my laptop plays HD-DVDs!

[randombs]

i can't believe it, i really can't. it shouldn't be possible given the circumstances

hooked up the 360 hd-dvd drive and after much fiddling with different windvd and powerdvd versions i got it playing the films at full speed (NO frameskip whatsoever and i'm picky and can tell, also doesn't max out the cpu either).

my lappy's a little 12" toshiba U200. 1.83ghz core duo/1gb/945gm onboard gfx (yuck i know, but i want battery life not snazzy gfx).

powerdvd's a bit iffy with them (using 6.5) - MI:3 crashes at the start when loading the menu, King Kong plays the film with PinP turned on (can't seem to turn it off, and it shows the film in both the main window and the little
window), but Batman Begins plays perfectly.

they're playing at 60-70% cpu level and use a whopping 300-350MB ram :d

reason i wasn't sure it'd play smoothly was that i thought the profile HDDVDs use is very cpu-intensive? i tried some 1080p quicktime trailers (h.264 aren't they?) and they were fine, and also a 1080i clip of return of the jedi and that was also fine (only uses 22% cpu but that's prolly cos it's mpeg2).

what's going on? is this a guarantee that HDDVDs will play fine in the future, or is there a chance future ones may use a more cpu-intensive profile for the codec?

[EvilBoris]

The HD-DVD drive is natively compatible with Vista and probably has downloadble updates on XP, windvd/powerdvd doesn't actually play it in HD resolutions though.

[randombs]

yeah getting the drive sorted on xp didn't require anything on my part.

bearing that in mind, though, won't it still be processing the full resolution image? considering the cpu is working at a bit more than what it's been doing for the h.264 trailers i figured that'd be the case regardless of the final resolution.

just did a test - ran the HP 1080p trailer in mplayerc and regardless of window size (from a tiny square to full screen) the cpu usage was the same. just to be sure, i set the resolution to 1600x1200 (my lappy is 1280x800 native) and ran the trailer again and the cpu usage was still the same (about 30-50% average)

[andrewfee]

my lappy's a little 12" toshiba U200. 1.83ghz core duo/1gb/945gm onboard gfx (yuck i know, but i want battery life not snazzy gfx).

...

what's going on? is this a guarantee that HDDVDs will play fine in the future, or is there a chance future ones may use a more cpu-intensive profile for the codec?

CoreDuo is the reason you're able to play it; you've effectively got two 1.83GHz processors in your machine; it's no slouch.

The biggest thing slowing the machine down is probably the hard-drive in the machine, which might be why you didn't realise how quick it was. (I've certainly noticed the HDD in my 2.33GHz Core2 machine slowing me down )

I have to say, I'd love to know if something like a 1.06GHz CoreDuo machine could cope with HD video, because I would love to ditch my MacBook Pro for one of these: http://www.dynamism.com/r6/specs.shtml

[randombs]

the hdd's 5400rpm sata. was thinking of a 7200rpm one but i cba at the moment as it'll probably get hotter and may use up the battery more (although tbh i got it turning off after a minute anyway). considering the hddvds are doing like 20-25Mb/s i doubt the hdd would be a bottleneck yet (unless you're talking about general windows use?)

as for the core duo, wouldn't that depend on whether the program being run is written for multiple processors? reason i say this is i know windows handles multiple processors by sticking different threads on the different cores, but as a test i set mplayerc's affinity to only one core and the performance was exactly the same (same cpu usage too)...

thing is just before this lappy i had an identical u200 with the 1.66 core solo and it sorta managed 720p material smoothly (would take a while seeking though). that extra ~200mhz and possibly larger cache helps a bunch!

one thing is driving me nuts about it though - the onboard intel gfx doesn't support custom resolutions (according to the powerstrip guys) so no 1360x768 output. my old toshiba m70 with the ati gfx did it just fine. even my mate's vaio with *both* onboard gfx AND a geforce wouldn't do that res either (although if he put powerstrip on i think it'd be fine).

so basically i'd have to run it in 1280x1024 and use vlc's ratio adjustment to get the image right, but it'd still look wank

ah well, can't have everything eh

[andrewfee]

With the HDD I was just meaning general computer use. This 2.33GHz machine I've got is the fastest computer I've owned, but when doing certain things, it feels slower than old desktop machines I've had.

While a program has to be coded to make use of both processors, it still means you could have one core running all the windows stuff, and another core entirely dedicated to HD-DVD. It's not just about being dual core though, the chips themselves are very efficient.

[Mr Ono]

So, you enjoying watching your HD-DVD on a 12 inch screen?

[randombs]

it doesn't make much of a difference, no

on the lcd telly the difference is more noticeable but tbh i find hddvds are more a necessity than this amazing thing. for me, an hddvd on my 26" sammy looks like a regular dvd on the downstairs 32" crt when you're sitting at sofa distance.

besides there's not a chance in hell i'm gonna bother hooking all that crap up again - it was just to see if it could. it'd be handy in a future sales-pitch when i sell it down the line

what is annoying though, is how the later versions of powerdvd won't work - they kick up an error about the gfx card driver (haven't looked for an updated version yet) whereas 6.5 is fine but has the issues i mentioned.

[Mofoman]

Your litle laptop is more than capable of playiong HD DVD's and the reason it is using the CPU so intensively is because of the software. They software will get better as time goes on and distribute the load more effectively, Windows XP is ****e really for Dual core processing, you will notice a difference once you use Vista, and you will always be able to play these film's with that Conroe chip.

What is your graphics card??That affect's things too and may be the reason why the cpu is being used so intensively. With the lowr res it plays in XP, the cpu is the bottleneck, at higher resolution's the cpu will have less work and the GPU will become the bottleneck,IF your GPU isn't up to the task, you will not be able to play 1080p.

[randombs]

it's onboard gfx. if it had dedicated then i wouldn't have been as surprised. still pissed off about not getting the proper res when hooking up to the lcd telly though, but tbh it was more an experiment than anything else.

realistically i'm not gonna watch hddvds on the lappy (i'll use the 360 of course), i just posted this so people would see what kinda specs can handle such things.

looks like i'll still have to build a cheap base unit with the necessary kick for 720p stuff, as the xbox is getting long in the tooth

[randombs]

*TWAT ALERT*

the onboard gfx actually do support 1360x768. after googling around for a few minutes i found the following registry hack:

go to

HKEY\Local_Machine\Plug_the_damn_telly_in_THEN_tur n_on_the_laptop

and set the DWORD value to 'duh'

problem solved

i wonder if there'd be a way to force the laptop to keep that resolution available without this. what if the monitor had a proper driver instead of the regular PnP one? just a thought...

[randombs]

ok seems i had my wires crossed so really this isn't as big a deal as i thought it would be. i assumed (dunno why) that vc-1 would be much harder to decode than h.264 when apparently it isn't, so the trailers should have (theoretically) given me all the proof i needed as to whether it'd play hddvds or not