Just what is needed for a DVD upsampling HTPC?

Nazo

Nazo

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I've been trying to work out just what would be needed for a DVD upsampling HTPC. My dad was thinking about doing something like that as he's interested in setting up an HTPC, and DVD upsampling would be a great feature. Yes, there are standalone players that do this (though few do it with component output on copyrighted videos apparently.) The trick is, the kind of things that I'm imagining here would take a bit much. Firstly, the resolution alone is a bit much. The tv is a component HDTV utilizing 1080i, which means resizing to 1920x1080 to avoid any weird video stuff going on. Obviously it'd have to be deinterlaced first, but, as I understand it, the HDTV that doesn't use DVI/HPMI (or whatever those initials were) is interlaced, so it'd then have to reinterlace, right?

Right now my 2.3GHz barton is running in the upper percentiles just resizing to 1440x1080 with no other filters (I was able to turn on other nice stuff when I had it at 2.5, but, it won't do that anymore apparently.) I know it's at least the equivalent of a 3200+ barton, thing is, I'm using ffdshow, and I've just recently run into Celtic_Druid's builds which might just get more out of an Intel or A64 via SSE2 if I understand it correctly (the implication is it does sse1, 2, and 3. No mention of 3dNow1/2.) I've tried it out on my mother's laptop, which is a mere 1.6GHz celeron (ugh, hate celery sticks) and it's doing 1024x768 (the screen's native resolution) lanczos without any skipping using this month's build. I think it's a bit close, but, still, not bad for such a low end system.

I can't compare 1024 with 1440 exactly obviously, but, the implication is that a P4 combined with that build runs more efficiently than a Barton. From what I hear, SS3 may not help much with this sort of thing, so maybe an A64 would benefit just as much. (I know the new Venice cores support SSE3, but, that's getting a bit high in the costs... So I assume SSE2 at the most if he stayed with AMD.) Since I can't really compare the two cases well enough to tell anything, I just don't know. Besides, overclocking is out, so that means no barton is powerful enough probably.

I've also glanced through this information about the new nVidia PureVideo. He'll be getting a GF6200 if he does come up with such a system due to it being the lowest end video card he could find on newegg with component output built in made by a company we'd heard of (XGI had some card using a chip by a company I've never heard of and neither of us is willing to trust.) It looks like PureVideo is explicitely designed for DVD viewing on a PC though. Firstly, it deinterlaces, and, as I understood it, 1080i is interlaced. Since you HAVE to go through WMP and PureVideo, there'd be no option to reinterlace afterwards via ffdshow or whatever. Unless it's handled in the component output hardware or something. Only reason I looked seriously at this is the fact that if it were able to do all that via hardware of such a video card, it'd save him a LOT of money in that he'd only need a processor powerful enough for the other HTPC stuff he'll want to do. I don't think it looks like PureVideo can do what he'd want though, and he isn't fond of the idea of having no choice but to go through their software with nothing else but that working.

Right now I'm thinking it'd need to be a >=3.2GHz P4/3200+ Athlon64 when considering it getting optomizations, which I admit I'm not 100% sure about since I don't have enough to work with for comparing here unfortunately. I've had sort of the impression that video resize filtering tends to be more exponential than linear in the CPU utilization per pixel increase field, so 1024 may just need so much less power that my guess it's getting such power out of SSE2 is mistaken. Plus, I haven't had a chance to try the very latest build (using the one just before this month) on my PC at home yet. The resizing alone takes a huge chunk of power, but, he'll definitely have to deinterlace and I presume reinterlace, plus he'd probably enjoy turning on post processing filters such as denoise and such, so even if my CPU were an indicator, it's still not quite enough. It may be just too cost ineffective, but, I thought I'd try to see if anyone here might have more experience playing around with this sort of thing and might maybe know a little closer what it'd take to get such filtering up and running at such an insanely high resolution.

