anadtech HTPC article - Page 2

This is true. We rent a cable DVR box from Comcast... at a high cost. (Wife likes it)
She has been getting more and more into the HTPC... and knows how to use it. She can change the inputs on the receiver- even set the HDMI audio pass through so she can watch it another room (Denon AVR3312 has dual HDMI that I run to two TV's to avoid paying for another DVR box in that room. )

I think I have her on the idea we could cancel our cable- or get rid of our cable DVR rental box. She can play back on the HTPC (which would have the tuner card) fine now.

But I have also had a TIVO HD for a long time-- (rented cable cards too) that I just got rid of.

It's not that I am not into cable or TV... It's just I think I might want to ditch the box and go only PC now.

this is all totally different than the normal movie centric HTPC.

I started with movies. I had lots of movies I wanted to organize and playback with a slick front end. That is what brought me to this forum and started me out. I was always into PC's and gaming so it was a natural fit for me.

About your XMBC comments- I think most of those XBMC peeps are just torrent downloaders that want to show off what they pirate. At least that accounts for the extra numbers.

Most of the mediacenter/browser community is more into HTPC than the average XBMC person - with relation to TV watching, recording, DVR tuners and probably even legally obtained content.

If you subtracted the "noobs" from the XBMC community the numbers would be about the same of "real enthusiasts" XBMC is free and it is easier to set up- so it has a wider following. But everyone knows WMC is better for DVR and TV. It's only in the newest release XBMC even supported recorded TV.

Agree?? Or not ??

That's it, right there!

Yeah agree, that was the point

PVR is pretty niche (or appropriately referred to as "icing"). I like the niche and I'll keep it as long as possible, plus it saves me quite a bit of subscription costs to TV providers

Targeting noobs with money is a great business model. Fortunately XBMC and makemkv are open source. Enthusiast penny-pinchers aren't a great business model, hence the writing on the wall

Edit: makemkv is free in beta, not opensource

Actually the ATI OCUR has been around since 2006 - http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/06/atis-ocur-worlds-first-cablecard-hdtv-tuner-for-vista-pcs/

Albeit it was only available from OEMs originally. I think I got mine from ebay in 2007 or 2008 when MS allowed non-OEMs to install cable cards.

/Anders

I was mostly thinking of the InfinTV4 and then later the Prime. I actually had forgot about those devices. Being a builder I probably would have never known about them if I had not read about them on avsforum somewhere.

I agree.

I think the natural movement and expansion of HTPC into normal people's lives will be much the same story as mine.

First- It starts with wanting to have a PC hooked up to a TV. Pretty simple with today's technology but when I started out it was not. (remember DVI or VGA ? )

It starts with wanting to view stuff on your PC on your TV. Then you crave a front end to manage it and look cool- adding functionality and easy of use.

Then- you want to stream (netflix, hulu, youtube... whatever)

Then you realize you can watch on your HTPC and attempt to save money by eliminating cable box rentals- or even a cable subscription that gets used less and less.


It's a natural movement. I would say cable boxes and cable companies are in more trouble long term than HTPC's are. Tuners - cables cards or whatever.

It's only natural people will want to watch what they want- when they want it- and also pay a reasonable low price. On demand- streaming- pay per channel- pay per show... instant access. That is the future. It's not DVR boxes or broadcast-ed TV.

I refuse to watch the 5 minutes of commercials every few minutes. It's not fun. I'd rather go another direction. I hate having to fast forward through them even... that is how bad it has gotten even with DVR. I certainly am not going to sit in front of the TV to watch a TV show and be advertised at- at 8pm every whatever day because that's when the cable company wants me to sit there and watch .

Cable and broadcast are doomed if they don't change with what people want. I'd love to pay for 15 channels I watch for additional $15 month. versus $60 a month now for 60 channels (when I watch only 15).
I would love to hit a button and watch what I want to watch- instantly. I'd pay for that.

I think there is some innovation coming in how content is distributed that's going to be game changing- and certainly related to HTPC and what it stands for.

I'd hit a button and buy a movie for $1 that I wanted to see on impulse. I'd be happy to pay. But for some reason I won't get in my car and drive to the REDBOX at the corner and pay that same 1$ or so.. I'm too lazy. And I don't want to have to return it- or suffer some strange menu system-- put a disc in a machine or whatever... It's bad enough that redboxes replaced video rental stores getting rid of the major expense- (people/labor) But now... VOD is going to get rid of those redboxs. You don't need overhead in disc media, electricity, credit card machine transaction fees, or in the machine it's self. Just sell the content right to the consumer and capitalize on impulse purchases- people will pay more or buy more if they get it easy and instant. The margins are better too.


broadcasting- advertising and video disc sales are going to change. Consumers want it to change. It is the broadcasting companies and the record companies and the movie companies that want to desperately hold onto an antique and generally crappy distribution method. The writing is on the wall for all that nonsense.

Screw DVD discs.
Screw live TV
Screw CD's
Screw Bluray discs
Screw commercials
Screw waiting
Screw getting out of my chair to do anything.


You can give people everything they want at the push of a button instantly. And affordable. It will make consumers happy to pay. It will also cut down piracy and increase profits.

Problem is broadcasts companies, Record companies, Movie companies and cable companies are all too stupid to realize it and capitalize. One company like APPLE or Microsoft or Google could replace all four of those industries forever with a really inovative on demand direct to consumer digital distribution process.

When fiber optic is installed in major populated areas allowing for gig speed distribution and full 1080p streaming... it's a certain fact things will change forever.

All that is lacking is the basic infrastructure for that. Even FCC is pushing for it with the giga challenge.

But I still agree the Anand article was a bit biased- it's clear it took the approach of the more XBMC oriented or Torrent downloader angle over the DVR or TV tuner angle.

That's probably a larger population so I understand that. But from the author it was a bit short sighted and complaining about $10 for WMC when dishing out more in other places made no sense.

Real HTPC's are full spectrum theater products- not just PC's connected to TV's. There can be a really broad definition applied to HTPC's though and probably any PC that plays back a movie or steams a TV show could qualify.

Sorry, didn't see this post. For HD content (1080i/p) I've found Cyberlink to use the lowest CPU+GPU resources (at least with ATI video cards). I'll need to rerun tests on my Intel IGP because I can't remember the results offhand.

Even the interlaced content?

More than the decoder, it is the render which is responsible for much of the power consumption.

FWIW, I have found LAV in DXVA2 Native + EVR works best in terms of power consumption. EVR-CP is not at all power efficient. CyberLink uses a slightly modified version of EVR as its renderer if I remember correctly.

In my tests yes. The differences were not huge but they were there.

When I said Cyberlink, I was refering only to the video decoder. All my tests were done with GraphEdit (and variants) and EVR. Filter chains were the same with the exception of the video decoder. Filter graphs were completely rebuilt between tests (simply replacing the video filters yielded unreliable results).

Also, I only monitored CPU/GPU usage and not actual power consumption.

What other players were tested along with the CyberLink Player?

CPU/GPU usage is corollated to power consumption it would seem.

Can you test with nVidia too?

I only tested the Cyberlink DirectShow video decoder, not the player. Testing between players, the results can vary widely: different filters, cpu/gpu overhead due to the UI, etc. I used GraphEdit so I had full control over the filter chain since I was looking for performance differences between just video decoders.
I don't have any NVidia cards to test, sorry.

Okay. Sorry for the mis-directed question. What video decoders did you test?

ArcSoft, Cyberlink, ATI, MS DTV/DVD, LAV and MPC-HC.

It is better as far as load goes and since it is a splitter I suppose the quality isn't a measurable thing because that is going to depend on the render right..

LAV has 3 separate filters: a splitter, an audio decoder and a video decoder. The tests I referenced were only tests of the video decoder. There were multiple tests: recorded QAM, Bluray, etc. Some of the Bluray tests were performed with the LAV splitter. In those tests, the splitter was used with each of the video decoders mentioned. Other Bluray tests were performed with other splitters (again with each of the video decoders). Recorded QAM tests were performed with the File Source (Async) filter and the MS MPEG demux (again with each of the video decoders).

For audio, I pretty much use the LAV audio decoder exclusively in bitstream mode.

Interesting, were they all tested with an ATI card? Any with just integrated? Everything supported HW acceleration? Is windows resource monitor reliable for GPU utilization? Did you compare anything to XBMC? I'm not sure what XBMCs decoders are even called, but there is a build that lets you edit the filter combinations with different splitters or a/v decoders. It was originally an abandoned directshow player for XBMC that was taken over and improved by a new dev http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=DSPlayer

Yes, they were all tested with an ATI 5670 and a 6970 and the video decoders tested were with HWA. Software decoding was not tested. Neither machine had an IGP. I did do some quick tests with an I3-2100 but they were not very thorough and I don't remember the results well enough to post anything. That machine is currently being rebuit so I may test again at some point.

The results of the video decoders should be the same regardless of the player. The player will of course add CPU/GPU overhead but I didn't test specific players to see which performed better. I was only interested in video decoder performance. Player selection is usually based on many things other than CPU/GPU utilization anyway.

For monitoring AMD performance, the AMD System Monitor is a good tool.

Edit: I really need to rerun the tests with the latest versions of the decoders. It's been a while.
Edited by vladd - 1/24/13 at 1:10pm

Vladd,

CPU / GPU usage will vary quite a bit throughout the playback duration, and a record of the power consumption (either at the wall or, a log of the CPU / GPU power from within the PC using CoreTemp or GPU-Z) is the most reliable way to monitor usage efficiency.

Which is why I mentioned that I was not actually monitoring power, only CPU/GPU utilization. Graphs were taken over a specific duration of playback and compared between decoders. Lower average CPU/GPU utilization will typically result in lower power consumption though. Monitoring power consumption at the wall during video playback can be misleading due to background processes that may be running during one test but not another. Using something like Resource Monitor, you can limit the CPU usage monitoring to a single application.