Intel HD 3000 real use PQ same/close to AMD & NVidia?

Q: Intel HD 3000 real use PQ same/close to AMD & NVidia?

A: Yes

between G620 using the on chip graphics and an AMD E-350 APU setup I have....both look exactly the same as far as color, saturation, etc goes (intel HD graphics much better at things like de-interlacing and all so cant compare my 2 machines in those sort of respects) post calibrating with a meter. Default to default before putting a meter to use, I want to say the picture from the intel setup is better looking then the amd, but since they are about the same post calibration, it's probably just a default settings sort of thing rather then any hardware reproduction sort of difference.

Why did you even ask then?

I have used the HD2000 on a 100" and 112" screen. 1080p/720p looks exactly the same on Intel, NVidia and ATI.

Edit: Where did you see these "reports"? The XBMC forums by chance? They are decidedly anti-Intel and I have seen numerous things posted there that are just flat out wrong or incorrect (often by people that admittedly haven't even used the current generation of Intel iGPUs).

Those same reviewers use benchmarking to try to show picture quality which is not "real world".

There are many well respected people at AVS (including but not limited to myself, fitbrit, GreenEyez, idividebyzero, Nevcairiel (developer of LAV), olyteddy, pokekevin, Shark007 (developer of Shark007 codec pack), Somewhatlost, steelman1991, SUBCOB, Tony_Montana, Tulli, vladd, whiteboy714, xfett, etc who have used all three and not seen any difference for 1080p.

By default ATI has all their post-processing crap turn on and Intel and NVidia has theirs off.

The best advice is to try the Intel iGPU first and if you aren't happy for whatever reason add an ATI or NVidia card later. There is very little downside to this approach.

Anyone compare computer video processing with processing by an external video processor? I have a Dell video processor that I'd like to put between my HT computer (with Intel 3000 graphics on an i3), but don't want to take the time to figure out how to do it unless it's worth it.

There are plenty low profile graphics card options for mini itx or m-atx. So they are an option.

Don't use a laptop.

Again, it seems like your mind is already made up in regards to what a certain product will or won't do.

I cannot say AMD and nVidia or Intel gives the same PQ.
nVidia gives the best natural colors, and Intel gives very close results to nVidia while AMD/Ati cannot. Its PQ always seemed to me a water-color picture.

I haven't found any difference between a HD2000 and an AMD HD6570 with one exception: de-interlacing. I found the Intel HD2000 de-interlacing to be poor on 1080i material. I have had no such problems with the AMD HD6570. Obviously my Intel GPU was the 2000, so maybe the 3000 has improved de-interlacing performance, just something to think about.

This thread has raised some questions for me. I was going to post my subjective experiences with nvidia versus intel but the answers to these question may be more useful. Can anyone help?

1) Do people generally use the post processing features of intel/amd/nvidia drivers? (I deliberately leave them off, I want to preserve the original 1080p material - if you are dealing with poor quality material maybe it makes sense).

2) When talking about picture quality does that make sense only in the context of using the native intel/amd/nvidia hardware accelerated/optimized decoder implementations? Or is just effected by post processing?

3) In that case, do most people use the native decoders?

4) What about when using 3rd party decoders and renderers (lav, madvr)? I use the LAV decoder + MadVR renderer and I can't tell the difference between my GTX460 and my HD2K HTPCs.

5) To rephrase, if I'm using the same LAV decoder and MadVR versions, using quicksync and CUDA acceleration on HD2K and GTX460 respectively, won't the resultant output be identical to all extents and purposes.

6) OK finally, if 3rd party decoders and renderers provide excellent performance and probably the best output picture quality - doesn't that make this thread redundant? Or more likely, there is something fundamental about the decode/render process that I have failed to appreciate.

A quote from the anandtech link provided above.

"Blu-rays are usually mastered very carefully. Any video post processing (other than deinterlacing) which needs to be done is handled before burning it in. In this context, we don't think it is a great idea to run the HQV benchmark videos off the disc. Instead, we play the streams after copying them over to the hard disk."

Is it just me, or does this make no sense whatsoever. (It's probably just me).

quality entertainment is not redundant. (I refer to the thread and not anything htpc related)

I dont' get no respect.

By default, NVIDIA leaves everything off. So, that is an out-of-the-box solution for users who turn off post processing features.

Decoding is the same on all GPUs (for a given supported profile). Post processing is what is done after the decoding process to make the video appear 'better' / make it compliant with the output device. For example, most Blu-rays are encoded in 4:2:0 format. However, HDMI doesn't support 4:2:0 (needs 4:2:2 or 4:4:4). Therefore, chroma scaling is something that can't be avoided here. This is one type of 'post processing'.

