i have found many threads covering this topic, but i'm starting one here because i am not satisfied with the answers i've found so far. i've tried most of the solutions offered and the last time comes down to a hardware upgrade. i'm sorry, but i just refuse to believe that in order to play a certain type of file i need to buy a new processor. here is what i'd like to do. I'd like to play high quality large size HD files, weather its h.264 or whatever other format they are in. i'm not aiming for 1080p, that seems to be out of the question, i but see no reason why my PC cant handle 720p. ------------ specs: P4 2.66 1.5gb ram 128 mb radeon 9500 win xp sp2 ------------ i've recently hooked it up to my new HDTV and a 5.1 speaker system, the sound and picture is beatufil and i will be very disapointed if i cant find a real solution to this issue. is it a brand new power system? no, but i think that should be enough. and here is why. -i started testing with HD trailers off apple.com. 720p files seems to play pretty good so why cant HD h.264 rips do the same? 1080 trailers didnt play smooth at all, but again, thats not my goal. -then i downloaded another 720p HD trailer for "i am legend", it was .mov file. played it in everyones favorite VCL. playback was OK, at certain scenes the picture was slightly jumpy, but almost unnoticeable. i would be more then happy if thats how the playback was all the time. -just for the hell of it, i played the same file with bsplayer. the playback was perfect, smooth. that leads me to believe that all i need is the right combo of codecs and player and everything will be fine. -i'm using k-lite codec pack, and i've read alot of people criticizing codec packs in general. dont understand why, it provides all the recommended codecs and when i uninstalled it and installed only the needed codecs i had the same results. next came 6GB 720p, HDDVD, DTS, x264 .mkv file. -VCL player. not so good. i guess this player has its own x264 decoder which isn't as good as others. -BSplayer. play good for a while, using ffdshow 264 codec. CPU usage around 80% to 95% then jumps to 100% after about 5 minutes and video starts freezing, lagging, out of sync audio. it keeps jumping 100% to 0 and video stays bad. -MPC. plays even longer. using CoreAVC codec. CPU usage slightly lower 60% to 90%, then after about 10 minutes of perfect playback then it does the same thing. jumps from 100% to 0 and playback is bad. i tired other players like Light Alloy, Zoomplayer, and more. all produce simulat results to BSplayer and MPC depending i which codec ffdshow or coreAVC i let handle the file. -------------------------- so i did have a reasonable improvement using coreAVC codec with either MPC or Light Alloy or Zoomplayer (for some reason BSplayer crashes when i force coreAVC on it). the video plays absolutely perfect for a good 10 minutes with 60% to 90% CPU usage. why doesn't it just keep playing? (i suspect maybe CPU overheating?) i also tried overclocking the CPU a tiny bit. the playback still gets messy after awhile, but CPU doesn't jump from 100 to 0, it howevers around 94 - 97%. i'll try overclocking some more later. ------------------------- anyway, all that leads me to think that i'm missing something. there must be some new codec, or some new player that can do all this stuff without killing my CPU. i'm not buying a new processor or a new video card. there has to be some software that maybe delays the decoding alittle or something. all help is appreciated. thanks.
Here is a good article for you. You might want to experiment with different versions of the same codec. http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/highdefdvd_test_page4.html
