Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (
More info?)
The nVidia decoder is only for MPEG2. The GeForce 6 MPEG2 Decoding will work
with any software DVD player which supports DXVA. The only features which
won't work is the MPEG-2 bad edit correction, which only works with the
nVidia DVD decoder.
For WMV HD, You need the beta WMV HD DXVA patch from Microsoft.
"Simon Howson" <simonhowson@NOSPAMyahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:sD8Ge.65378$oJ.57125@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> toby@toby.org.uk wrote:
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> Which video card would you recommend for playing HD video (720p mostly)
>> - MPEG4, Quicktime, WMV etc? I can find loads of recommendations on
>> gaming cards (something this won't be doing a lot of), but straight
>> video out isn't something I've come across extensively in many reviews.
>>
>> I need DVI output (preferably dual), PCI-Express architecture, and have
>> $1000 to spend on the board (possibly more if necessary). I'm after the
>> most expansion possibilities; I don't want to be buying another card
>> soon!
>>
>> Doesn't have to be nVidia - just more familiar with these cards than
>> others.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any thoughts,
>>
>> Toby
>> --
>> Toby Marsden
>
> Hi,
>
> I've recently been interested in this issue. It seems that recent nVidia
> cards can do hardware assited HD Windows Media Video 9 and MPEG2 decoding.
> nVidia refers to this as "Pure Video" read more here:
>
http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo.html
>
> Note that although all the series 6xxx and now 7xxx cards support some
> PureVideo features, generally only the top end card supports all the
> features.
>
> However, the catch is get this to work, you need to use the nVida software
> codec available for download here:
>
http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html
>
> Plus you need to use Windows Media Player 10, Intervideo WinDVD 7 as the
> player. (There are a few other software players that are integrating the
> support, but things are still sketch, a lot of the most popular players
> don't work).
>
> If you do succesfully get it to work, the graphics card takes over from
> the CPU to perform most of the decoding. In this review for the new
> GeForce 7800 GTX, on an Athlon 64 4000+ processor, a HD MPEG2 file is
> being played back with just under 20% CPU load!
> http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/229/8/
>
> Without that graphics card that system would probabably require 75%+ CPU
> power just to decode that stream - a 50 minute HD video file that is 6 GB
> in size.
>
> There are some older Pure Video tests here:
>
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2305
>
> If you have $1000 to spend, you may want to wait for the GeForce 7800
> Ultra which will be even faster than the GTX. If you want to buy now, the
> simple answer is the 7800 GTX, plus buy the nVidia DVD codec, and maybe a
> copy of WinDVD 7 (if you don't want to play your HD content from Windows
> Media Player).
>
> Lastly, apparently the 7800 can also do hardware assisted decompression of
> HD H.264 streams, which is the new video codec that Apple has put in
> Quicktime 7, and which is probably going to be used in the new HD DVD
> format whenever they agree on exactly what that is going to be.
>
> Simon Howson