sam9s
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I am creating this thread, just as a guide to our forum members who would want to know, what configuration and at the least price, will be enough to play most of the video files floating online. There are so many video codes out there. But the most common, today are H.264 and H.265. For audio also, most of us get confused if a particular configuration (Mobo or GPU) will pass through HD Audio (DTS-MA and Dolby True HD)? to the receiver. Lets collate this information here on this thread, as so many FMs have bought and also will purchase HTPCs and Media players. If they can perform small tests via sample files and post their results here, it would be very easy and useful for a potential buyer to refer this thread and order the hardware accordingly, specially in a budget.
What do you people have to say.
I will start with mine. I have 3 PCs that I have used as HTPC at some point or the other. One is NUC DN2820FYKH, other is Gigabyte E350N and my main HTPC is the one that I have the thread opened for. C2D@3Ghz, 4GB RAM and GT440. I will perform and share test results for my this HTPC. All HTPC were/are running openELEC latest version on SSD.
Before we move ahead let me share the demo test files you can download and perform the test and share here. For video files H.265/H,264 testing with and without 10 Bit color and profile from 4.0 to all the up to 6.1 can be downloaded from below link
Jellyfish Bitrate Test Files
You can download movie trailers in DTS-MA and PCM from below
Movie Trailers (HD)
More samples can be downloaded from below..
Samples - Official Kodi Wiki
Dolby TrueHD and ATmos can be downloaded from below
2D Demo Trailers (HD)
SO let continue
HTPC
C2D@3Ghz, 4GB RAM and GT440
Modo : ASUS P5B Delux
Below are my findings on the H.265/256 10 Bit testing.
jellyfish-3-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv PLAYABLE Smoothly
jellyfish-3-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv NOT Playable
jellyfish-10-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv NOT Playable
jellyfish-30-mbps-hd-hevc_4.1.mkv NOT Playable
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv Ofcourse not ,,, but gave it a shot ..
CONCLUSION
So for GT440, I guess the limit to play a H.265 (non 10 BIT) is max 3mbps. Anything above that would not play, (10 Bit anyhow would not play even for 3mbps). This is not surprising since GT440 is GF108 feature set C card that fully and only supports, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 (a.k.a. MPEG-4 ASP), VC-1/WMV9 and H.264. Infact I was surprised the the card played H.265 3mbps ..
, which its not supposed to.
But let see how high bandwidth the card can support as far as H.264 goes. So the experiment continues
jellyfish-30-mbps-hd-h264.mkv PLAYABLE
jellyfish-90-mbps-hd-h264_5.0profile.mkv PLAYABLE
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-h264.mkv PLAYABLE
Jellyfish-120-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mkv NOT Playable
And anything beyond this @ 4K was not playable.
CONCLUSION
So the limit ends the moment we enter the UHD 4K H.264@120mbps. The card was able to play H.264 110mbps 1080p flawless.
As far as Audio goes the card was able to bit stream all HD Audio from all MKVs and ISO files, including and not limited to 3D ISO files. For BD ISO I tested MI:III 22GB ISO. For MKV I tested full AVATAR 3D ISO rip to MKV and also tested AVATAR 3D ISO native format.
This card had no issue playing any of the ISO files.
For potential buyers, GT630 is now the currently rebranded version of GT440.
FMs now I would request, who so ever have media players and HTPCs please, do perform the test via downloading these files and share the results here.
Next very soon I will also test the following and report .
GTX 660 with same C2D, 4GB RAM
NUC DN2820FYKH with openELEC
Gigabyte E350N ::: This might be a bot difficult to test, since my kid is using this as his PC, but will try if I can manage to run tests on it.
Roku 3
Raspberry Pi 2
Finally this is only for MKVs with H.265/264 codes, there are loads of other codes out there like DIVX, XVID, VC-1,VC-3 ...etc etc ...which also I will include in this thread if there is enough interest.
PLease only include PCs that you use as HTPCs, dont include gaming PCs that you use for gaming and occasional Movie viewing. As far as possible include dedicated HTPCs and Media Players.
Turn for other FMs to contribute ,,,,,
Regards
Sammy
What do you people have to say.
I will start with mine. I have 3 PCs that I have used as HTPC at some point or the other. One is NUC DN2820FYKH, other is Gigabyte E350N and my main HTPC is the one that I have the thread opened for. C2D@3Ghz, 4GB RAM and GT440. I will perform and share test results for my this HTPC. All HTPC were/are running openELEC latest version on SSD.
Before we move ahead let me share the demo test files you can download and perform the test and share here. For video files H.265/H,264 testing with and without 10 Bit color and profile from 4.0 to all the up to 6.1 can be downloaded from below link
Jellyfish Bitrate Test Files
You can download movie trailers in DTS-MA and PCM from below
Movie Trailers (HD)
More samples can be downloaded from below..
Samples - Official Kodi Wiki
Dolby TrueHD and ATmos can be downloaded from below
2D Demo Trailers (HD)
SO let continue
HTPC
C2D@3Ghz, 4GB RAM and GT440
Modo : ASUS P5B Delux
Below are my findings on the H.265/256 10 Bit testing.
jellyfish-3-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv PLAYABLE Smoothly
jellyfish-3-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv NOT Playable
jellyfish-10-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv NOT Playable
jellyfish-30-mbps-hd-hevc_4.1.mkv NOT Playable
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv Ofcourse not ,,, but gave it a shot ..
CONCLUSION
So for GT440, I guess the limit to play a H.265 (non 10 BIT) is max 3mbps. Anything above that would not play, (10 Bit anyhow would not play even for 3mbps). This is not surprising since GT440 is GF108 feature set C card that fully and only supports, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 (a.k.a. MPEG-4 ASP), VC-1/WMV9 and H.264. Infact I was surprised the the card played H.265 3mbps ..
, which its not supposed to. But let see how high bandwidth the card can support as far as H.264 goes. So the experiment continues
jellyfish-30-mbps-hd-h264.mkv PLAYABLE
jellyfish-90-mbps-hd-h264_5.0profile.mkv PLAYABLE
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-h264.mkv PLAYABLE
Jellyfish-120-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mkv NOT Playable
And anything beyond this @ 4K was not playable.
CONCLUSION
So the limit ends the moment we enter the UHD 4K H.264@120mbps. The card was able to play H.264 110mbps 1080p flawless.
As far as Audio goes the card was able to bit stream all HD Audio from all MKVs and ISO files, including and not limited to 3D ISO files. For BD ISO I tested MI:III 22GB ISO. For MKV I tested full AVATAR 3D ISO rip to MKV and also tested AVATAR 3D ISO native format.
This card had no issue playing any of the ISO files.
For potential buyers, GT630 is now the currently rebranded version of GT440.
FMs now I would request, who so ever have media players and HTPCs please, do perform the test via downloading these files and share the results here.
Next very soon I will also test the following and report .
GTX 660 with same C2D, 4GB RAM
NUC DN2820FYKH with openELEC
Gigabyte E350N ::: This might be a bot difficult to test, since my kid is using this as his PC, but will try if I can manage to run tests on it.
Roku 3
Raspberry Pi 2
Finally this is only for MKVs with H.265/264 codes, there are loads of other codes out there like DIVX, XVID, VC-1,VC-3 ...etc etc ...which also I will include in this thread if there is enough interest.
PLease only include PCs that you use as HTPCs, dont include gaming PCs that you use for gaming and occasional Movie viewing. As far as possible include dedicated HTPCs and Media Players.
Turn for other FMs to contribute ,,,,,
Regards
Sammy
