What to use to get HDTV working

[Selcal]

--Hello all,

 

It may be possible that this is already discussed in the other language forums, but I cannot make heads or tails of it.

 

In my area, I receive (at the moment) Discovery HD and Eurosport HD. Neither of these channels work with DVBViewer Pro 3.

 

The features page mention a decoder is required like NVidia or WinDVD. Since I have a Geforce 9300 in the system, NVidia would seem the logical option. But what decoder is meant by this? Where can I download it? Are we talking about the PureVideo decoder here? I didn't expect to have to fork out another handful of dollars to NVidia after purchasing their board.

 

Is there any free decoder out there that can do the trick? FFDShow supports MPEG2 and H264 but will this work for DVBViewer? Since I want to keep my HTPC as clean as possible I don't want to blindly install codecs to try to get one to work.

 

So in short; what decoders exactly are required for HDTV, and where can I download them?

 

Thanks for any help!

[Moses]

For your Hardware I'd suggest the Cyberlink H.264 Decoder (from PowerDVD Ulter or HD Pack) in connection with the EVR Renderer which will make use of your hardware for h.264 decoding.

 

Sadly this decoder isn't free, obviously (if I'm correct, there isn't even a demo which comes with the H.264 decoder, anymore, but maybe that's wrong).... The missing decoders is one of the reasons that make DVBViewer cost 15€ instead of 150€ or similar...

 

An alternative to cyberlink could be arcsoft. There should be a trial version of the arcsoft totalmedia that contains their h.264 decoder and as far as I know the decoder can use the capabilities of your graphicchip.

 

the latest nightly builds of ffdshow can also work. But they won't use your graphicboard, so your CPU has to do all the work and has to be quite potent. There are some discussions about ffdshow and h.264 on this board, also in englich.

[Selcal]

Well, that's a little bit of good news.... I intended to buy Arcsoft TotalMedia center since it integrates Blu-ray playing into VMC. So it looks like I will then be able to play HDTV channels too. Is there a difference between H264 and MPEG2 encoded channels? Will Arcsoft play both?

 

Thanks for your help!

[Moses]

Acrsoft Decoders will play both (that means: it contains decoder for both, for MPEG2 and for H.264).

 

Of course there is a difference between H.264 and MPEG2 encoded channels... the coding. H.264 is a new MPEG4 codec that is more efficient than MPEG2 and needs different decoders to be watched. That's why it is mostly used for HDTV. HDTV in MPEG2 needs too much bandwith.

[Selcal]

Of course there is a difference between H.264 and MPEG2 encoded channels... the coding.

 

That was an open door.... . My question was very poorly phrased, I meant to ask is both codings are still being used in HD channels. I still got the answer though . Thanks!

[Selcal]

Ok, I got it working now. But not by using the TotalMedia theatre codecs....

 

I installed my Terratec software which actually includes Cyberlink .264 (Terratec) Codecs. But these are more CPU intensive than the NVidia ones with Totalmedia theatre. But those codecs don't show up in the codec list. Is TMT hiding them?

[Diego]

For your Hardware I'd suggest the Cyberlink H.264 Decoder (from PowerDVD Ulter or HD Pack) in connection with the EVR Renderer which will make use of your hardware for h.264 decoding.

 

In my last tests if I use cyberlink h264 codec of powerdvd 8 trial in EVR it works but seem not to use HW accel even if it is enabled, this because I have a cpu load of 50%-65% percent.

If I use it with other render it make a BSOD.

If I use cyberlink h264 v6 of my twinhan board it works good in overlay mode and I have a CPU load of 15%-20%.

If I use divx h264 beta 3, that doesn't use HW accel, I have a cpu load of 50%-70% using EVR render.

Edited December 11, 2008 by Diego

[Diego]

Yesterday I upgraded to the last DirectX available.

make some tests here the results:

Results of various renders and codec viewing live an episode of Decker episode "My friend Bob" on hd tv channel Anixe Hd onto Astra 19,2 °E (HDTV CHANNEL 1080i h264) using DVBViewer 3.9.4

 

RENDER MODE CPU % RAM FPS INSTABILITY (Msec) DEVIATION (Msec)

EVR (DIVX) 47-56 465 24.75 0 0

VMR9 (DIVX) 50-61 445 23.75 1 1

VMR7 (DIVX) 50-62 450 24.15 0 0

OVERLAY (DIVX) 45-53 446

EVR CYBERLINK PDVD8

NO HW ACCEL 60-77 650 24.60

OVERLAY CYBER PDVD8

HW ACCEL ON 8-18 464

OVERLAY CYBER (TWINHAN)

HW ACCEL ON 9-18 565

 

The audio codec was always the cyberlink twinhan audio decoder (provided with my dvb-s card).

I want to point out that using DIVX codec the playback was very watchable and fluent. I have an old Opteron 175 @ 2,2 Ghz and for this reason what I see in the codec is the low cpu load. In any case quality of this codec is really good. I noticed just some break up every some minute but don’t know if it depend by the level and quality of my dvb-s signal that in any way is high and clear (93% but I have an amplifier of signal that could amplify also errors) or it could be a limitation of my pc system.

Using VMR 9 and VMR7 after some minutes probably due to a little break up the instability rised over 20 msec and max 44 msec with a little low deviations. But that wasn’t a problem.

Regarding tests with cyberlink PDVD8 please note there is no way to make HW accel working in EVR mode.

But HW accel works good only in overlay mode because VMR9 and VMR7 are buggy (onto breaks up the video goes into a loop of some seconds and the audio goes on)

Cyberlinlink (twinhan) codec work good in overlay mode, VMR 9 and VMR 7 are buggy like the cyberlink PDVD8 one. EVR mode doesn’t work at all .

Edited December 12, 2008 by Diego

[Selcal]

Thanks Diego, I'll try this weekend to see how those numbers compare to what I'm getting.

 

Still no luck though on using the codecs with Totalmedia theatre. They just aren't showing up anywhere (not even in the merits lists). Any ideas on how to use them?