BBC or other HD content sample

[gphillips]

Hi

Does anybody have any music, sport or other broadcast by the BBC (or other) which they have managed to capture? If so is it possible you could post a clip somewhere to test on my new setup?

I have found a.TS file but it is VERY glitchy in PowerDVD 7? - Im hoping it is the file.

I have a GeForce 7300 256MB and a 3.0 Ghz P3 2Mb Cache.

[nigelbb]

I am assuming that you made a typo & that you actually have a 3GHz P4. Even so it is not fast enough to decode the MPEG4 H.264 files from BBC HD. That requiresa a minimum of dual core Athlon 64 3800 X2. If you actually have been trying to play a .TS file it probably originates from US HDTV which uses MPEG2 & should be easily played with your setup without stuttering or jerkiness.

[gphillips]

Thanks for your reply.

I supprised (and dissapointed!) that a 3.0Ghz CPU cant play a .ts file. How can any set-top box match the processor performance of that? (such as Sky +)

Anyhow, this may explain things. I have a Beonce concert that I found online. it says BBC HD in the corner, and is indeed a .TS file.

My graphics card is a Geforce 7300 so would that have a bearing?

Are you saying I will need to buy an Intel D series CPU of some kind? Perhaps 3.2 or 3.4?

If I were inside the London HD trial area, would I not be able to decode that either?

[nigelbb]

Originally Posted by gphillips

I supprised (and dissapointed!) that a 3.0Ghz CPU cant play a .ts file. How can any set-top box match the processor performance of that? (such as Sky +)

Dedicated hardware MPEG4 decoder chip rather than general purpose processor.

Originally Posted by gphillips

Anyhow, this may explain things. I have a Beonce concert that I found online. it says BBC HD in the corner, and is indeed a .TS file.

TS stands for Transport Stream. It's the MPEG4 file inside a TS wrapper. You can of course call the files that you record off BBC HD anything you like. I have seen .H264, .MP4 etc

Originally Posted by gphillips

My graphics card is a Geforce 7300 so would that have a bearing?

That will help a little as there is some support for MPEG4 H.264 decoding in the graphics card hardware when used iwth PowerDVD 7. There should be something in PD7 like enable hardware acceleration of decode. It helps a little not a lot though.

Originally Posted by gphillips

Are you saying I will need to buy an Intel D series CPU of some kind? Perhaps 3.2 or 3.4?

No I am saying that you need a more powerful dual core CPU. Any AMD Athlon 64 X2 or any Intel Core 2 Duo will be OK.

Originally Posted by gphillips

If I were inside the London HD trial area, would I not be able to decode that either?

Probably not without some jerkiness & stuttering. The bit rate on satellite is monstrous but it's pretty high on DVB-T HD too.

[gphillips]

Bummer! - I just bought the CPU thinking it would be overkill if anything!

Isnt the Pentium D a dual - core CPU? I thought it was a step above the P4 ? - I guess I need to look into the CPU suport for my board.

Is there anything better than Power DVD 7 for this content?

Thanks.

[gphillips]

oddly my CPU seems to sit at 80% ish when playing the file, maybe there is a way of getting it to take the full available capacity?

[gphillips]

Hi !

Would you know if my setup as it stands will be OK to play back an HD-DVD or possibly blue Ray DVD? or will it suffer the same stuttering?

Maybe its only the UK broadcast HD content that is so demanding? if so, that is a long way off on Freeview so I probably dont need to run out and purchase a new CPU?

Thanks for all your help

[jon_c0]

Going back to the initial question for a sec... I too would be interested in finding some sample MPEG4 H.264 files. After much Googling a few weeks ago I found a few references to someone that had uploaded some files but, unfortunately, the link mentioned was broken.

Any useful sources?

[Jake Shiney]

What about quicktime hd trailers from the apple site?

[gphillips]

Didnt somebody once post some feeds from the Alexandra Palace trials? - I dont remember where I read that post but it was somewhere!

[mmace]

I can play BBC's stuff with no stuttering on my Pentium D 3.4Ghz, so an Athlon 64 or Core2Duo is not needed, and I play my stuff in Windows Media Player and Media Center

try using VLC to play it on your system, you may have more luck

my PC plays everything I can throw at it (MPEG2, h.264, x264, h.264 MBAFF, HD-DVD, Blu-ray, HDV etc)

Pentium D 3.4Ghz, 2Gb DDR2 RAM, Intel 945 chipset, GeForce 7950GT 256Mb
the motherboard, case, cpu, cooler & RAM can be bought as "barebones" for around £250 now from novatech.co.uk

[gphillips]

Thanks for the info, appreaciated.

Rather than Vista's own drivers for my 7300 I downloaded the latest official NVidia drivers - this triggered PowerDVD to detect "Nvidia Pure Video" hardware acceleration on my board, and now it works. It's pretty much got my 3.0Ghz P4 LGA775 at it's limit, but at least it works and I know a faster CPU would give me that little extra. Thanks for the info on the Pentium D - I think that would be the CPU I would go for if I ever needed a slightly quicker one.

Oddly I cannot get VLC player to work under Vista, I just get blank video. I can play these TS files in Media PLayer (I guess becuase they are using features or codecs provided by PowerDVD) but I cannot get the files to play in Media Centre as the TS extension isnt recognised as a video format so I dont get a thumnail. Anything I can do there?

[mmace]

I don't get a thumbnail, but thay play fine in media center for me (XP MCE and Vista Ultimate)

[nigelbb]

Originally Posted by mmace

I can play BBC's stuff with no stuttering on my Pentium D 3.4Ghz, so an Athlon 64 or Core2Duo is not needed, and I play my stuff in Windows Media Player and Media Center

try using VLC to play it on your system, you may have more luck

my PC plays everything I can throw at it (MPEG2, h.264, x264, h.264 MBAFF, HD-DVD, Blu-ray, HDV etc)

Pentium D 3.4Ghz, 2Gb DDR2 RAM, Intel 945 chipset, GeForce 7950GT 256Mb
the motherboard, case, cpu, cooler & RAM can be bought as "barebones" for around £250 now from novatech.co.uk

My apologies according to the PCPro CPU Megatest in the December 2006 issue the 3.4GHz Pentium D is identical in performance to an Athlon 64 3800 X2 & the 3.6GHz is a tad faster. All other pentium D chips are slower some by quite a lot. Of course they cost more than the AMD chip but if that is what fits your motherboard then you have no choice.