1080p videos stutter

[Darkstorm]

Hello

I have the same problem with any 1080p (1920x1080) video i try to play on my pc.

The video plays the sound fine but the image skips, pauses then jumps constantly, so i wodnere dis there a min spec needed to play videos at this res?

at the moment my pc is:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Processor 3.01 ghz
2 GB RAM
Nvidia Geforce 9800GT
& I'm using the latest versions of FFDshow as a codec

can anyone offer any suggestions? more ram perhaps?

[smouty]

Do you know if you are getting hardware acceleration from ffdshow?
My PC is fine with 2Gb ram. I'm using the divx7 codec which I think is the same one as found in the Sharky codec pack.

[Hohum]

Try something like Splash Lite, very simple video playback app with hardware acceleration options.

http://mirillis.com/en/

[Darkstorm]

Thanks for replying =>

How do I check if hardware acceleration is on?

[Matt]

Your hardware should be fine to play HD videos.

It's probably a codec issue - people have a tendency to install a ****load of codecs / codec packs, and it causes problems. FFDshow is my preference, but you need to only install that. Possibly uninstall anything else codec related, but they can hang around and sometimes you can't beat a format and re-install of Windows.

I'd try a different medium as well, like put a clip onto a memory stick (USB 2) and see if that plays.

Regarding players, Media Player Classic is very nice. There's sites out there which will talk you through setting up FFDshow properly with it. However, I've had issues with MPC recently and now use VLC.

[smouty]

Thanks for replying =>

How do I check if hardware acceleration is on?

See what your CPU usage is when playing a video. If it is more than 10% then it is not working. For comparison my C2D 2Ghz is at 60%+ without GPU decoding and <5% with it enabled.

XBMC is probably your best bet as you are using Nvidia. Hardware decoding works great and if you've ever used it on xbox you'll be used to the interface.

In general though you do not have any other issues with your PC? You are not using Vista?

[Darkstorm]

Firstly thanks for all the replies and helpful suggestions,

The problem is now fixed, it turns out that FFDshow doesnt support hardware acceleration and neither did Media Player Classic.

However an offshoot from the original MPC called Media Player Classic Home Cinema DOES work so if your in a similar situation I suggest giving it a try.

Thanks again though guys =>

[Hohum]

MPCHC does work as you rightly say, I prefer the app I mentioned above though.

[randombs]

Thanks for the thread and recommendations, guys, and glad you got it sorted, Darkstorm. I've recently got hold of an Acer X3200 with quad core 1.8ghz Athlon something or other and onboard Geforce 8200 that does BR decoding. 720p stuff is fine but 1080p stuff in VLC is really bad. It runs on a single core at 100&#37; whereas MPC plays it smoothly but at around 50-60% CPU which ramps up the fan a bit. Still, at least it's multi-threaded.

I'll give MPCHC and XBMC a try. I've been using XBMC exclusively on my Mac mini and it was fine but when I used it on the PC last year it would use 100% CPU during any menus (videos were fine, though!) so left it but I imagine it's sorted by now.

[abigsmurf]

It's worth mentioning that CoreAVC is extremely good for .h264 decoding on weaker PCs.

[randombs]

Oh yeah, I tried that before on Shakey Jake's recommendation and it was stunning.

If I'm honest, I only have one 1080p video (Ghost in the Shell BR rip), the rest are 720p and under. The only proper 1080p stuff I watch is BR/HD-DVD and the geforce handles those.