Oh, and overclocking is out. The system would need to be powerful enough to do it all with stock clocks. That's why I don't even consider something as cheap as my setup ($150 for CPU+MB) since he'd need water cooling and the will to overclock (he isn't fond of the idea) to get it powerful enough probably... (Gets hot in there, and I suspect a barton would need at least to run at 2.5, which I know can get you 1440x1080 lanczos with some basic post processing.)
 
oc'ing 90nm a64 is do-able without much heat

as for upsampling to that res, i can't even do that with a64 3000+ 6800gt without getting 100% cpu, but then again my 6800gt can't play 1080i video :(
 
No ocing on that system. Unless that PureVideo were put to use, it doesn't really matter how powerful the video card is either. That's why I told him to just get the cheapest thing he could find with component out, which happens to be the 6200 (well, that or the non-nvidia/non-ati/not even intel/via/whoever chip I've never heard of, but, he wants assurance of semi-reliable drivers and etc at least, and so far nVidia -- while not the best -- is at least something he can count on.) We're just talking about raw 2D draw speeds having to be tolerable, and so far the only card I've tried that couldn't draw 2D fast enough for high res video playback was an old PCI god-awful rage pro card that I only keep as an emergency backup. 6200 should be sufficient to keep up with that sort of thing.

BTW, I just realized. 1080i on a non-widescreen is 1440x1080 isn't it? I mean, I've been using 1440x1080 for the specific reason that it is exactly 2x DVD (aka 2x 720x480) which comes out for absolutely amazing results since there's a lot less of the algorithm having to blend together results from several pixels, more just doubling (looks absolutely beautiful even though I have a mere ancient CRT.) His TV is definitely physically a 4:3 layout. I don't know enough of how the HDTVs work to know if it might be 1920 squeezed down in that annoying way that TVs just love to screw around with video though. Still, I understand the whole point of HDTV was to get rid of some of the problems associated with standard type of TV handling and just improve quality all around, so I suspect this means that it wouldn't be doing that. Unfortunately, even if my own system had component out (s-video max, which is supposed to mean 720x480,) I can't bring it there to test with anyway.

Still, if this is correct, that means he just needs something enough more powerful than my current system to handle the IVTC and then reinterlacing to maximize quality, hopefully with enough left over for some postprocessing. Factoring in optomizations (which I'm still not sure about, so I'm hoping someone will know for certain if it's really benefitting from those,) a 3200+ A64 might be enough? What about the equivalent in the P4 area? Any cheaper? He likes AMD, but, he would have to at least get a 90nm A64 or it'd be too hot in there at times, so maybe the equivalent P4 is a little cheaper? Truth is, my last experience with the P4 is the original crappy 2.4GHz one that runs barely over chasis temperatures in a roasting hot room and is weaker than my old thunderbird when not factoring in the better optomizations of sse all the way up to 3 on those (and specifically factoring out 3dnow which has potential to even the athlon out more probably.)

Anyone played around a bit more with this sort of thing?
 
Hmm, so it definitely is 1920x1080i even if 4:3? I had my hopes up when I realized 1440x1080 would literally be the 4:3 ratio for 1080. After all, my CPU is able to manage 1440x1080, albiet without doing any deinterlacing or anything (I forgot to make this clear, but, I've been using ffdshow mainly with MPEG4 AVI videos and have only played around with using it with DVDs once -- and at that time my CPU was stable at 2.5...) Benchmarks imply it's doing just a tad better than a 3200+ Barton.

Deinterlacing and all I knew about. Problem with PureVideo is that it doesn't reinterlace. It's designed to be seen on a PC. Since you have no option but to go through their fixed software, there's no way to make it output the video back to a filter. He's going to be outputting to his HDTV via component. There's no way he'd buy a 7800 btw. Heh, for that money, he could get an A64 4000+ and be guaranteed to be able to do it via software. Supposedly PureVideo existed on GF4 (REAL, not mx,) GF6 series and of course the 7 series. This is nvidia's words, not mine, so I don't know why the 5 series isn't even mentioned. I'd figure it would at least have basics the GF4 had, even if the low end ones were considerably worse than the low end gf4 (again, referring to the ti4200, not the gf2--I mean gf4 mx.) ^_^

I know it's not easy to do via software, like that site says. It can be done though. Like I said, I'm doing a full resize to 1440x1080. One thing worth mentioning though. Unlike a hardware designed to upsample input frames, software resize not handled by resizing 60 frames a second like those people implied, it resizes only the frames that actually exist. Which comes down to 23.976 or 29.97 in essentially every case (exceptions are rare, and most of those are less not more.)

