Purevideo SD/HD Guide

I'm writing this guide to help out anyone who is having problems getting these technologies to work for them. I had a few headaches trying to get it to work, and I see the need to make a simple guide with information.

Purevideo SD/HD Technology Information:

First out a little while ago was the nvidia purevideo decoder for 6x and 7x gpus to hardware decode MPEG2 (DVD) encodings. Later on, WMV decoding was added on to the spec. The purevideo decoder basically frees up cpu cycles by alowing the onboard decoder chip to do the decoding. Due to licensing fees, however, nvidia charges a price for you to install their hardware decoder.

After purevideo came purevideo hd, able to decode both VC-1 and H.264 (hi-definition dvd and movie file encoding types with .mp4 or .mov [apple] extensions or .wmv [windows]) in hardware, and it comes with the nvidia drivers instead of a separate install. The catch, however, is that you need to purchase an external decoder bundled with either nero showtime, WinDVD, or PowerDVD.

If you wish to play HD video in your favorite media player (directshow compatibility) with hardware acceleration (like was possible with nvidia purevideo standard), your only choice is PowerDVD. Otherwise you are locked into watching the files on the purchased player. Also of note is CoreAVC (currently a software based decoder, with plans for gpu decoding in the next version), which is about as fast as the hardware based solutions (more later).


How to enable purevideo SD:

You can download the trial version of the standard purevideo decoder here . All you have to do is install it and watch your favorite DVD. If you see a green icon pop up in your system tray, you know it's working. This decoder also accelerates WMV video, however, n o icon pops up for WMV. You can also enable purevideo in players other than Windows Media Player. I enabled purevideo in MPC by going into Options>External Filters> and adding the nvidia video and audio decoders and setting them to prefered for example. Getting purevideo SD up and running is fairly straightforward, it's HD where problems arise. Purevideo produced beter image quality and cpu utilization in my testing than any other decoders, highly recommended.


How to enable purevideo HD:

Enabling purevideo HD is slightly confusing to those first starting with it. First you have to have an nvidia driver at or beyond v92.91 and one of the three above mentioned programs. You have to make sure to enable hardware acceleration and nvidia purevideo in the software settings before purevideo hd will work. You can also watch accelerated HD in MPC by adding the cyberlink AVC and audio decoders under external filters.


Purevideo HD vs CoreAVC performance and the future:

I took it upon myself to test the cpu utilization of each of the AVC decoding solutions using some High Definition videos downloaded from microsoft and nvidia (VC-1 and H.264).
First up I tested the cpu utilization of the HD videos using nero showtime with hardware acceleration enabled. The cpu utilization hovered around 50-60%, not very acceptable on the desktop in my sig. Afterwards I tested WinDVD with the same files. The cpu utilization hovered around 25-40%, slightly better, but still not the best. I next tested the files under PowerDVD and got around 8-15% cpu utilization (jackpot). Using mpc to play the files using the cyberlink decoders produced the same results.


Curveball: FFDShow filters and CoreAVC

You can get the free FFDShow AVC decoder which will uses up about 50% of my cpu without the headache or the lack of money in your pocket. For $10 you can get CoreAVC which is the most efficient decoder available. It gets around 8-15% cpu on my system (similar to powerdvd hardware decoder), without gpu decoding. CoreAVC also has plans of adding gpu decoding in the next version which should reduce cpu usage even more.

The only downside of both of these decoding methods is subjective. To my eyes, they both do not seem as smooth as purevideo hd. The framerate seems ever so slightly worse with the software based solutions than with purevideo (a ghosting effect). I'm sure when CoreAVC adds gpu decoding that will be a non-issue, but it's not very noticeable now anyway.


I hope this cleared up any questions people have had about using nvidia's purevideo. It really does free up the cpu and make smooth video when configured correctly.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I don't know why/how NV can throw down things like, "H.264 supported, CSAA supported" and then not give any good guide as to what's up. CSAA and other IQ settings are trial and error so it's not the end all, but I had no idea where to start w/ all the codec nonsense.

1 question tho. I added 2 codecs for NV like this:



That it? What about all the others? I did select prefer too. Purevideo .223's installed as well.

Thanks!!

Hey, thanks for the info. I use purevideo Standard for watching DVDs w/ my 8800gts (which is connected to a 40inch sony xbr2), and man purevideo does an excellent job...i've never seen regular dvds look so damn good....!!!
I thought installing purevideo would add an option or something in the nvidia control panel, but you have to adjust everything thru the software being used for the codec.
So the only way to get purvideo HD is by using one of those players? I'm sure more and more codecs will come out w/ hardware accel for HD content....right now i just use software based decoding for HD content..mainly ffdshow, WMP11 for wmv hd content, haven't tried coreAVC yet, but i'll give it a try tonight.

Jodiuh: thats how mine looks and it works, tho im glad you asked that question as i want to know as well. Also, what version of MPC are you using?

Thanks

Thanks for the info. Looking forward to set this up when my card comes in later today.

<>< said:

Also, what version of MPC are you using?

Click to expand...

