HD Video Decode Quality and Performance Summer '07
by Derek Wilson on July 23, 2007 5:30 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
While noise reduction can be a good thing, when viewing well mastered and high quality compressed HD video, noise should be kept at a minimum anyway. We've seen our fair share of early HD releases where noise is simply atrocious, however, and we expect that it will take some studios a little time to adjust to the fact that higher resolution movies not only look better, but reveal flaws more readily as well. For now (especially for movies like X-Men 3), noise reduction is highly appreciated. But down the line we hope that studios will put a bit more effort into delivering a polished product.
There are cases where blending effects require a bit of added noise to give scenes a more natural feel. Noise can even be cranked way up by a director to provide an artistic or dated effect. In these cases (which will hopefully be most cases where noise is evident in the future), we want to view HD material as it was delivered. When presented with poor post processing from a studio it is nice to have the ability to make our own decisions on how we want to view the content. These facts make it clear to us that the ability to enable or disable noise reduction is an imperative feature for video processors. While fully adjustable noise reduction might not be as necessary, it is absolutely appreciated and offers those who know what they are doing the highest potential image quality across every case.
Those who choose to stick with very well produced 1080p content may not need post processing noise reduction or deinterlacing, but they might miss out on imported content or HD releases of some TV series (depending on what studios choose to do in that area). For now, we're going to recommend that users interested in HTPC setups stick with the tools that can get the job done best no matter what the source material is. The only options for HD video intensive systems today are the Radeon HD 2600 and GeForce 8600 series cards. For its better handling of noise reduction (and especially the fact that it can be turned off) we recommend the 8600 GT/GTS above the other options in spite of the fact that the 2600 XT provided better CPU offloading.
We have to stress here that, in spite of the fact that NVIDIA and AMD expect the inclusion of video decode hardware on their low end hardware to provide significant value to end users, we absolutely cannot recommend current low end graphics card for use in systems where video decode is important. In our eyes, with the inability to provide a high quality HD experience in all cases, the HD 2400, GeForce 8500, and lower end hardware are all only suitable for use in business class or casual computing systems where neither games nor HD video play a part in the system's purpose.
AMD's UVD does beat out NVIDIA's VP2 in both H.264 and VC-1 decode performance. However, it isn't really enough to make a tangible difference in the viewing of movies. Performance is important, and UVD performance is certainly impressive. But we still have to favor the 8600 for its superior image quality.
VC-1 bitstream decoding doesn't have as large an impact as H.264 bitstream decoding. We would have to drop down to a significantly slower CPU in order for the difference to offer AMD an advantage. In the scenarios we tested, we feel that NVIDIA didn't make a serious blunder in skipping the inclusion of hardware to handle VC-1 bitstreams. At least, they didn't make as serious a blunder as AMD did by not including UVD in their HD 2900 XT.
In the future, we won't "need" H.264 or VC-1 decode on our GPUs either (just as we don't "need" MPEG-2 acceleration for current CPUs), but we don't see this as a valid excuse not to provide a full range of functionality for end users. And need is a relative term at best. We can do good realtime 3D on CPUs these days, but we don't see graphics card companies saying "this card will be paired with a high end CPU so we decided not to implement [insert key 3D feature] in hardware." We want to see AMD and NVIDIA include across the board support for video features in future product lineups. Saving CPU cycles isn't an exclusive desire of owners of low end hardware, and when we buy higher end hardware we expect higher performance.
While noise reduction can be a good thing, when viewing well mastered and high quality compressed HD video, noise should be kept at a minimum anyway. We've seen our fair share of early HD releases where noise is simply atrocious, however, and we expect that it will take some studios a little time to adjust to the fact that higher resolution movies not only look better, but reveal flaws more readily as well. For now (especially for movies like X-Men 3), noise reduction is highly appreciated. But down the line we hope that studios will put a bit more effort into delivering a polished product.
There are cases where blending effects require a bit of added noise to give scenes a more natural feel. Noise can even be cranked way up by a director to provide an artistic or dated effect. In these cases (which will hopefully be most cases where noise is evident in the future), we want to view HD material as it was delivered. When presented with poor post processing from a studio it is nice to have the ability to make our own decisions on how we want to view the content. These facts make it clear to us that the ability to enable or disable noise reduction is an imperative feature for video processors. While fully adjustable noise reduction might not be as necessary, it is absolutely appreciated and offers those who know what they are doing the highest potential image quality across every case.
Those who choose to stick with very well produced 1080p content may not need post processing noise reduction or deinterlacing, but they might miss out on imported content or HD releases of some TV series (depending on what studios choose to do in that area). For now, we're going to recommend that users interested in HTPC setups stick with the tools that can get the job done best no matter what the source material is. The only options for HD video intensive systems today are the Radeon HD 2600 and GeForce 8600 series cards. For its better handling of noise reduction (and especially the fact that it can be turned off) we recommend the 8600 GT/GTS above the other options in spite of the fact that the 2600 XT provided better CPU offloading.
We have to stress here that, in spite of the fact that NVIDIA and AMD expect the inclusion of video decode hardware on their low end hardware to provide significant value to end users, we absolutely cannot recommend current low end graphics card for use in systems where video decode is important. In our eyes, with the inability to provide a high quality HD experience in all cases, the HD 2400, GeForce 8500, and lower end hardware are all only suitable for use in business class or casual computing systems where neither games nor HD video play a part in the system's purpose.
AMD's UVD does beat out NVIDIA's VP2 in both H.264 and VC-1 decode performance. However, it isn't really enough to make a tangible difference in the viewing of movies. Performance is important, and UVD performance is certainly impressive. But we still have to favor the 8600 for its superior image quality.
VC-1 bitstream decoding doesn't have as large an impact as H.264 bitstream decoding. We would have to drop down to a significantly slower CPU in order for the difference to offer AMD an advantage. In the scenarios we tested, we feel that NVIDIA didn't make a serious blunder in skipping the inclusion of hardware to handle VC-1 bitstreams. At least, they didn't make as serious a blunder as AMD did by not including UVD in their HD 2900 XT.
In the future, we won't "need" H.264 or VC-1 decode on our GPUs either (just as we don't "need" MPEG-2 acceleration for current CPUs), but we don't see this as a valid excuse not to provide a full range of functionality for end users. And need is a relative term at best. We can do good realtime 3D on CPUs these days, but we don't see graphics card companies saying "this card will be paired with a high end CPU so we decided not to implement [insert key 3D feature] in hardware." We want to see AMD and NVIDIA include across the board support for video features in future product lineups. Saving CPU cycles isn't an exclusive desire of owners of low end hardware, and when we buy higher end hardware we expect higher performance.
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Wozza - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
"As TV shows transition to HD, we will likely see 1080i as the choice format due to the fact that this is the format in which most HDTV channels are broadcast (over-the-air and otherwise), 720p being the other option."I would like to point out that 1080i has become a popular broadcast standard because of it's lower broadcast bandwidth requirements. TV shows are generally mastered on 1080p, then 1080i dubs are pulled from those masters and delivered to broadcasters (although some networks still don't work with HD at all, MTV for instance who take all deliveries on Digital Beta Cam). Pretty much the only people shooting and mastering in 1080i are live sports, some talk shows, reality TV and the evening news.
Probably 90% of TV and film related blu-rays will be 1080p.
redpriest_ - Monday, July 23, 2007 - link
Hint: They didn't. What anandtech isn't telling you is that NO nvidia card supports HDCP over dual-DVI, so yeah, you know that hot and fancy 30" LCD with gorgeous 2560x1600 res? You need to drop it down to 1280x800 to get it to work with an nvidia solution.This is a very significant problem, and I for one applaud ATI for including HDCP over dual-DVI.
DigitalFreak - Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - link
Pwnd!defter - Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - link
You are wrong.Check Anand's 8600 review, they clearly state that 8600/8500 cards support HDCP over dual-DVI.
DigitalFreak - Monday, July 23, 2007 - link
http://guru3d.com/article/Videocards/443/5/">http://guru3d.com/article/Videocards/443/5/http://guru3d.com/article/Videocards/443/5/Chadder007 - Monday, July 23, 2007 - link
I see the ATI cards lower CPU usage, but how is the power readings when the GPU is being used compared to the CPU??chris92314 - Monday, July 23, 2007 - link
Does the HD video acceleration work with other programs, and with non blueray/hddvd sources? For example if I wanted to watch a h.264 encoded .mkv file would I still see the performance and image enhancements.GPett - Monday, July 23, 2007 - link
Well, what annoys me is that there used to be all-in-wonder video cards for this kinda stuff. I do not mind a product line that has TV tuners and HD playback codecs, but not at the expense of 3d performance.It is a mistake for ATI and Nvidia to try to include this stuff on all video cards. The current 2XXX and 8XXX generation of video cards might not been as pathetic had the two GPU giants focused on actually making a GPU good instead of adding features that not everyone wants.
I am sure lots of people watch movies on their computer. I do not. I don't want a GPU with those features. I want a GPU that is good at playing games.
autoboy - Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - link
All in wonder cards are a totally different beast. The all in wonder card was simply a combination of a TV tuner card (and a rather poor one) and a normal graphics chip. The TV tuner simply records TV and has nothing to do with playback. ATI no longer sells All in wonder cards because the TV tuner card did not go obsolete quickly, while the graphics core in the AIW card went obsolete quickly, requiring the buyer to buy another expensive AIW card when only the graphics part was obsolete. A separate tuner card made so much more sense.Playback of video is a totally different thing and the AIW cards performed exactly the same as regular video cards based on the same chip. At the time, playing video on the PC was more rare and the video playback of all cards was essentially the same because no cards offered hardware deinterlacing on their video cards. Now, video on the PC is abundant and is the new Killer App (besides graphics) which drives PC performance, storage, and internet speed. Nvidia was first to the party offering Purevideo support, which did hardware deinterlacing for DVDs and SD TV on the video card instead of in software. It was far superior to any software solution at the time (save a few diehard fans of Dscaler with IVTC) and came out at exactly the right time, with the introduction of media center and cheap TV tuner cards and HD video. Now, Purevideo 2 and AVIVO HD introduce the same high quality deinterlacing to HD video for mpeg2 (7600GT and up could do HD mpeg2 deinterlacing) as well as VC-1 and H.264 content. If you don't think this is important, remember that all new satelite HD broadcasts coming online are in 1080i h264, requiring deinterlacing to look its best, and new products are coming and exist already if you are willing to work for it, that allow you to record this content on your computer. Also, new TV series are likely to be released in 1080i on HD discs because that is their most common broadcast format. If you don't need this fine, but they sell a lot of cards to people who do.
autoboy - Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - link
Oh, I forgot to mention that only the video decode acceleration requires extra transistors, the deinterlacing calculations are done on the programable shaders of the cards requiring no additional hardware, just extra code in the drivers to work. The faster the video card, the better your deinterlacing, which explains why the 2400 and the 8500 cannot get perfect scores on the HQV tests. You can verify this on HD 2X00 cards by watching the GPU% in Riva Tuner while forcing different adaptive deinterlacing in CCC. This only works in XP btw.