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mcoto · 2010-01-12, 15:31

So I got a revo 1600 (with the broadcom crystal HD installed). I've pretty much got everything running the way I want but I still get ocasional stutter with BD playback (I'm playing either the disks themselves or mounted .ISO's)

I'm pretty sure its my stupid bloated ARCSOFT total media theater 3 (TMT3) software which uses 60-100% of my cpu. I've enabled the hardware acceleration option which helped a lot but its still not quite the way I'd like it.

I've read around the forums and people have good luck with older PowerDVD and arcsoft software.

Does anybody have a good (and preferably cheap. Big Grin

) alternative software for playing bluray disks. If not does anyone know a reliable way for me to get my hands on an older version of TMT or powerdvd with bluray support and (at least) 5.1 channel sound.

Suge_K · 2010-01-12, 16:27

Buy a PCH-C200 Smile

Im kidding, I have one and BD iso playback is great on it

....but im about to pull the trigger on a Revo so have the same question as you really....want to play BD iso files and BDMV...

What would I need to install along with xbmc to get these working properly?

S

dtviewer · 2010-01-12, 17:03

This should help:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost....tcount=900

mcoto · 2010-01-12, 20:38

dtviewer Wrote:This should help:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost....tcount=900

Ironically, I wrote that post. Everything worked fine but as I tested out more and more files I ran into a couple that had the stuttering problem and I'm pretty sure its CPU usage as it stutters when the processor hits 100%.

If I can find something that uses either my broadcom or the ion better I'm sure it would run perfect (right now I'm 95% there). I might try and get an extra GB of ram since I'm using a lot of the PF right now.

I know it can be done because I can play the m2s file from the offending blu-ray using XBMC and it runs perfect and cpu usage is max60% but I loose chapter skip etc.

SugeK- what are you trying to accomplish? If its xbmc for the gui with playback of all file types it can pretty much be done on the revo 1600. If you want to use flash players for HuLu etc than you may want to look elsewhere or wait as the nvidia drivers aren't there yet.

M

Scott R · 2010-01-13, 04:45

You can play mounted Blu-ray .iso files with MPC-HC, but it probably doesn't support menus and I'm not sure what it does with DTS-HD audio.

mcoto · 2010-01-13, 13:16

AFAIK MPC-hc does not support the menus. With the broadcom XBMC can natively play mounted blu ray stream files, but you have to guess which is the movie file and you lose the menus/chapter etc

M

Suge_K · 2010-01-13, 15:54

mcoto Wrote:SugeK- what are you trying to accomplish? If its xbmc for the gui with playback of all file types it can pretty much be done on the revo 1600. If you want to use flash players for HuLu etc than you may want to look elsewhere or wait as the nvidia drivers aren't there yet.
M

Thanks - im really just after the media playback - I wouldnt use Hulu or anything like that i dont think...maybe some web service and emulators but they are all 'nice to haves'

Even without my BD iso and BDMVs I have some pretty big files - mainly mkvs of about 15gb but some huge m2ts files at circa 45gb - I just figured the more ram and faster chip would help play these better and future proof me - im happy to pay the extra £100 for the privelege...

I figure i will just get another mkv copy of all blurays in iso format - the PCH can point at the iso files and xbmc can just point to the mkv versions....as long as mkvs and m2ts files will play ok i think im happy....do you think i'll be alright with this? i.e. Big mkvs and 40gb m2ts files on a top spec revo?

S

mcoto · 2010-01-13, 17:46

Suge_K Wrote:Thanks - im really just after the media playback - I wouldnt use Hulu or anything like that i dont think...maybe some web service and emulators but they are all 'nice to haves'

Even without my BD iso and BDMVs I have some pretty big files - mainly mkvs of about 15gb but some huge m2ts files at circa 45gb - I just figured the more ram and faster chip would help play these better and future proof me - im happy to pay the extra £100 for the privelege...

I figure i will just get another mkv copy of all blurays in iso format - the PCH can point at the iso files and xbmc can just point to the mkv versions....as long as mkvs and m2ts files will play ok i think im happy....do you think i'll be alright with this? i.e. Big mkvs and 40gb m2ts files on a top spec revo?

S

The 1600 with the broadcom (which is a pci-e hardware adapter which is $20 ) will play the mkv and m2s files using the built in XBMC player fine. I have played many mkv's without any problem other than it takes 5-10sec to ramp up to full speed. The cpu usage is 25-35% and has never come close to topping 75%.

Right now I get fairly reliable playback of blue-ray (and hddvd) .iso files about 85% of my iso files play back perfect. Full menu system, chapters, true hd sound the works. The other 15% give an occasional <1sec stutter/flicker

That being said if I could spare the coin I'd probably get the dual core (3610). That may obviate the need for the broadcom and I'm sure the extra processor overhead would take care of the bluray stuttering and you'd get the added advantage of things loading a little faster (it takes about 60-90 sec to mount the .iso and start the playback software. on my quadcore desktop rig this takes about 5-10 sec).

