Requirements for 720/1080 playback?

[Dummeh]

Hi, I was wondering what requirements for playing 720/1080 videos on computer is as in, what speed cpu/size gfx is needed to playback flawlessly.

Intended OS would be 64bit Windows XP Pro, with 2-4gb ram

Any help appreciated.

 

[Rishwin]

I have never seen any computer, however bad it was, lag on playing media. It pretty much relies on the GFX card and monitor for media playback, however i think as long as the card meets the resolution requirements on the monitor (and if the monitor has HD), it should be fine... Still i'd recommend probably a 4670 or 4830, but as i said i'm not too familiar with having requirements for media playback.

why the question, are you currently having problems with it or just asking? If you are just asking, why don't you just give it a try with what you have now, if it doesn't look as well as it should post your specs and we'll see what needs to eb upgraded.

 

[Dummeh]

Currently still on my 12 year old ancient thing playing 720 Anime the subs dont show and if video does show its either choppy or 5 minutes behind the audio.

I have a 1.6ghz Athlon XP 1gb ram, 128mb gfx and am looking at getting new pc due to a failing IDE hdd So I decided its about time I upgrade and am looking at getting 2.8ghz dual core am2 4gb ram and a mobo with onboard 256 (don't know if this would be sufficient tho)

My Desktop resolution is 1280x1024 and the video resolution is 1280x720

My friends pc is a 2.8ghz intel 512 ram and 128mb gfx and can just run the same videos which leads me to think I'd need a stronger cpu? his resolutions 1024x768

Hope that helps?

 

[TheAJ]

My friends pc is a 2.8ghz intel 512 ram and 128mb gfx and can just run the same videos which leads me to think I'd need a stronger cpu? his resolutions 1024x768

In your case no, it usually depends on the GPU. if you plan to watch bluray, then you might need a stronger cpu to decode faster so it doesn't chop up, but usually if you have a GFX card (not onboard, a slot card) then it would offload all the CPU stress of decoding things from the cpu, so you can do other things and it won't interfere etc.

And yeah as Rishwin suggested, if you going to be working on alot of media, and want a cheap non-power sucking card, get a 46xx series from ati radeon, awesome decoding

 

[Dummeh]

Ok thanks for that, Ill look into a gfx card along that series line then

 

[yjlasher22]

if you need to, try to get avi. sure they are low quality, but the subs are embedded in the video. so no matter how lag you are, the subs will not lag. as for hd playback, im pretty sure most mainstream coms will play the videos seamlessly. i have an amd turion 2 ghz 1mb L2 cache and 2 gb of ram and i played hd simpsons (.mkv) without much lag except for a slight rendering issue when there was really, really complex screens. so, i guess your good. oh yeah, try using media player classic too. its much lighter on system resources.

 

[NoPeace]

I have never seen any computer, however bad it was, lag on playing media. It pretty much relies on the GFX card and monitor for media playback, however i think as long as the card meets the resolution requirements on the monitor (and if the monitor has HD), it should be fine... Still i'd recommend probably a 4670 or 4830, but as i said i'm not too familiar with having requirements for media playback.

why the question, are you currently having problems with it or just asking? If you are just asking, why don't you just give it a try with what you have now, if it doesn't look as well as it should post your specs and we'll see what needs to eb upgraded.

If it's SD and lower media then the statement of no lag will be true for computers post P3.

Also, 90% of the time the GFX card does not play a role in video playback. It's usually the CPU that does the video decoding for play back. Both AMD and nVidia cards do come with video decoding options but they are not usually present. AMD's solution is free but you must install the support patch for it and enable it in the drivers while the nVidia solution is you must buy their software called PureVideo to do it.

Anyways if you want to play 720p video then you need at least a 2.4 ghz AMD or a 3.4ghz P4 or better. That is a minimum with 2gb of RAM. For 1080p then you need at least a Core 2 Duo or AMD equivalent to do. It is recommended to have a 2.0ghz Core 2 Duo or AMD equivalent for any HD playback. Furthermore you should have a video card capable of displaying the resolution. Most midrange cards in the last 3 years have no problem doing this.

NoPeace - out

 

[GohanSSJ]

It depends on the format and all, i got 720p DivX videos running without any problems on my mini laptop (1.6 gig Atom processor with 512mb ram) using my TV (so it really does use the full resolution), whereas mkv files don't run that well.

On this laptop both run fine, but 1080i/p's are a huge hassle, i'm guessing it has to do with the resolution of my screen (1280x800)

 

[Dummeh]

@ yjlasher22, I do use MPC to play my videos

I've decided to buy new parts

Motherboard: Asus M2N68-CM AM2 was going for a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP but no stock
CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 5000 2.6ghz dualcore
Ram: OCZ System Elite XTC, DDR2 PC2-6400 CL5 2GB 2x1GB Dual Channel Kit
HDD: WD 640gb Caviar SATA II 16mb

And will look at getting a graphics card at a later date (student budget & need to pay board )

This should suit me for what I want? and is a 400w PSU sufficient enough to power this? am looking at purchasing the items this week

##EDIT

Will be getting these parts minus the HDD tomorrow, and the HDD on thursday

 

[NoPeace]

It depends on the format and all, i got 720p DivX videos running without any problems on my mini laptop (1.6 gig Atom processor with 512mb ram) using my TV (so it really does use the full resolution), whereas mkv files don't run that well.

On this laptop both run fine, but 1080i/p's are a huge hassle, i'm guessing it has to do with the resolution of my screen (1280x800)

The term format really isn't the proper word. It's more on the lines of the compression method used. DivX videos are compressed and they need less power to process. mkv files, like MP4 files, are containers. They actually store multiple files and often they use raw uncompressed video. That is why they have a harder time to play back.

Well you need at least a 1920x1080 resolution to do 1080p. There is no such thing as 1080i on computers as it's all progressive scan to begin with. Even the, 1080p video processing does take a lot of head room. You really do need a decent dual core with a good amount of RAM to do it. Especially if you are using H.264 video files as which most of them are.

NoPeace - out

 

[Robert]

My pretty crap laptop is always in 1680x1050. I think you're going a tad ott with the needed spec. 1GB ram should be enough, and a decent P4. Video playback isn't nearly as processor hungry as games and video editing stuff. All it's doing is taking the data and decoding it into something the graphics card can use. 2GB is almost enough to load the entire thing into RAM+pagefile 0o totally unnecessary.

 

[GohanSSJ]

There is no such thing as 1080i on computers as it's all progressive scan to begin with.

Unless you got a TV receiver in your PC, in which you can receive 1080i videos (atleast in some countries), at which point your PC has to handle a interlaced signal.

 

[AnDy]

Hi, I was wondering what requirements for playing 720/1080 videos on computer is as in, what speed cpu/size gfx is needed to playback flawlessly.

Intended OS would be 64bit Windows XP Pro, with 2-4gb ram

Any help appreciated.

for a 1080p h264 encode, which is the best, you generally need a dualcore processor...thats about it, a decent gcard only helps if your using hardware acceleration, and the only decoder of H264 that supports that is CoreAVC...which supports nvidia cuda, and it must be a Matroska format (.mkv) or Mp4

and a a divx file at 1080p is so ridiculous really, the bitrate must be really low to keep the size down...ancient encode