Core i7, i5 & i3 LGA1156 Processors Thread: Clarkdale Supports HD Audio Bitstreaming!

[mryerse]

Originally Posted by MiBz

This is because you're using DXVA in MPC-HC and they never got DXVA working right on Intel HD IGP's. At least not yet. If you disable DXVA the green (blocking) won't happen.

Better solution as mentioned is to use MS DTV-DVD Video decoder.
in MPC select External filters|Add Filter| select Microsoft DTV-DVD Decoder and set to preffered.
Also add FFDshow filter and set to block.

This should fix it up for you and MS decoder has better PQ as well.

fyi...
With TMT3 DXVA works very well on Intel HD IGP's, so its definitely an issue relating to MPC's DXVA codec implementation for now.

Thank you for this. My son will finally be able to watch Ice Age 3 with his grandpa with sound and good video.

[kevinqian]

Originally Posted by babgvant

The MS Decoder doesn't support VC-1, it can decode AVC and MPEG2 using DXVA2.

IMO the best option for VC-1 split with MPC-HC (or Haali) is the customized Media SDK VC-1 decoder. It only works with VC-1 presented as WVC1, if you use a different splitter that doesn't present WVC1 another decoder will be required.

Where do i save that file and activate again?

also, Clarkdale and G45 does not support VC-1 bitstream decoding. The best it can do is iDCT so it's not much of acceleration anyway.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by kevinqian

Where do i save that file and activate again?

It can be anywhere, open an escalated cmd prompt then regsvr32 the dll.

[MiBz]

Originally Posted by mryerse

Thank you for this. My son will finally be able to watch Ice Age 3 with his grandpa with sound and good video.

There is nothing more important than this

[archibael]

Originally Posted by kevinqian

Where do i save that file and activate again?

also, Clarkdale and G45 does not support VC-1 bitstream decoding. The best it can do is iDCT so it's not much of acceleration anyway.

Um... this is news to me. By spec both should support VC-1, although I concede it may not work with all decoders.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by babgvant

IMO the best option for VC-1 split with MPC-HC (or Haali) is the customized Media SDK VC-1 decoder. It only works with VC-1 presented as WVC1, if you use a different splitter that doesn't present WVC1 another decoder will be required.

Does this work with 64-bit?

*sigh* You'd think Microsoft would include hardware acceleration for VC-1 considering it got its roots from WMV.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by archibael

Um... this is news to me. By spec both should support VC-1, although I concede it may not work with all decoders.

I think kevinqian is confusing pre-2X0 Nvidia HW w/ Intel's.

There's quite a difference b/w a SW (WMV DMO) decoder and what we see with one that supports HWA. About 1/2 down this page, there's a break out by content type of several permutations and the associated CPU load.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Does this work with 64-bit?

*sigh* You'd think Microsoft would include hardware acceleration for VC-1 considering it got its roots from WMV.

The dll is x86, it will work on x64 is the player is x86.

WVC1 (the media subtype that MPC-HC and Haali present, and is handled by this filter) is WMV HD; OOTB it is decoded by the WMV DMO. The weird thing is that there is a property that can be set on the DMO to use DXVA, it just doesn't seem to do anything.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by babgvant

The dll is x86, it will work on x64 is the player is x86.

Thanks. Since I use Windows Media Center (thus no 32-bit version in Windows 7 x64), I guess I'm out of luck. Looks like I'll be installing Windows 7 x86 in my new Core i3 build, too. Thank you for the very informative DH57JG review. It seems the decision to cancel my Zotac H55ITX-A-E order was the right one. I just wish Intel would start including more SATA ports. I've been planning on building a mini-server inside the 4-hot-swap bay Chenbro case, but it's difficult finding a Mini-ITX/DTX board with 6 SATA ports (1x OS, 1x ODD, 4x Data). The Zotac boards look very nice on paper but that seems to end there.

Originally Posted by babgvant

WVC1 (the media subtype that MPC-HC and Haali present, and is handled by this filter) is WMV HD; OOTB it is decoded by the WMV DMO. The weird thing is that there is a property that can be set on the DMO to use DXVA, it just doesn't seem to do anything.