It may be the 1600 just needs a little extra ram (I'm using a lot of the page file and with 2gb I could double my video cache). I'll probably get another gig, but if your getting ram and a broadcom HD card your half way to the 3610 which already has 2gb ram.

M

dan1son · 2010-01-13, 21:27

Why exactly are you running the Broadcom card in the Revo? It has the NVidia ION LE chipset and is fully capable (more capable actually since it doesn't have the 10ref frame limit on 1080p) of playing back whatever without the broadcom card.

I also have an ATV with the broadcom card so I'm familiar with it's capabilities as well.

XBMC on Linux (Ubuntu 9.10) on my Revo R1600 plays blu-ray rips wonderfully. The Broadcom card on my ATV with Linux (Ubuntu 9.10) also plays the same blu-ray rips.

The Broadcom card won't help your ION box in any meaningful way that I can see. The Broadcom playback will likely use MORE CPU than using DXVA or VDPAU since it has to load the images back across the pci-e bus to get it back out to the video card.

dtviewer · 2010-01-13, 23:00

dan1son Wrote:Why exactly are you running the Broadcom card in the Revo? It has the NVidia ION LE chipset and is fully capable (more capable actually since it doesn't have the 10ref frame limit on 1080p) of playing back whatever without the broadcom card.

I also have an ATV with the broadcom card so I'm familiar with it's capabilities as well.

XBMC on Linux (Ubuntu 9.10) on my Revo R1600 plays blu-ray rips wonderfully. The Broadcom card on my ATV with Linux (Ubuntu 9.10) also plays the same blu-ray rips.

The Broadcom card won't help your ION box in any meaningful way that I can see. The Broadcom playback will likely use MORE CPU than using DXVA or VDPAU since it has to load the images back across the pci-e bus to get it back out to the video card.

He's using the broadcom in his Revo because he is using xbmc for Windows, NOT xbmc Linux or Live, both of which use vdpau. Also, dxva is not fully working yet in xbmc.
So the Broadcom card with the GL versions of XBMC is possibly the best way to get GPU acceleration with xbmc for windows at this time.

BTW, the Revo IS NOT capable of playing 1080p video on its own, without some sort of GPU acceleration.

mcoto · 2010-01-13, 23:04

dan1son Wrote:Why exactly are you running the Broadcom card in the Revo? It has the NVidia ION LE chipset and is fully capable (more capable actually since it doesn't have the 10ref frame limit on 1080p) of playing back whatever without the broadcom card.

I also have an ATV with the broadcom card so I'm familiar with it's capabilities as well.

XBMC on Linux (Ubuntu 9.10) on my Revo R1600 plays blu-ray rips wonderfully. The Broadcom card on my ATV with Linux (Ubuntu 9.10) also plays the same blu-ray rips.

The Broadcom card won't help your ION box in any meaningful way that I can see. The Broadcom playback will likely use MORE CPU than using DXVA or VDPAU since it has to load the images back across the pci-e bus to get it back out to the video card.

I'm using broadcom because I'm in the windows environment (hence the windows forum) and the windows port does not have the ion hardware (VDPAU) acceleration capabilities that the linux port does. I would switch to the linux port BUT.. my understanding is that it can't play blu-rays ripped as .iso (which preserves all the special features, menu structures, audio streams and chapters).

dan1son · 2010-01-14, 01:53

mcoto Wrote:I'm using broadcom because I'm in the windows environment (hence the windows forum) and the windows port does not have the ion hardware (VDPAU) acceleration capabilities that the linux port does. I would switch to the linux port BUT.. my understanding is that it can't play blu-rays ripped as .iso (which preserves all the special features, menu structures, audio streams and chapters).

Oh... A Windows forum, who knew.

Sorry... I guess I found it hard to understand why someone would want to run XBMC in Windows. Smile

It's so perfect with VDPAU in Linux.

mcoto · 2010-01-14, 06:00

dan1son Wrote:Oh... A Windows forum, who knew.

Sorry... I guess I found it hard to understand why someone would want to run XBMC in Windows. It's so perfect with VDPAU in Linux.

That was actually my original intent until I found out linux doesn't have any blu-ray software which will preserve the menus special features etc (like the dvd iso's). With anydvdhd going from disk to .iso is literally 2 clicks. so i don't have to deal with transcoding etc. I just need to figure out how to play them

Scott R · 2010-01-15, 05:31

Just out of curiosity, if you rip a Blu-ray as an .ISO with menus/extras/etc., and then mount it and try to play it with MPC-HC, what happens? Will it play the main movie file or will it not know how to play it at all due to the extra menu info being present?

mcoto · 2010-01-15, 21:05

Scott R Wrote:Just out of curiosity, if you rip a Blu-ray as an .ISO with menus/extras/etc., and then mount it and try to play it with MPC-HC, what happens? Will it play the main movie file or will it not know how to play it at all due to the extra menu info being present?

Well I gave this a try. It played one of the two .iso I mounted fine (except no chapters etc). The other it didn't do anything