new HTPC and video playback still choppy! like, finding, playing, started, encode

andy

I started playing around with h.264 a couple months ago, and quickly realized that my beloved Xbox had outlived its life as my main media playback device. So I bought a refurbed HP z540 HTPC from eCost, assuming that surely the 3GHz P4 (800MHz FSB) would suffice to decode my movies. However, I'm now finding that some of my movies are not playing back smoothly.

My new HTPC has 512MB of DDR SDRAM and an ATI x300se video card. I'm using x264 with GK to encode my movies. I'd like to know what kind of upgrades I need. Would I be better off by upgrading my CPU (expensive), installing more RAM (cheap), or do I need to do both (shudder)?

TIA for any advice.

DVD rips with sane bitrates should certainly play smoothly with that hardware (lt; 50% CPU usage). What decoder and player are you using? Have you tried playing back MPEG-4 ASP or other formats to make sure the problem is not in your Windows installation, drivers or hardware. If you are experimenting with HD video, what resolution are you using?

This is the wrong forum for this, but you're going to have to be a LOT more specific about what your setup is and what problems you're having if you want any useful advice.

theres only one thing I'd say about upgrades, add one more 512 stick, windows like to use lots for useless stuf, linux is better, but still bad about it, and depending on what else you use it for, you may be using all of it

and nm, AVC and high quants decodes slower than AVC and lower quants, and its a big differance

Thanks for the reply. Here's what I typically do: after opening the d2v file, I go to the resolution tab, run autocrop, then adjust the output resolution slider to the lowest W-zoom (gt;100%) that gives an aspect ratio error of lt;0.5%. Then, under the Bitrate tab, after selecting the audio track (usu 5-ch ac3) I adjust the total file size until the Bits/(Pixel*Frame) is 0.170. Then I encode, entering the Average Bitrate value from GK as the target bitrate for first and second passes in x264. There's a lot of settings for the x264, obviously, but I mostly have everything checked.

Anything I should adjust in my modus operandi for using GK? Thanks again for any help.

Hey all thanks for the replies, charleski and Shinigami-Sama replied while I was composing my last reply. Which forum would be better for this type of question?

the hardware player one down at the bottom
just pm a mod and one of them will(hopefully) move it for you
bond or neuron2 are good choices, being that they're pretty avtive around here

Well first of all, I'd have to say you should investigate using MeGUI or something similar rather than GK for h.264 encodes, as it will avoid the multitude of potential problems you get with the avi container.

What player are you using to play these files? What actual resolution are the files that you're encoding? Your system certainly sounds beefy enough to handle StdDef h.264 video, so your problem is software rather than hardware.

Well, he would be using WMP10
that would explain it


Originally Posted by Shinigami-Samatheres only one thing I'd say about upgrades, add one more 512 stick, windows like to use lots for useless stuf, linux is better, but still bad about it, and depending on what else you use it for, you may be using all of it

Yes, the systems are more or less on the same line when modern Linux distributions with complete desktop environments are compared to Windows XP. However, with Linux you don't need a complete desktop environment, so the memory requirements can be substantially lower. But even for Windows XP, 512 MB is still quite enough for HTPC usage unless your system is completely trashed. Video encoding and decoding doesn't really take that much memory.

and nm, AVC and high quants decodes slower than AVC and lower quants, and its a big differance

I did say sane bitrates, which for me is around QP 24. What do you mean by quot;high quantsquot;? AFAIK high quantizers mean low bitrates, while low quantizers result in higher bitrates. I'd think higher bitrate means more work for the decoder, but I haven't really measured it. Have you?


Originally Posted by nmWhat decoder and player are you using?

there is a big difference on what decoder you use, look here


Originally Posted by nmI did say sane bitrates, which for me is around QP 24. What do you mean by quot;high quantsquot;? AFAIK high quantizers mean low bitrates, while low quantizers result in higher bitrates. I'd think higher bitrate means more work for the decoder, but I haven't really measured it. Have you?

Iquot;m going by what SMD has said a few times and a couple small tests using taskman to watch my cpu useage