Hmm, yeah, Microsoft really needs to fix that. Wonder if any ION owners have complained about it? The shortcoming wouldn't be noticeable in most mainstream desktops where you've got enough CPU power to handle playback. Unfortunately, the Atom is woefully inadequate for this task.

By the way, I just saw the DH57JG on Newegg ($125+$7 shipping).

[EmDub]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

By the way, I just saw the DH57JG on Newegg ($125+$7 shipping).

Awesome. Who's going to buy the first one to let the rest of us know if it's safe to get into the water?

Michael

[kevinqian]

My understand of the VC-1 bitstream decoding limitation is from DXVA checker. It doesn't seem to return any VC-1 VLD (bitstream/entropy) decoding pipelines. If you check ATI or Nvidia cards, DXVA checker clearly shows VC-1_VLD decoders. Clarkdale only shows VC-1_iDCT.

But even with iDCT only, VC-1 files are simple enough to incur very small cpu cycles. I played back one of those 1080p WMV HD showcase videos using the iDCT decoder and its <10% cpu. If I use software only decoding, its around 20%.

Putting it all in perspective, VC-1 is a cake walk regardless of bitstream/entropy decoding or not.

[tlmaclennan]

Originally Posted by EmDub

Awesome. Who's going to buy the first one to let the rest of us know if it's safe to get into the water?

Michael

I was going to buy it tonight, but will have to wait until my money is returned. I think I fell victim to the Monoprice hacking...someone charged close to $400 to my account!

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by EmDub

Awesome. Who's going to buy the first one to let the rest of us know if it's safe to get into the water?

I'm itching to pull the trigger but I've got $100 worth of Amazon GC I intended to use for this.

[Linuxs]

Hi folks!
I just needed to tell someone (to tell my wife was not really helpful, she did not really understand why I was so happy...) that I managed to make bitstreaming to my Denon 3808 work. Finally! So I would like to sand a big Thank You to all of you on this forum! Tonight I will watch Terminator (BD) with DTS-HD MA and eventhough I might not notice very much difference I will know my system is doing everything it can to make me happy and that is always nice! :-)

Spec:
i3 530 on MSI H55
Denon 3808 (lip sync off and conversion on)
LG 50" plasma (1080p)
Win7 x64
MPC-HC (with its splitter active) set to use ffdshow filter
ffdshow audio is set to pass everything through and the video is set to use DXVA.
In the Win7 Control panel -> Sound I set my only active device (I have disabled all other devices) to 7.1 speakers (eventhough I only have 5.1) and standard audio to 24bit / 96000khz. Strangely enough DTS-HD-MA does not appear in the list of supported stuff.
In the Intel HD control panel I set the refresh rate to 50hz and I have not checked the extended level checker.
I uninstalled MS Security Essentials (dont know if that did any difference, but...)

I have used all the latest drivers and software version I could find 2010-03-10 but I dont remember those right now. If you want more info about my setup and version let me know and I will check it later.

Br Linus

[dbone1026]

Originally Posted by dbone1026

Yeah, been crazy at work so haven't had a chance to mess around with. Will switching to the MS DTV-DVD also work with VC-1, I thought I read issues pages back about issues with VC-1? I will try and report back. Right now the three things i need to fix/investigate:

1 - green block issues, hopefully switching to MS DTV-DVD will fix
2- audio issues, only getting background noise for HD Audio tracks.
3 - mobo related, wake from USB not working

OK, switched to MS DTV-DVD and that fixed the green banding issue. Also, mysteriously the HTPC started waking up from sleep via USB, so looks like #1 and #3 is taken care of. Still need to figure out what is going on with #2 as audio with HD tracks is still screwed up even though I am getting bitstreaming.

Another question for everyone using the core i3/i5 as their GPU, what are your thoughts on the PQ so far? I know Andy (babgvant) commented that he still wasn't happy with the PQ, and without making any tweaks the PQ to me is definitely not as good as with my 5670 HTPCs (using MPC as the player).

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by dbone1026

Another question for everyone using the core i3/i5 as their GPU, what are your thoughts on the PQ so far? I know Andy (babgvant) commented that he still wasn't happy with the PQ, and without making any tweaks the PQ to me is definitely not as good as with my 5670 HTPCs (using MPC as the player).

My comments on PQ were specific to MPC-HC. Once levels are corrected I think PQ is as good as or better (depending on what you're looking at) than the discrete cards I've looked at.

That said, I haven't spent much time with the ATI 5x series so it's possible that it's a big improvement over their 4x (although at least when it comes to DI, I know that isn't the case).

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by kevinqian

My understand of the VC-1 bitstream decoding limitation is from DXVA checker. It doesn't seem to return any VC-1 VLD (bitstream/entropy) decoding pipelines. If you check ATI or Nvidia cards, DXVA checker clearly shows VC-1_VLD decoders. Clarkdale only shows VC-1_iDCT.

But even with iDCT only, VC-1 files are simple enough to incur very small cpu cycles. I played back one of those 1080p WMV HD showcase videos using the iDCT decoder and its <10% cpu. If I use software only decoding, its around 20%.

Putting it all in perspective, VC-1 is a cake walk regardless of bitstream/entropy decoding or not.

Intel used a custom "Clearview" HWA implementation in G45 (and probably w/ Clarkdale) for AVC and VC-1 instead of the methods specified by MS. I think they've changed that with recent MediaSDK builds for AVC, but it's possible that full HWA support for VC-1 remains custom.

If you look at the chart linked earlier VC-1 BD and m2ts playback using the ArcSoft decoder CPU usage is very low (very similar to AVC BD). The numbers are a bit higher for the custom MediaSDK filter (compared to ArcSoft) because, as an easy fix, I disabled pure HWA in the filter.

[Lawguy]

Originally Posted by dbone1026

Another question for everyone using the core i3/i5 as their GPU, what are your thoughts on the PQ so far? I know Andy (babgvant) commented that he still wasn't happy with the PQ, and without making any tweaks the PQ to me is definitely not as good as with my 5670 HTPCs (using MPC as the player).

I have been testing a Radeon 5750 for the last few days and I can't say that it is better or workse than Clarkdale. I know thatthe Radeon has introduced lots of audio issues that I don't experience with Clarkdale - There are cracks and pops and other odd things.

[HaLo6]

I am buying one now! I will provide feedback once I get it! I just cancelled my Zotac order

[kevinqian]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Intel used a custom "Clearview" HWA implementation in G45 (and probably w/ Clarkdale) for AVC and VC-1 instead of the methods specified by MS. I think they've changed that with recent MediaSDK builds for AVC, but it's possible that full HWA support for VC-1 remains custom.

If you look at the chart linked earlier VC-1 BD and m2ts playback using the ArcSoft decoder CPU usage is very low (very similar to AVC BD). The numbers are a bit higher for the custom MediaSDK filter (compared to ArcSoft) because, as an easy fix, I disabled pure HWA in the filter.

I see in the chart that with the MediaSDK and several other filters you get <10%, but are you sure those are using full VLD decoding as opposed to only IDCT decoding? Like I said earlier, with IDCT only decoding activated, I was also getting <10%. Also mirroring your results are the cpu software decoding numbers at around 20%.

Are you saying that MediaSDK and TMT use different HWA implementations?

[dbone1026]

Originally Posted by Lawguy

I have been testing a Radeon 5750 for the last few days and I can't say that it is better or workse than Clarkdale. I know thatthe Radeon has introduced lots of audio issues that I don't experience with Clarkdale - There are cracks and pops and other odd things.

The clarkdale was definitely much easier to set up then the 5xxx since there are no issues with EDID, but audio has been fine for me with the 5xxx. I will see if I can do some more side by side tests to compare PQ (using MPC). I made a few tweaks to MPC with my 5670 HTPC (adding a few shaders are per this guide)

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by kevinqian

I see in the chart that with the MediaSDK and several other filters you get <10%, but are you sure those are using full VLD decoding as opposed to only IDCT decoding? Like I said earlier, with IDCT only decoding activated, I was also getting <10%. Also mirroring your results are the cpu software decoding numbers at around 20%.

