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News Nvidia decodes H.264 in hardware

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by WilHarris, 7 Jan 2006.

  1. WilHarris

    WilHarris Just another nobody Moderator

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  2. Firehed

    Firehed Why not? I own a domain to match.

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    So the notebook actually had an HDDVD drive? Oddly enough, it seems to have a decent edge *right now*. I've seen WB's HDDVD launch lineup, and it's not too bad, and not too far off either, and Microsoft being what they are... it's also ever-so-slightly more consumer-friendly, with no region coding.

    Anyways, good idea. If they could have squeezed 1080p out of the 6150, though, it would have been excellent, simply because I see a *lot* of media center boxes using that instead of a discrete solution. I suppose if there's a good CPU to back it up, it'd be fine.
     
  3. Tolsk

    Tolsk What's a Dremel?

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    ok so are people not going to need pure video anymore with this?
     
  4. Boon

    Boon What's a Dremel?

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    Purevideo is an all encompassing term which will incorportate the new H.264 acceleration offered by the 85 driver set apparently. just like AVIVO covers video features of the ATI solutions Purevideo does the same for nVidia. It's not a case of needing purevideo anymore because you will be using purevideo with HD acceleration component.

    This is actually very good news and I can almost forgive nVidia for failing to provide true WMV-HD support in their 6 series of cards as the requirements for that particular codec is far lower than H.264. Now if this accelerates generic media players when playing H.264 it would bode well for 1080p mov playback on my 7800GT and A64 @ 2.4 which currently can't manage it CPU only.

    EDIT: I should have added that it's pointless to get excited as no cards support HDCP meaning presumably actuall HD-DVD or BlueRay discs will not be playable at HD resolutions anyway. This, I believe, is that same for ATI AVIVO capable cards. Now Apple trailers are nice and all but where are the HDCP compatible cards?
     
    Last edited: 7 Jan 2006
  5. Tim S

    Tim S OG

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    Next generation I would have thought Boon. :)

    I wonder whether this means we won't have to pay for the NV-DVD decoder now?
     
  6. phuzz

    phuzz This is a title

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    Some Thoughts:
    ATi beat nVidia by launching an actual product first (all be it software).
    What kinda performance am I going to get with a 6800 ?
    I'll be pissed if I have to pay for it, same as the DVD decoder :(

    (it's too early for me to be bothered to put the above into correct paragraphs)
     
  7. LAGMonkey

    LAGMonkey Group 7 error

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    good point bigz....wasnt the NV-DVD supposed to deliver enhanced H.264 playback? if these new drivers enable that then wouldnt that remove the point of paying for the NV-DVD??
     
  8. Boon

    Boon What's a Dremel?

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    Yeah looks like their coming:

    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28838
     
  9. scq

    scq What's a Dremel?

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    Well, if a 6800 can play most games very well, I'm sure it would be able to handle full HD video with at least the 24-30 FPS that most broadcasts and movies are set at, and I doubt you'd have to pay.

    I certainly would find it unfair to buy a $2-700+ graphics card, only to have to pay additonal for features the card should support (though Xbox did this with DVD - those *******s...). But charging extra would be like paying for a driver.
     
  10. Marquee

    Marquee Mac Pro Modder

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    H.264 is the same format as the ipod. That is one of the two formats supported. Mpeg4 and h.264. Nice to knwo my card will do it with out the support of the CPU.
     
  11. Kaze22

    Kaze22 What's a Dremel?

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    No point even to argue this point for laptop users, cause no laptop has been even fitted with a BluRay or HD DVD drive, without the damn drive all those fancy cards can do is play Apple Movie Trailer oooohhh what excitement to sit their and watch Apple HD trailers all day long.
    The drive first than we can talk video cards.
     
  12. wesblake

    wesblake What's a Dremel?

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    So excited, yet so mad

    This is all awesome, but makes me sort of angry. The HD-DVD/Blu-Ray will be great for data, but for movies it is just a way for the industry to get more money out of us by making everyone believe they need new players and discs for HD movies. Has anyone done the math? I have.
    A 2.5 minutes H.264 clip @ 1080p from quicktime.com is ~180MB
    Take a 2 hour movie (most are what, 90 minutes? Ok, so very few are more than 2) 120/2.5 = 48.
    48 * 180 = 8640MB
    So a HD movie should already fit on a dual layer DVD disc. Yeah, there's special features, they've already done that on a second disc for many movies. At 40+ GB on the new formats, they'd be wasting half the disc anyways. So the only thing I can think of is since the profit margin is completely gone on DVD players, the industry needs a new format so everyone will go out and purchase new equipment.
    Just drives me nuts, I've been waiting for a couple years now for HD movies since HDTV channels make DVD's look like VHS. Now I got my own HDTV, come on HD movies!
     
    Last edited: 23 Jan 2006
  13. cpu121

    cpu121 What's a Dremel?

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    I believe MS sold the DVD remote seperately as there are royalities to be paid if you want to include DVD movie playback - thus by a selling a seperate DVD remote they pass the cost onto only the people who want to playback DVD movies. I think Sony weren't affected by this since they were one of the developers of DVD.

    How will this affect the other system requirements to play HD video? At the moment you need a 3.0Ghz CPU to play back 1080 WMV-HD but if the graphics card is able to the decode the video instead, won't that mean playing WMV-HD will be less CPU intensive?
     
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