I am looking for a player that will play my AVCHD from my camcorder (SR11)

I tried with a custom top of the line HTPC and bad results. I get motion blur when panning and flashing of the video. I tried Power DVD Codec and Core AVC.

I want to play the videos on my Vista Media Center and output to a T.V. with Component Video. I also want to see the thumbnails like in Vista Media Center.

What Media Boxes can decode the AVCHD with great results. I don't mind spending money of the product works.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

You basically need h.264 support. The IstarHD and Popcorn Hour units (see threads here on AVS) will play raw m2ts (aka .MTS) files from your camcorder very well using hardware decoding. The Tvix 4100 and 6500 can play these files too but with a less-attractive, less-customizable user interface. You will need to put the M2TS files on a USB or internal hard drive connected to the player. Alternatively, you can use a hardwired Ethernet connection to your PC. Powerline or wireless connections probably won't work well (playback will be choppy).

What were the specs of this HTPC?

Mark: If I use the Popcorn/iStar meida player can i directly stream from a ethernet Hard Drive Server?

Can I see thumbnails of the m2ts files on either system?


LexInVA: Here are my specs:
q6600 Quad CPU
Nvidia 680i Motherboard
Nvidia 8500GT 1GB Graphics Card ( I use Component out to T.V.
4gb Memory
Vista Media Center

I have treied PowerDVD on this machine and it says I am not usuing the Nvidia Pure Video but on an another computer with the same graphics card it says I am using Hardware Acceleration Pure Video?

Nero works the best but I see constant flickering whn playing the movies in Meida Center.

Thanks.

A HTPC based on the AMD 780G chipset ( http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-780g-chipset,1785.html ) would work for you. Look through this article for more info.

The playback seems fine till I get to the panning of a scene where it looks like motion blur. Nere codec looks beautiful when panning but it the screen flickers at random times. Nero is the only one that plays perfect at plackback even when the scene has alot of panning it looks good. (except the screen flicker)

It seems like it has to do with the codec. Some don't flicker some do, some play good when panning some don't, some have alot of artifacts and some don't.

I need help!!!

Mark: If I use the Popcorn/iStar meida player can i directly stream from a ethernet Hard Drive Server? Can I see thumbnails of the m2ts files on either system?


No problem streaming from either an attached hard drive or over 100 Mbps wired network connection. With wireless or powerline, your mileage will vary. The playback looks awesome though... every bit as good as if you had connected the camcorder directly to the display.

I think PCs are great for video editing but I'm skeptical about using them to drive the displays in my home theater, even with hardware acceleration. Seems like you would get periodic ticks in the motion due to the video framerate not exactly matching the display framerate. These might not be noticeable to most people but that sort of thing really bothers me.

Sounds like it could be your graphics card. I'm looking into it but others with the same GPU have claimed to have similar problems no matter what program they used for playback. Nvidia has been known to seriously spread the FUD when it comes to the HD decoding capabilities of their GPUs, especially the budget and high-end chips, but it looks like the 8600GT is a better card to use for all around HD video playback. I've seen mid-range GPUs from Nvidia smoke high-end ones from their gaming enthusiast line costing nearly twice as much when it comes to video decoding of HD material. According to what I've been found on the Internet, it would seem that PureVideoHD (as it applies to your GPU) is limited solely to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD playback of AVC/VC-1 encoded discs and not applied to video files which use the lesser PureVideo decoding optimizations.

I have also tried Nvidia 9600 GT and no luck.

Can you see thumbnails fo the videos on the Popcorn machine?

LexInVA: Here are my specs:
q6600 Quad CPU
Nvidia 680i Motherboard
Nvidia 8500GT 1GB Graphics Card ( I use Component out to T.V.
4gb Memory
Vista Media Center


My impression is that the problem is that you are NOT getting hardware acceleration from your video card. Fooling around with Power DVD versions may help. The HW acceleration is crucial to getting smooth playback. (I'm running an old AMD 3200 but get smooth playback with the 8500 and Power DVD when hardware acceleration is on.)

Upgrade to the latest NVIDIA drivers, and keep trying under Power DVD. My media server is an NSLU2 running twonky, and it's definitely possible, as I playback hdr-sr1 clips smoothly all the time. (Although I actually mount a drive from the NSLU2, and don't use streaming.)

I use the Popcorn Hour for my Sony AVCHD files and it works flawlessly!

UX1DUDE,

How do you get around the gaps between AVCHD clips issue on the PCH?

PCH C200 wait between avchd clips looks like about 1/2 sec. see post at WWW dot: networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=28508&pid=257434#pid257434