The ArcSoft (M2TS) numbers are lower than 10%, and BD VC-1 is very close to what we see with BD AVC (remember it's not possible to hold title constant, so some variance can be explained in bitrate and scene complexity). Also, keep in mind that bit streaming audio isn't free (i.e. look at the MKV w/ FLAC v. those with THD holding video codec constant).

Originally Posted by kevinqian

Are you saying that MediaSDK and TMT use different HWA implementations?

I customized the MediaSDK filter to make it work properly with Haali/MPC-HC splitters (the stock one only works properly with the WMV splitter). One of the things I did was disable full HW decode, so CPU utilization is higher with the customized filter than the stock (which, if memory serves, was in line with the ArcSoft VC-1 filter's #s).

I don't know how the ArcSoft filter works, but I'd guess that it uses more HWA because the usage #s are lower.

[kevinqian]

Thanks for the thorough testing and response. Like I said earlier, it's not a big deal either way, but splitting hair on stuff like this is always fun.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by kevinqian

Thanks for the thorough testing and response. Like I said earlier, it's not a big deal either way, but splitting hair on stuff like this is always fun.

Agreed

When the 1.5 MediaSDK RTMs I would like to revisit the filter and see why it doesn't work in stock form with MPC-HC and Haali, just need to make the time.

[dbone1026]

Just posted a writeup of my Zotac H55/Core i5 build if anyone is interested:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010...ni-itx-htpc-2/

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by dbone1026

Just posted a writeup of my Zotac H55/Core i5 build if anyone is interested:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010...ni-itx-htpc-2/

Very nice. Those Scythe fans could be the cause of the noise, I bought all three in that family and they all made some sort of unacceptable noise (click, whistle, hum). Ended up replacing them with Silentx 80mm; which work really well, but the life span of my last set wasn't great (only ~14 months).

[hellerbrewing]

Ok, i am having a strange issue... I quit using imon and started using eventghost/USB-IRT. I think I have everything working the way I want and then this starts. I come down and hit the mediacenter activity to start using mce on the plasma where the htpc is connected. The pc is not in s3 becaus the lights are on and the upstairs extender is running though when I hit the mediacenter activity, hence sending an open mce command, the screen stays dark. I am assuming this is because the igp is in standby. When I pull out my dinovo mini and start using the mouse it wakes it up. This time I had the event ghost open and I could see that it registered the commands that the harmony had sent but it obviosly didn't cause the system to respond. I hit the guide and mce commands agaon, see them register and still nothing happens. So I minimize the eventghost window, hit the guide button again and this time the system starts responding. I want this to be able to respond right away so the harmony will wake up the igp, not sure why the logitech would but event ghost will not.

[dfn]

I'm planning to build a HTPC, and initially I planned on getting an i3 530. Then, after skimming this thread, it seemed there were many issues, so I decided to add a 5xxx card to it. Now, after posting my build on this forum, and getting some feedback, I'm thinking about ditching the 5xxx card and giving the iGPU/bitstreaming solution a try.

So, are there any problems I need to be aware of before I buy my cpu+mobo? Should I expect to encounter problems or does it pretty much vary from setup to setup? In other words, are there bugs/defects that affect everyone no matter what?

What about PQ? Will it be the same as what I get from my current Blu Ray player (Samsung BDP1600)?
If it matters, my AVR is a Denon 890, and my tv is a Samsung PN63A650.

[Teddyboy]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Very nice. Those Scythe fans could be the cause of the noise, I bought all three in that family and they all made some sort of unacceptable noise (click, whistle, hum). Ended up replacing them with Silentx 80mm; which work really well, but the life span of my last set wasn't great (only ~14 months).

Try using Nexus fans. It's all I use in any of my builds. Very quiet espeically when you run them at 7v or 5v and very high quality.

[Davinleeds]

Originally Posted by Lawguy

I have been testing a Radeon 5750 for the last few days and I can't say that it is better or workse than Clarkdale. I know thatthe Radeon has introduced lots of audio issues that I don't experience with Clarkdale - There are cracks and pops and other odd things.

The biggest difference I find is that the ATI Hdmi driver handles AVR on/off better than the Intel. But the Intel does not have the silent bug.