Hardware support for H.264 decoding

pH

Anyone know where nvidia and ATI are with this stuff?

I see a cyberlink driver (which is not free) but is it like a direct-show codec that I can use in Zoom player or is it something which only works in particular players?

What about nVidia? is their h.264 acceleration actually released?

Also what is DXVA and where does it fit in?

Does it replace the renderer (DX9/overlay), does the player need to support it (if so which players do?)

any links for good information?

8T8

Okay a lot of questions to answer but I'll get this out of the way first.

For the best possible H.264 playback get the Pro version of CoreAVC for $19, CoreAVC is the best performing decoder available period and does a better job than the GPU assisted H.264 decoders. CoreAVC also comes with an AAC decoder as well. How you ask simply it is an extremely well optimized decoder compared to competing products.

It is also a directshow decoder which means it can plug into WMP and playback H.264 content & that means MCE can as well.

Honestly don’t waste your time with the other solutions which I will go into detail about next but I should note that CoreAVC also have plans for GPU support as well.

I'll edit my post and fill in the other details about ATI & NVIDIA's solutions plus DXVA.


Right..

DXVA = DirectX Video Acceleration, it at its most basic level offloads some of the decoding from the CPU to the graphics card. DXVA was initially intended for MPEG 2 but since then it has gained WMV-HD support which been patched into WMP10 where it gets messy is that WMP10 has to be patched up to its eyeballs to do this hopefully the forthcoming WMP11 will take that patch hunt out of this.

I’m honestly not sure about the status of DXVA & H.264 with DXVA 1.x but I do know Windows Vista will come with DXVA 2.0 which will be much better and natively support WMV-HD, MPEG2, MPEG-4 AVC [<=H.264] with directshow compatible codecs.


Oh yes, some vendors like Nero or Apple intentionally limit playback to their own players those that are a directshow compatible decoder can be used with other directshow compatible based players like WMP, MPC and Zoom player. Plus keep in mind Apples H.264 decoder in Quicktime 7 for Windows is a steaming pile of crap.


ATI's H.264 GPU assisted decoding solution requires an X1K series graphics card and a commercial decoder in particular one from Cyberlink as long as you use the Cyberlink decoder or any other ATI sanctioned one you will gain its assisted decoding benefits. ATI’s GPU’s are limited by what they can decode for example the low end stuff can only do up to 720p (1280x720 pixels) whereas the higher end GPU’s can handle 1080p (1920x1080 pixels).


NVIDIA’s H.264 GPU assisted decoding solution requires a GeForce 6/7 series GPU (a recent driver), their commercial Purevideo add-on plus a commercial H.264 decoder from one of these guys as NVIDIA supports more than one vendor. NVIDIA’s hardware is a bit more capable in this regard as NVIDIA claim their GPU’s even the lowest stuff can handle higher resolution H.264 clips than ATI’s parts. The downside of course you have to pay for Purevideo and a H.264 decoder. Some of the decoders NVIDIA supports claim to be directshow compatible like Cyberlink and some force you into a player like Nero.


Both ATI and NVIDIA solutions work I’ve tested them but neither simply are as good as CoreAVC when it comes to performance and features & once CoreAVC gains GPU assisted decoding it will be untouchable.

As for the overlay question no they don’t replace it the codecs just offload some of the decoding stages to the GPU.