This is my first shot at trying to playback an HDTV file, a 15GB 1080i of Star Wars episode 4 (curious how a movie from 1977 looks in 1080i...). I originally had the .ts packets and used HDTVtoMPEG2 to make it one large file. So I read up on it as much as I could and tried a few different players, two were highly recommended, Zoom Player and The Core player. Playback is jerky, my resources are not being used, processor stays around 11%, memory around half of my total. My setup, AMD 2500+, 1GB DDR ram with Nvidia GeForce 6800 GS/XT (supports H264, I got purevideo codec for it, where that is I have no clue) with current NForce drivers. I have no other playback issues and have collected a fair amount of codecs due to AVI playback. So I get GSpot and AVicodec 1.2 to tell me what codecs I need, both programs tell me the required codecs are installed (AVI just says 'supported' and GSpot says the combination of Dscaler Mpeg2 decoder and AC3Filter are supposed to work, so I fire up Zoom Player and set the options under options/setup and chose MPEG2 Audio (AC3Filter) and MPEG2 Transport Video (Dscaler) and I hear and see video but its really choppy. Any help much appreciated. Thanks.
I use TheaterTek for 1080i and 720p *.ts playback. Flawless results so far even on my older machine with a 2.4 GHz P4 with ATI 9600 and SB Audigy. http://www.theatertek.com/Products/products.html
Its actually worse with that player, it has this purple, hatchy looking grid and its just as choppy as the others. I get that grid in other players too, so it makes me think I'm on the right track with using zoom player and being able to choose the right codecs. I just don't know why its chopping up. Any other ideas? thanks
Film is the ultimate HD, since the 'pixels' are at the molecular crystaline level. The key is in the digital capture process, and a good 1080i digital capture of film should look great. However, resolution is not the only parameter to consider. There is also the frame rate and the bit rate, and the compression algorithm, all of which are interrelated in the video stream. It is possible to have a highly compressed 1080i video that looks terrible. However, that is probably not your problem, because a 15GB file should have little compression and a high bit rate. Virtually all digital video is compressed to some degree. The decompression process can be very taxing on a CPU, especially at a high resolution (like 1080i). I really don't have any specific answers for you. You should investigate the encoding parameters for your file, GSpot and AVICodec are good tools for that. The little 1,2,3 buttons at the bottom left corner of the GSpot GUI can be used to render and play the file, which may give you a clue or two. You could also try 'The Core Media Player' to see if you get better results. Next try to figure out where the decompresion (necessary for playback) is taking place. I believe it is in the video player itself, rather than in the Nvidia drivers or on-board the video card, but I might be mistaken. It may be that the CPU just can't keep up. A CPU utilization monitoring tool should tell you if that is what is happening. The whole approach to HD quality video files, and how to play or process them is not yet standardized. At this point it seems that all who are attempting it are trailblazing. Good luck on your trail, and please report back what you discover along the way.
Thanks for trying to help, but I solved this problem but not before completely dismantling my pc, swapping practically everything but the motherboard and processor and returning the graphics card to the local store for testing. The card came back fine. Long story short, I had an older Nvidia Ti4200 card and it played dvd and hd in my system quite well up to 720p. The 6800 would not even launch a standard dvd. I originally thought it was not getting the power it needed or it somehow had a defective molex connector (the ti4200 uses the smaller floppy type power connector, not a molex). It came down to motherboard chipset drivers. I had in fact gone to the manufacturer site, located my model and version (MSI board) and downloaded the VIA 4 in one drivers in hopes that the AGP driver there may have been causing trouble. Maybe I got the version wrong or whatever but it didn't change anything, I used the Auto Update Utility and it located and installed an AGP driver and bam... hello HDTV. BTW, these drivers appear to be from 2004 anyway so I don't really understand how I was supposed to guess that there was additional support for this new card. I can play right up t 1080p without skipping, so I'm very pleased since it really did appear like my processor and ram just wouldn't do the job. I only have one last problem though, I have nothing to play HD DVD files (.evo) with, PowerDVD ultra 7.3 recognizes but won't load it... I think I'm just going to wait this one out.
It looks like some people have had success with PowerDVD 6.5 as AnyDVD HD can't seem to bypass the HDCP requirement when using PowerDVD 7 and above. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=818433 Post#3 Post#4 Now the problem is finding the 6.5 version.
Good Tip, thanks. For the mpeg2 files I had the best playback and compatibility with the Media Player Classic from the K-Lite Codec Pack
