can't believe the amount of trouble you guys are having. What are you using to play this crap? I have had ZERO problems playing 1080p videos with my GMA950 in Linux using software to decode the video (Ogg Theora, a MAJOR CPU hog). And it used like 25% of one core (2.0 GHz) to play it. Maybe it's because I'm running 64-bit, but I doubt it.

EDIT: No, I watched an entire WMV-HD movie at 1080p back when my machine had a T2300 (1.66 GHz, and it used 66% when I put it on a single core).

axiom · #11 Post by **axiom** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:23 am

nVidia 8000 series is equipped with Purevideo-HDhttp://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_hd.html

sokos · #12 Post by **sokos** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 2:28 am

i wish i m wrong, but i read somewhere that only the high end GPU's of NVIDIA have the PureVideoHD capability, i think the 140 Quadro doesn't support it

axiom · #13 Post by **axiom** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 6:26 am

140m is a 8400m equivalent,
so yes, it does have purevideohd and dx10

sokos wrote:i wish i m wrong, but i read somewhere that only the high end GPU's of NVIDIA have the PureVideoHD capability, i think the 140 Quadro doesn't support it

rukiri · #14 Post by **rukiri** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:40 am

lots of nvidia cards have purevideo,

though only certain players can use it,
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_purev ... ments.html

including Nvidia's own player which costs $
http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html

For a list of all geforce cards that have PureVideo and what they support, check the pdf on this page:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html

again though, if you're having problems it's because of your decoder. Yes, PowerDVD and WinDVD are known to have crappy h.264 decoders.

If you want to pay $ for more hardware, or a special card, or a special player, that is your choice, but please be aware that free open-source alternatives exist that will allow you to play 1080p H.264 content perfectly.

f00kie · #15 Post by **f00kie** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:25 am

I have about a 2.5 year old desktop right now, with an ATi Radeon 9600 Pro.

VLC played 720p badly (skipping every few minutes).
Windows Media Center played them perfectly.

Go figure.

jjesusfreak01 · #16 Post by **jjesusfreak01** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 9:43 pm

T60 2.0Ghz, x1400 card

With VLC I can play 1080p quicktime videos with no skipping, perfectly smooth. Its all in the codecs. You dont need fast hardware, just good codecs. CoreAVC is alot faster than anything in VLC too, remember that.

sokos · #17 Post by **sokos** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 12:23 am

rukiri wrote:lots of nvidia cards have purevideo,

I think all of them have, BUT not many have PureVideo HD.
They are different things:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_purevideo.html