Choice of decoder is basically only reliant on whether it can connect to the appropriate renderer filter in your desired graph / it supports the profile of the video file you are trying to play back.

madVR + HD2000 may not be reliable in terms of avoiding dropped frames for certain types of content (720p60, for example). As long as the hardware is powerful enough for the file being played back and the configuration of the decoders / renderers is the same, you should not find any difference between GTX460 and HD2000 unless the driver version has some issues with black level or color space or some other driver dependent post processing gets used in the chain.

Yes, as long as the drivers in either Intel or NVIDIA side are not broken with respect to some post processing step in the chain using driver API calls. IIRC, Mathias indicated that some driver post processing could be inadvertently enabled when choosing hardware deinterlacing in recent versions of madVR unless they are explicitly turned off.

This note was meant for PQ testing aspects such as skin tone correction. Also, as a general note, it is content such as TV broadcasts and user recorded camcorder content which need deinterlacing / cadence detection. Blu-rays with interlaced content are few in number. Further, film transfers in most (if not, all) Blu-rays are done without the telecining process. So cadence detection is actually not needed.

I also had this quote in the above piece:

HQV scores need to be taken with a grain of salt. In particular, one must check the tests where the GPU lost out points. In case those tests don't reflect the reader's usage scenario, the handicap can probably be ignored. So, it is essential that the scores for each test be compared, rather than just the total value.

Agreed.

Those scores are pretty meaningless.

I said this when it showed the Llano to be "better" and I will say it again now that it shows Intel to be "better".

Trinity should have the graphics power of these low end graphics cards but in an integrated setup, it might pay to wait

Where have I heard that before?

There are videophiles on AVS that have tried all three.

They don't share your experience or summary.

Denoising is another post processing step that, IMHO, is not really necessary for Blu-ray videos and even most broadcast content. It might be necessary for only camcorder content (and even in that case, most camcorders do plenty of denoising before actually encoding the video). The HQV test clip is an artificial one just to show the denoising algorithms in action.

Deinterlacing in current day GPUs : Different GPU vendors use different algorithms. While AMD's VA used to be very good, it appears that other vendors have caught up. For non-artificial test material, as long as the cadence is detected properly, it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the deinterlaced outputs from the various GPUs. Please look at MissingRemote's reviews where Andrew uses a football testclip. Recently, at AnandTech, we have started using some 480i TV broadcast content with particularly nasty ticker combing artifacts. Using that clip and madVR deinterlacing (which uses the HW deinterlacer in the GPU), I can't visually find any difference when playing it back using GPUs of any of the three vendors.

Also, in the pictures in the discrete HTPC GPU shootout piece, note that different GPU vendors have different default contrast enhancement settings / output levels / RGB or YCbCr output. To discuss things on a equal footing for the average consumer, we left everything at default. It is possible that a reader might like the default config of one of the GPU vendors better, but that doesn't make that output right for everyone

For H.264, deblocking is not optional in the decoder path. Hence, you should be able to get the same output from all the GPU decoders. If you use madVR for scaling, the output will again be the same. EVR / EVR-CP use driver APIs for scaling, so the algorithm used may not be the same. Unfortunately, I don't think you can choose what algorithm gets used in that step for any of the GPUs. I already covered the denoising aspect in the first part of this post.

Quadro 880M is GT2xx part as per this page. Further, it is a professional workstation card, and it is not immediately obvious whether the Quadro drivers have all the video post processing steps enabled in the drivers. GT2xx was never a great HTPC candidate (except for its Linux VDPAU support). So, I believe comparing Quadro 880M and AMD 6450 is like comparing apples and oranges. For 6450 comparison, I suggest using GT430. PQ wise, you will get very similar results.

What sort of further evaluation are you looking for? We will try to address this in future coverage.

cut and paste from your top link

The HQV benchmarking procedure has been heavily promoted by AMD, but it is something NVIDIA says it doesn't optimize for. Considering the fact that there aren't any other standardized options available to evaluate the video post processing capabilities of the GPUs, we feel that HQV benchmarking should be an integral part of the reviews."

This in itself makes this test useless. Video quality is subjective to ones eyes just as the sound is to ones ears. There is no one card that works for everyone. All work and as long as I get good PQ I will stick with discrete in order to save some power, and to make for smaller form factor builds to fit into my entrainment system. Finding benchmarks that one company optimizes for and one doesn't does not make your point.

Thank you jakmal. That was a very useful explanation.

Kind of wish you'd said all that in the article.

Wondered about the Quadro. Don't see people using those for video much. Now I know why.

+1.

I thought it was excellent as well. Agreed that I would love to see this expanded upon in an article.