Unfortunately, that site really makes very little mention of hardware necessary for such things. Only thing they really talked about hardware-wise was PureVideo on the 7800 GTX. No mention of what the real problem is here, CPU. We won't be looking at HDTV capture for now, he has a TiVo and is pretty happy with it. We might in the future, but, it's definitely not as important as things like getting nice video playbacks and such out of it. Anyway, now that I've thought about it a little more, first and foremost what I need to know is whether 1080i 4:3 TVs are 1920x1080 or 1440x1080 or what. I have a pretty good feel for what sort of hardware is required to get 1440 obviously, but, 1920 is a bit more work obviously, and I'm right on the line with 1440.
 
not sure if it helps you or not, but my htpc is using a P4 3.0ghz (not overclocked, and also undervolted), 512mb ram, 9600xt and I upscale dvd video to 1920x1080i using ffdshow with the following settings:
Dscaler Sharpen @ 100 w/fast memory access
Unsharp Mask @ 22
Gradual DeNoise @33
Resize to 1920x1080i
Lanzcos resampling @ 3
Luma Sharpen @ 2
Chroma Sharpen @ .5


This runs everything smooth as silk.

I also have that plugged into a Sony 53HS10 HDTV monitor via RGBHV inputs (VGA > RGBHV cable). It's a 4:3 TV, but when it's fed a 1920x1080i signal, it automatically switches to 16:9 format and leaves black bars on the top and bottom. I'm still messing with that part though...b/c when I play a widescreen movie (I suppose 16:9 format...haven't looked into it that much yet) the movie also puts it's own set of black bars on the top and bottom, but fills the TV width wise. a little annoying...but the PQ is outstanding.

This is all with Media Portal, Mcafee, MSN Messenger, AnyDVD, and some other windows crap running in the background. I did disable a lot of services that I wouldn't need running on an htpc, and that may have helped.
 
Oh yes, that helps a LOT. You see, I haven't had a system where I could actually test resizing to 1920x1080 resolution. Now I have an idea of what sort of thing is necessary. I'm thinking he'll want a bit more for other filters, so I'm thinking 3200+/3.2GHz sounds good right now.

I figure what ever I come up with for the whole DVD upsampling thing should cover everything else anyway. That video processing takes amazing amounts of sheer raw processing power to manage. I mean, you can watch DVDs with a software player on an extremely low end P3 system, but, simply resizing to 1440x1080 is enough to tax a 2.3GHz Barton. ^_^ According to the articles on that site sergey linked to, they mentioned much more low end processors for capturing, and I'm not even sure he'll want to do capturing since he's fairly happy with his TiVo right now (which does have the one advantage of having it's own seperate receiver so he can record one thing while watching another -- he's using DirectTV, not cable.) Beyond that it's probably just as simple as things like listening to music. He has an external good receiver for sound, so no using an HTPC as a receiver for a 5.1/7.1 setup. Really, more than anything else, he just wanted to get one for some deal having to do with some MS thing already and just the principle of the thing as they are a nice thing to have obviously. When he found out that practically no DVD players can (and by can I mean just simply refuse to) upsample a copyrighted video through component output, he was pretty dissapointed, and the HTPC idea he'd originally had got a little more interesting.

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to just try 1440x1080 resolution and see what happens. Besides, DVDs are 720x480, so multiplying that 720 by 2 2/3 probably doesn't make it THAT much better than multiplying by 2.0. More than anything else at all, it's that vertical resolution that matters. ffdshow can be set to automatically letterbox for you if it detects the input ratio is something other than the output, so it might actually be that a 4:3 ratio TV would benefit more from doing that and making the TV treat even a 16:9 video as 4:3 without messing around with the video than letting it treat a 4:3 as 16:9 on a 4:3. ^_^ *Sigh* In the end, the biggest problems come down to just the simple fact that TVs are blasted WEIRD... I mean, even the name of the standard many of us use (America and Japan that I know of, don't know who else uses NTSC) implies it's weirdness. At least, I've been told that NTSC is short for "Never The Same Color." All I can say is my computer monitors have always just looked so much cleaner and clearer than my TVs in the past. This excludes that god-awful telecine that sometimes can't be fully ivtced so looks bad when watching DVDs on pcs, though thankfully that has improved. (If the video encoders would just utilize the option for the player to do the telecine itself then all our problems would be solved... *sigh* I guess 1/10000000000000000000 players won't do it, so they don't want to risk that those two people will get mad and complain.) I got my hopes up when I first heard of HDTV and how it would be using higher resolutions and such, then I find out it's still mostly analog with rare exceptions that are too expensive for us mere humans right now.
 
a 3ghz cpu should be more than enough to run the newer builds of ffdshow (the newer builds use less cpu than before. I'm using the 3-1-2005 version and I don't think I've seen my cpu go above 60% and I'm using all those filters mentioned above). I've got a 2.8ghz NON-HT P4 at work with single channel ram that can run those same settings just fine.

