1080P stutter

[dahauss]

Been using Splash both the BETA and the lite to play 1080i video from my Panasonic SD1 camera.. am in the process of purchasing a new Panasonic TM700 camera which shoots 1080P-60 .. I had some demo video files sent to me so I could see if my PC could handle it. I had to install some CODECS to get the programs to use the dual core and GPU from my video card 9800GT .. and now WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER CLASSIC HOME THEATRE and PURE CODEC PLAYER will now both play the 1080P-60 video perfect.. no stutter on video or audio in FULL Screen. HOWEVER, SPLASH player both the beta and the lite both STUTTER even though I have it set to use the GPU NVIDIA... on most videos, they start to play but then the audio stutters and then thhe video seems to stutter.. what is causing this since other players play them just fine??

[LuxZg]

After 2 weeks my activation email came in, so now I can add some more info regarding 1080p playback.

Like dahauss here, I'm in process of buying Panasonic TM700 camcorder. You can find some sample files (raw & unprocessed) on this page:

Thing is, these 50p/60p videos with bitrate of around 25-27Mbps (with peaks over 30Mbps) can work just fine in software (CPU-only) mode with my dual core Core 2 Duo E4400 @3.2GHz, using Splash Lite of course. But if I turn on ATI Avivo (hardware acceleration) on my HD4890 graphics card - it's stuttering like crazy. Of course, I'd rather use GPU for processing, as otherwise my CPU is at ~90% when doing playback of these 60p files.

So I was wondering if this is problem with ATI card, drivers, or such high bitrate playback isn't supported in Splash Lite (with hardware acceleration).

More details about my system:
Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 @ 3.2GHz
4GB DDR2 800 RAM
ATI HD4890
Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit
Splash Lite 1.4.3 (and 1.4.2 before it)
Catalyst 10.3, 10.4, 10.5 (I've just seen new 10.6 Catalyst is out, so I'll try them too)

I've had same or similar problems with all other software like WMP, MPC HC, VLC, etc. but for example - newest PowerDVD trial (from few weeks ago) worked just fine.

Oh, and more info about video as well:
M2TS stream
H.264 / AVCHD
1920x1080
50 fps / 60 fps (PAL/NTSC cams)
AC3 5.1, 48000Hz audio
24-27Mbps average bitrate, mostly around 25Mbps for 95% of clips
peaks can be over 30Mbps

[dahauss]

Im been playing with the tm700 and in my case I cant play the files at all in 1080p60 without the GPU turned on.. with it off it stutters so bad its not watchable.. with it on in starts to play fine but then stutters... HOWEVER if I turn off the 1080P60 and shoot in the other mode the camera supports then I can play them in splash lite.. so I think it has something to do with splash lite.. I can play them fine (both 1080p60 and the non 1080p60 files) in KM PLAYER using some CODECS I installed that take advantage of the GPU of my 9800GT card...

[LuxZg]

I've just tried newest 10.6 Catalyst driver, and now with Avivo turned on, I can watch 60p clips almost normally. CPU is at 7-15%, and is even in idle state (2GHz instead 3.2) while the playback is running. But stutters still appear once in a while, and all that I've noticed is that when it does stutter my CPU jumps momentarily to 20-25%. I should try turning off my antivirus and other background processes, perhaps something is holding it back from being 100% effective. But it's much better than before, and I'm happy because of it.

dahauss - I know you're on nVidia, but have you tried new drivers + Splash Lite 1.4.3?

[Helios]

Hi

We've reproduced the issue in out test lab. Seems like some hardwares can not handle 1080P playback.
Unfortunately we can not help this time due to hardware limits.

regards,

[LuxZg]

Hi

We've reproduced the issue in out test lab. Seems like some hardwares can not handle 1080P playback.
Unfortunately we can not help this time due to hardware limits.

regards,

Hi Helios,

this is weird, as hardware accelerated playback worked fine with PowerDVD for example. Just the same, in software (CPU) mode, I can playback file just fine as well.

And even if GPU isn't fast enough to decode video on it's own, shouldn't CPU "jump in" to do the rest of work? Or doing some kind of buffering to eliminate occasional frame drops?

EDIT: Just to make it clear about "just fine". Files can sometimes stutter at start in CPU mode in Splash Lite, but if I open file, press pause right away, and than play after few seconds - all files would play "just fine", without any visible frame dropping. Same thing was a "solution" for PowerDVD hardware accelerated playback, when some clips would stutter when first played. But in both cases - when file starts playing it will play without stutter, even if I let it loop for a while.

[Helios]

And even if GPU isn't fast enough to decode video on it's own, shouldn't CPU "jump in" to do the rest of work? Or doing some kind of buffering to eliminate occasional frame drops?

Generally GPU should handle all type of video complying AVC specyfication on supported profile and level. When it does not currently, new GPU drivers release can always fix it.
CPU can not help GPU with decoding, because sharing data between GPU and CPU memories is very slow.
But it is always left to user to decide if using HW acceleration or not.
I just tested a '60p-orsche' sample on all players mentioned in this topic and none of them played it fluenly on my GPU.
Of course there is a bufferring

regards,

[LuxZg]

Of course there is a bufferring

Thanks for explaining everything
And - is there any way to increase the buffer in settings or some config file, registry, or whatever?

[Helios]

And - is there any way to increase the buffer in settings or some config file, registry, or whatever?

nop :/, we use max possible, in fact it wouldn't help much, because bitrate from camcorder is usually constant, so decoding complexity is constant and the buffers will end sooner or later.

[LuxZg]

Unfortunately that's true for most cases.. Well, hopefully some future driver gives us that bit much more power.. Thanks for your time and patience