CES 2006 - Day 2: Blu-ray/HD-DVD, PureVideo H.264, Viiv, Centrino Duo and a lot more
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Manveer Wasson on January 7, 2006 3:07 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
PureVideo to offer H.264 Decode Acceleration
Ever since ATI first demonstrated that their R520 GPU (Radeon X1000 series) could accelerate H.264 decoding NVIDIA had always claimed that they could do it as well. We had been asking for proof and today NVIDIA delivered on just that.
NVIDIA announced that all GeForce 6 and GeForce 7 GPUs will eventually (when drivers and software are available) support H.264 decode acceleration for all the way up to 1080p videos. Obviously the faster the GPU (mainly the more ALUs and the higher the clock speed), the more that can be offloaded from the CPU onto the GPU.
In order to prove the support was functional, NVIDIA setup a Pentium D 830 with a GeForce 6600GT and tried to play back a 1080p H.264 encoded movie. CPU utilization across both cores was basically pegged at 100% while the CPU handled the entire decode.
Enabling hardware acceleration offloaded a good hunk of the decoding task onto the Geforce 6600GT, reducing CPU utilization to around 50% or less:
In order to take advantage of the H.264 decode acceleration you will need two things: 1) Compliant InterVideo WinDVD, CyberLink PowerDVD or Nero software, and 2) a NVIDIA driver enabling the support.
NVIDIA promised that both of these items would be available to end users in the next 2 - 3 months. While they are definitely lagging behind ATI in H.264 decode acceleration, at least NVIDIA has finally provided us with a working demo of the technology and they have also committed to us that it will work on all GeForce 6 and 7 GPUs (AGP and PCIe).
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highlandsun - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
These are edge-lit displays, i.e., the LEDs are all along one edge of the screen and lightguides are used to spread their light across the whole display surface. If you decrease the brightness of one or two LEDs that will cause a dark stripe. Probably not useful for most types of images.Clauzii - Sunday, January 8, 2006 - link
Hmm - bummer! Would have been nice though...each backlit....Lyman42 - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
I agree, the rollable display is probably one of the most innovative things shown in the article. I also wish that AMD SFF PC would be for sale outside of Asia; it looks very cool. As for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray (BR), anyone notice how ugly the HD-DVD box looks compared to BR's? I like that the Blu-Ray Boxes say 1080p right on the cover, great way to try and differentiate yourself from the competition for J6P.psychobriggsy - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
I didn't like the design of most of the VIIV devices. Still too 'PC' like.That Dell VIIV device only had VGA output. Welcome to VGA resolution DRM video on your HDTV. Come on, a VIIV PC should have DVI with HDCP at least, and HDMI would be nice too.
The Intel VIIV machine looked awful. What is it with PC manufacturers and the desire for ugly buttons and nasty smokey-black plastic panels?
OTOH the OLED display looked great, amazingly thin. And the rollable display has a lot of promise for the future.
lexmark - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
great article. looks like intel is really pushing forward on its viiv platform. i really liked alot of the case designs on display.on the rollable paper idea, won't durability become a problem? something so thin and delicate looks easy to damage.
oh yea AT, stumbled upon a typo while reading:
The display was barely over an eighth of an inch "think"
Iv3RSoN - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
That AMD media center was sexii indeed.skunkbuster - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
that rollable display looks really coolKashGarinn - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
If anyone can find a link to a video of the thing, that'd be awesome.K.
longfred - Sunday, January 8, 2006 - link
http://www.polymervision.com">www.polymervision.com technology -> download gives you pictures and a video.xsilver - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
I think the idea of it keeping for months without power is pretty awesome, no cumbersome battery pack!