ATI AVIVO and 1080p - A sad, sad story! (Help!)

Hey guys 'n gals!

I've been a long time reader of Tom's hardware, but now I'm facing a problem I just can't seem to solve on my own, nor with existing posts..

Recently, I bought a nice 40" LCD TV (Samsung L40A 856). To be able to use it to the fullest, I decided to build a mediacenter/downloadcenter/server to use with it.

Here's the specs:
HTPC: ASUS P2-M3A3200 (HD3450 was installed, but I took it out, as it has an onboard HD3200 which does the job)
CPU: AMD ATHLON X2 5050E
RAM: CORSAIR 2X 1GB PC2-6400 TWIN2X2048-6400C4DHX (4-4-4-12)


HD: WD HDD 1TB 32MB GREEN
Bluray: LG GGC-H20LRB

A pretty typical low-budget mediacenter I'd say.

On that, I installed Windows Vista Enterprise edition, and installed all updates and service pack.

To be able to play all video formats, I installed the Combined Community Codec pack. (CCCP)
I'm using the latest ATI Catalyst control center (9.6).
The TV is connected to the onboard HDMI-out.

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On to the problem!

One of the things I want it to do, is play video - Xvid, DVD, 720p, 1080p and the bluray disks.
Up to 720p, everything runs like a charm, although I'm noticing an 80% (!!) cpu load on 720p.
If I'm not mistaken, the ATI avivo chipset should do most of the computing, taking nearly all the load off the CPU.

When I try to run 1080p, the video plays at around 50% of the normal speed, and a lot of frames are dropped. Audio runs out of sync etc. Turns out my CPU is 100% used!

I've done some research and found out it might have to do with codecs. Thus, I tried a powerdvd 7 codec (HD compatible). Although it ran a little better, it was still no good.

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The question: How on earth can I make this work!?
Subquestions: Am I doing something wrong? Can't this system run HD?

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Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and perhaps even help me!

Yes, I have. It doesn't make any difference. I tried that using the DVI to HDMI converter which came with my desktop's HD4890. There wasn't one included with the HTPC (which kind-of tells me that we're supposed to use the onboard HDMI..).

Also, I prefer to keep it out, to lower the power consumption (11w, without the hd3450 it sucks ~50w). The pc doubles as download center for my fibre internet.

Yes, I have. One of the first problems I ran into was that the HDMI didn't output anything. After a lot of tinkering, it turned out I had a feature disabled in the BIOS.

After that, I checked everything the BIOS had to offer and enabled it all.

I've also installed ATI's Cool'n quiet application - but it doesn't seem to do anything. A strange app it is. It just gives me a monitor. The CPU fan always makes a noise, even when it's not hot. That's another issue though. Is it related to the AVIVO chipset?

EDIT: Thanks for the replies by the way, gonna sleep now (1:20 AM here!), will check back tomorrow!

Well I never used or liked PowerDVD, but only PDVD 8 and on can fully utilize UVD. I use MPC-HC to play my media files, but unfortunately you can't play a disk directly with this program.

There were only certain drivers that worked correcltlywith UVD and AVIVO. For my HD 3650 the only drivers that actaully worked were the Catalyst 8.4 drivers.

This is a great site for DXVA tips and tricks
nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/

im guessing its the onboard video thats the problem homie.

i have pretty much the exact same setup, except i use a 4670. it runs flawlessly.

i havent touched my mediapc in awhile, let me wake up, power it on and run some tests.

I see. Well, that's what I'm supposed to be getting as well..

Can you tell me some more on the drivers and codecs you use? Perhaps my problem lies there.

I still think the onboard card should be able to do it, so I'd like to eliminate that first, before installing another GFX card.

for some reason this thread dissappeared quickly off the front page. just went digging around in my email.

um, newest ati drivers, tho they werent before. windows7.7100.x64. coreavc or something i think. vlc. 1.0.0 now, tho it wasnt before.

Have you possibly tried Omega drievrs? They are third party enhanced ATI and nVidia drives but supposively are pretty good. A friend of mine has a old AGP system and they ahd support with the newest drivers for AGP in them.

Every ATI card from the HD3K and up has UVD2.

Turns out that above guide, as well as UVD (and UVD2) is support for h.264.

The files I've got are x264 encoded. Can that be hardware supported at all?

I see. Can you tell me exactly what codec you're using? Perhaps my MPC settings are just broken

I tried following the guide I was given, but my MPC-HC isn't the same one the guide uses, so I couldn't select those options..

I've tried switching some codecs around again, and I got it to run at 22fps (close to being good), but that pulled 100% cpu load still (pdvd codec).

Halp!

EDIT:

I downloaded the same MPC-HC as the guide states and was able to use the same configuration. What do you know, it's much better already!!

Played a few 1080p movies (x264). Cpu load never got above 60% (mostly around 30%).
It played at 24 fps, which is much better than my previous record (22).

A problem that does still occur is that I've got Jitter (10~20) and a sync offset ranging -50 to +50. What could cause this?

So far, it's a huge improvement over what I had, so thanks a lot for all the help!