Some questions about the hardware decoding feature

Looky

Newbie Joined: Apr 14, 2010 08:33 Messages: 29 Offline

Solved by

Apr 19, 2010 16:33

Hi guys,

reading other posts in this forum I got this idea about maybe getting some considerable power boost for real-time by just changing the video card.

With my NVidia GeForce 8500 GT video card I'm able to switch on the CUDA acceleration feature, but the hardware decoding feature which came with build 2508 is greyed out.
I have the latest GPU driver and PD 8 build installed.

My questions are:

1) Could it be an intended program behavior that with some NVidia cards CUDA acceleration can be switched on but hardware decoding can't? Did anybody get the same experience?

2) Does hardware decoding affect/ speed up the preview from the time line?

3) In previous posts I read that hardware decoding had some negative influence on the production (rendering) results. Is that still an issue?

4) Which fanless NVidia or ATI video card (up to USD 200) would you recommend for a hardware upgrade in my particular case?

Currently I'm able to watch AVCHD clips from the time line without stuttering. Only when I apply certain effects or power tools, my system shows its limits.
Rendering time is not an issue for me, but a little boost during work with the time line would be great.

Any advices?

Cheers,
Tom PC: Intel Core2Duo E8600 2,66 GHz, 4 GB RAM
OS: Windows XP SP2
GPU: NVidia GeForce 8500 with 512 MB Video RAM
PowerDirector Version 8 build 3022
Cam: Panasonic HDC-SD100

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Apr 19, 2010 17:51

Hi Tom -

This benchmark chart http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=GeForce+8500 would suggest that your GPU is doing pretty well playing AVCHD without stuttering!

It also suggests that you're right to be considering upgrading.

My understanding is that ATI cards accelerate Mpeg2 AND AVCHD encoding. Nvidia only accelerates AVCHD output.

Cheers - Tony
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James W

Senior Contributor Location: Lakeland, FL USA Joined: Aug 18, 2008 10:36 Messages: 911 Offline

Apr 20, 2010 08:05

Just for reference I have a 9500GT and video acceleration is active. I get about a 50% drop in CPU usage when playing a 1920x1080i 24 Mb/s AVCHD file. This also allow me to use more PiP tracks without stuttering. My recommendation at this point would be an ATI card in the 5000 series if you are willing to spend that much anyways. Just don't get one of the lower end 5000 series cards since that is more for playing HD video on a home theator PC, not for editing video. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT