« previous next »
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?  (Read 1403 times)

  • Offline Mardoni

  • Posts: 2,636
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • On the Sofa, probably ;)
What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
on: June 30, 2009, 13:19:02 PM
Im after building a little HTPC thats capable of playing back 1080p content.

I was wondering whether an AMD 64 CPU would do it ?
Logged
    • Move It Fatboy

  • Offline Rivkid

  • Posts: 3,569
  • Hero Member
Re:What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #1 on: June 30, 2009, 13:59:02 PM
I used to run 720p content on my Athlon XP 3000. Was fine as long as it had all the resources and nothing else was going on. Had to use MPCStar though - WMP and VLAN were too slow.
Logged
Career, Wife, Mortgage... my sig was better when it listed guitars and PC's and stuff!

  • Offline Mardoni

  • Posts: 2,636
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • On the Sofa, probably ;)
What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #2 on: June 30, 2009, 16:34:44 PM
I built a Core2Duo system a while back and that does it all fine but this time the system is for me and the budget is a damn sight tighter; its to go in new house.
Logged

  • Offline Beaker

  • Posts: 3,803
  • Hero Member
Re:What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #3 on: June 30, 2009, 16:56:16 PM
AMD 4400+ Energy efficient (Brisbane or similar power).  
780G Chipset board
2 Gb RAM

That lot should cost around the £120 mark.  Should be able to put something together for  under £200 to be honest.  
Logged

  • Offline Pete

  • Posts: 5,155
  • Hero Member
Re:What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #4 on: June 30, 2009, 18:44:43 PM
Would a dedicated gfx card take the worry away?

http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=610145

I dunno
Logged
I know sh*ts bad right now with all that starving bullsh*t and the dust storms and we are running out of french fries and burrito coverings.
Re:What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #5 on: June 30, 2009, 19:51:39 PM
Quote from: Pete
Would a dedicated gfx card take the worry away?

http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=610145

I dunno

Depends on the content, I expect that for HD/Blueray then the graphics card will (Not sure about the card above), and correctly encoded AVIs also, but some AVIs are not encoded in a way that the chipset recognises.

I have one of the 780G ASUS AMD  boards and havent had any problems, but on some "h.264" AVIs get high CPU usage, others I do not, but nothing that causes any issues in playback.

(ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI 780G, Athlon64 X2 @2.5Ghz, 2GB RAM) - My setup with on-board graphics - rest of setup in sig, very quiet and very happy ;)
Logged
Logged

  • Offline Mardoni

  • Posts: 2,636
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • On the Sofa, probably ;)
What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #7 on: July 01, 2009, 09:43:54 AM
Nice one peeps, thanks :)
Logged

  • Offline Beaker

  • Posts: 3,803
  • Hero Member
Re:What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #8 on: July 01, 2009, 11:20:10 AM
Quote from: Pete
Would a dedicated gfx card take the worry away?

http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=610145

I dunno


The AMD 780 series have on-board hardware decoding for 1080p.
Logged

  • Offline Kunal

  • Posts: 1,086
  • Hero Member
Re:What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #9 on: July 01, 2009, 13:12:28 PM
This is what Im looking at for a bedroom HTPC.

I need it to play/stream HD from my server and from all accounts it can handle it well.

Zotac IonITX

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16893
http://www.silentpcreview.com/zotac-ion



Its an all in one ITX system based upon Nvidias Ion platform. It comes with an onboard 9400, Intel dual core Atom chip (1.6Ghz, although it can easily be overclocked to 2Ghz where its very stable), and pretty much onboard everything. You just need to drop in some ram and a hard drive! It even it includes a power adater :)


http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductID=1012882
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-003-ZT


Im just looking for a nice little case to put it in.
Logged
    • Leons Lost

  • Offline Leon

  • Posts: 3,154
  • Hero Member
  • Bah Humbug!
What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #10 on: July 01, 2009, 15:57:14 PM
On my dads PC (AMD 64 2000 - ATI 9600) .264s wont run happily in VLAN but found that Mplayer within SMPlayer works perfectly. (www.mplayerhq.hu)
Logged
.::. www.leonslost.co.uk .::. Media Server Guide .::.

PC: i5 760 .::.  GA-P55-UD3 .::. 8GB Corsair 'Dominator' DDR3 .::. 1GB EVGA GTX 460 SC .::. Win7 Ultimate  .::. Dell 24" Ultra Sharp
Netbook: HP Mini 311c-1101sa .::. 3GB Ram .::. ION Hack .::. Win7 Ultimate
Server: HP MicroServer .::. 3GB Ram .::. 4x 2TB Storage .::. 512MB nVidia 210 .::. Win7 Ultimate, XBMC 11 (Aeon NOX), Sick Beard & Couch Potato
Phone: SE Xperia Mini Pro .::. MiniCMSandwich Lite (Android ICS Custom) .::. OC @ 1.6Ghz
Tablet: Asus Transformer TF101 w/ Dock .::. EOS JB Nightlies (Android JB Custom) .::. OC @ 1.6Ghz

  • Offline Mardoni

  • Posts: 2,636
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • On the Sofa, probably ;)
What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #11 on: July 01, 2009, 16:51:14 PM
I like the idea of those Ion boards but they are too expensive.
Logged
Re:What would you say is the minimum spec for HD movie playback ?
Reply #12 on: July 08, 2009, 10:58:39 AM
Ions would be ideal, as soon as they get them in Netbooks.
Logged

  • Offline Kunal

  • Posts: 1,086
  • Hero Member
Logged
Pages: [1]
« previous next »

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.