One thing to remember. If you're upscaling DVD's, you'll need to run AnyDVD or DVDIdle in the background to remove the gay macrovideo copy protection. That crap won't let you play a video at more than 480p. Not sure if it restricts it to component out, DVI, or VGA, but I've got my setup using VGA > RGBHV and I've never had a problem while ANYDVD was in the background.

If you're using no other filters, try a newer build of ffdshow (I can give a link in a while when I get back to my own pc, or you can google "celtic druid" as he has quite a few newer builds). I would think a 2.3ghz barton would be able to resize to 1440x1080 without too much trouble. I had a P4 1.8ghz laptop that would resize to 1920x1080 + sharpen....so I would definately try to checkout a newer version of ffdshow to see if that solves any of your issues.
 
Hmm, I just tried ZoomPlayer on my dad's 3500+ and it didn't seem to be working. It was using less than 100% most of the time, but, certain high speed things were hitting 100% and skipping. I'm wondering if somehow it's better suited to a P4 than an AMD64...

I am using a recent build of ffdshow btw. In fact, it was built just a few days ago, so is newer.
 
a 3500+ should be more than enough for ffdshow upscaling. until I got the p4 up and running, i was using the setup in my sig to play dvd's with ffdshow. I clocked it to 3400+ speeds but otherwise it was stock, and used the same settings as I listed above.

for whatever reason, the only version of ffdshow I can run without it crashing to desktop is 3-1-2005. I'm using TheaterTek, but haven't tried Zoom yet on my htpc. I kind of like TheaterTek's OSD and setup a little better. Last time I tried Zoom, it gave me all sorts of errors when I tried using the Nvidia codecs and whatnot. The only thing I got to work right on it was the free fraunhoffer (sp?) codecs or Sonic filters. everything else gave me "output pin" errors.
 
So ffdshow SHOULD be running better then. Perhaps the fault lies in the codec or something. I'll try some different combinations.

Another thing I need to know. He's planning on running Media Center on the HTPC system. I don't know much about how it works, but, all the pictures make me think I'd best be certain you CAN install stuff like ffdshow on it... Otherwise PureVideo is the best he can do with it when running MCE... Obviously this affects the hardware planning a great deal since it'd be stupid to buy a super-powerful CPU when he may well not even decide to use it for capturing if it's going to be more dependant on the video card.

PS. On the subject of ffdshow builds, the build I'm using was only released on the first of this month, so it's brand new. You might try it. Just search for "celtic_druid ffdshow" (no quotes) in google and you find a mirror right away. You have been making sure to properly uninstall right? I've never had any problem installing new copies over the old ones, but, as a general rule of thumb, the first thing that can mess up when installing new software is when you've installed it over an older copy.
 
yup with a 3500+ you should have no problems running ffdshow. Try to reduce what's running in the background, disabling unnecessary services, run driver cleaner and then install a fresh set of video drivers, etc. When I ran ffdshow on my A64 3200+, I didn't do a fresh install...and it was a bit picky about playing back with all the filters enabled. I did a fresh install with both then p4 2.8 and 3ghz systems and never had a single problem (other than I can't seem to run an updated version of ffdshow :confused: ).

I've uninstalled, re-installed each version...only one that works is 3-1-2005. I think it's probably a Theatertek issue. Haven't tried Zoom yet. Meant to today, but never got the chance. I've even uninstalled ffdshow and then cleaned out any relating registry entries...still no good. Same with the 7-1-2005 build.

As far as MCE is concerned, I've never run MCE. I'm running Media Portal instead. For one, it's free. It also has a decent development base that continually updates it, plus it's very customizeable. I have a copy of MCE, but I've never installed it. AFAIK, Media Portal supports all the hardware that MCE does and more. You can also specify an external player if you don't want to use the built in player. Not to mention you can specify the use of ffdshow postprocessing on the movies, dvd's, and television.
 
nst6563 said:
yup with a 3500+ you should have no problems running ffdshow.
Click to expand...
Running? Just so we're clear, you mean running with resize to 1920x1080 and those other filters, right? Not just simpy using it? ^_^ I presume so, but, I just wanted to be clear.

Anyway, my dad isn't going with MCE just because he thinks it's better or something. He has specific reasons, one of which being a certain deal he gets or something. I can't really convince him of otherwise (besides, he could start out with MCE and change later I suppose.) So I do need to be sure if I can. Anyone in this forum attempted to use MCE in conjunction with 3rd party software?

EDIT: Probably won't make any difference if 07-01-2005 doesn't work, but, I noticed there is a 07-03-2005 too, despite the author's claim that 01 is probably the last build this month. ^_^ Oh well, it probably won't work for you if the others don't, but, I thought I'd mention it.
 
I haven't rad the whole thread yet so please excuse if some of this is repeated.

First don't worry about the video card reinterlacing the signal your TV is the one doing this.
Yes 1920x1080 is 1080i, there is no 4:3 version of 1080i.

Since I see it mentioned you should know that FFDShow doesn't work with MCE (only with stuff like Divx files but not on DVDs), you can use the MyMovies plugin and let it launch something like TheaterTek (which is what I'd use for DVDs and movies).

Even though a P4 runs better with FFDShow I wouldn't recommend one unless it's an old Northwood core, the Prescott generation is a train wreck for an HTPC. Go with an A64 Venice or San Diego and grab a build of FFDShow that is optimized for SSE3.

For 1080i I would go lower then a vanilla 6600, the 6200 supports a limited version of Purevideo and is limited to 720p.

I only use th March 3 2005 version of FFDShow since I've seen people have numerous problems with some of the more recent dubious builds. One of the problems is that they use a hellova lot more CPU.
 
So, basically, the only upsampling I can do is the basic hardware resize, which is probably bilinear if not linear? Without ffdshow, I'm at the mercy of the video card to do all the resizing...

Without ffdshow, the only point in getting a processor that's really fast is for the sake of HDTV captures, which he currently doesn't want.

I realized it not long ago, but, it is true that reinterlacing won't be needed in software. The video output should automatically do that when using component, correct?
 
Nazo said:
So, basically, the only upsampling I can do is the basic hardware resize, which is probably bilinear if not linear? Without ffdshow, I'm at the mercy of the video card to do all the resizing...

Without ffdshow, the only point in getting a processor that's really fast is for the sake of HDTV captures, which he currently doesn't want.

I realized it not long ago, but, it is true that reinterlacing won't be needed in software. The video output should automatically do that when using component, correct?
Click to expand...
Yeah your dependant on the video card to do this (this is why I can never figure out why MCE boxes are sold with gobs of ram and 3+ Ghz CPUs- nearly all Prescotts :rolleyes: - yet have a lowend video card).

If your main goal right now is pretty much just DVDs then I would suggest this:
CrimandEvil said:
What I woiuld do for something like this:
1.) Use TheaterTek as the DVD player
2.) DVD Profiler to catalog your movies
3.) Use XLobby and gut to skin to show only my DVD collection

I'd probably go with Media Portal if I wanted to add a few more features.

Codecs
FFDShow
AC3 Filter (if you need it)
XviD
NV MPEG codec

Thats all.
Click to expand...
 
Ok, but, the video card has to be a 6600 to support 1080i and full PureVideo? I don't know how I missed you saying that before. He was looking originally at the 6200 because as far as we knew it's going to have the same sort of features, just be a considerably weaker card. It doesn't actually need a lot of power, so the 6600 would be a bit wasteful for such a system, but if the 6200 can't do 1080i and full PureVideo, he'll probably want to opt to go with the 6600 anyway. Kind of offsets the difference in cost of CPU probably. Thing is, I was looking at PureVideo with a lesser card and was not impressed. I mean, maybe it gets some 1% of acceleration or something out of a non DXVA card, but, the main thing it needs is a PROPER deinterlace, which is the key selling factor of PureVideo I thought. All of the options produced ugly results when I tried it on this so called geforce 4 (aka the gf2.) When I get home, I'm going to try PureVideo on one of the real supported cards and see the results.
 
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