6.4.8.7 and it's worded a bit different for filters.

When I tried to put my old settings file into the new build, it wouldn't take...any reason to upgrade?

Jodiuh: i actually have to add the Nvidia Video Post Processor as well in my filters or it the picture isnt rendered right...it ends up being to the top and not the right aspect...i'm just using WMP11 right now for dvds which works very nicely w/ purevideo.

Also, w/ the 8800gts Control Panel there are a bunch of options for video settings that are turned on by default and drastically affect the picture...The main ones are RGB Correction (which makes the picture a lot darker) and Temp Correction...which settings would be best to get the color/picture the way it was meant to be?

for pv hd, whats the hack to make it work with other players? they can get fucked if they think im going to repurchase video players.

<>< said:

...which settings would be best to get the color/picture the way it was meant to be?

Click to expand...

Beats me, I'm a noob w/ this stuff since NV doesn't like to give out much info. Would a detailed manual be that tough?

I'm glad theres a way to use pruevideo HD in MPC. I just got my 7950GT today and i'm looking forward to stepping up my hd quality a bit from CoreAVC.

Ok, thanks for clearing everything up with the whole purevideo thing. I actually thought that it came with the card...but now I realize I have to buy it. Now maybe some of you can clear this up for me. I see that there are several versions of this software, but they only affect the audio. I have an X-Fi and would rather use that for sound, so I should be ok with the regular purevideo purchase right, and would not need the platinum version?

I also have powerdvd ultra, so all I need to do is purchase the purevideo codec correct?

Also, the latest version came out in june of this year? I thought that they would have updated the software to take advantage of the new 8800's, unless I understand correctly that there are updates and they are in the 8800 drivers but you need to have the purevideo codec first in order to enable them?

I'm not sure if this has been covered in this thread but is there a guide that shows you how to install and configure PureVideo with ffdshow to upscale DVDs ?

How about a guide to setting up WMV HD decode acceleration? As far as I know, it does not work on my setup even though the card supposedly supports it.
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
7600GS AGP, The drivers are newer than the one you listed, but I forgot the exact one. Tried the beta and official releases and nothing.
1 Gig ram
WMP 11 (tried WMP 9, 10 also)
Latest MPC
Nvidia nStat player

NOTHING accelerates it. Tried all sorts of settings too!

If your using the Cyberlink AVC in mpc, does it take advantage of purevideo hardware decoding or is it just another software solution like coreAVC?

Also, if you have a purevideo HD compatible card, do you still need purevideo SD software to enable SD decoding or is it included along with the HD decoding in the new drivers?

I thought only 8600s and below got h264/vc1 acceleration. How'd you guys get acceleration on the 7 series? Are you guys playing 720/1080p movies or just random clips?

Hey everyone, the cyberlink decoders when used in mpc will use the gpu to accelerate. And coreAVC released their gpu/dualcore version, so that should speed things up ever more.

hmm...was wondering if anybody could help me out here...
I'm trying to get a 1080p video to work in either media player classic or zoom player, but I seem to be having some bad luck here...

So basically, I've read that the only way to get Purevideo HD hardware decoding is through powerdvd. I installed powerdvd and have enabled the hardware acceleration/purevideo HD option. I tried setting up an external filter in MPC for Cyberlink's H.264/AVC decoder and just clicked ok. Am I supposed to change anything in the video renderer options?

I also read that to get the PVHD decoding to work to disable the ffdshow H.264 decoder, so I did that too. After seeing as how video wasn't really satisfactory (was kinda choppy), I re-enabled the ffdshow stuff and tried to set some things around in the MPC options. Problem now is that the 1080 video won't even show up on screen. It'll have a slightly off-black color to show that there is supposed to be video there, and the seek timer is running, but there is no video. I tried a 720p video encoded by the same people and it seems to work just fine. Just for some reason I can't get the 1080p video to work again!

I tried setting the custom renderer in zoom player to Cyberlink's H.264/AVC as well, and well....that just screwed everything up with zoom player. Won't even start playing with a black screen. It just freezes. Even after setting the settings back to the way they were, it still won't cooperate.

This is all getting pretty dang frustrating that I can't get this to work the way it should. Even more so that my favorite media player that I've been using for years has decided to totally crap out on me (though I am in Vista, I have no idea what I may have done, it was working previously in Vista, but now it doesn't after having installed the latest CCCP. I was running on a slightly older version of CCCP which worked. Reverting back to the older CCCP didn't fix any of the problems either...

Now that wasn't even a PureVideo HD problem...ugh but damnit talking about frustration just brought that out of me lol...



--edit--
OK I've decided to just drop CCCP and try out K-lite after seeing some users talk about it. I got the 1080p video working again, but it's using up 90-100% of my dual core athlon 2.2Ghz. I set Media Player classic to have an external filter for the Cyberlink H.264/AVC decoder, and have hardware acceleration/purevideo checked in PowerDVD, but I don't see any improvement. One thing I forgot to mention is that I am running on Vista. Could this be the culprit? I think i read somewhere that Vista doesn't work right somehow or something with hardware decoding. Is this true?