1080p HD Video playback on any netbook
Saturday, 10. October 2009, 18:07:47
Ever wanted to play 1080p H.264 video on your low end Atom based netbook? But you don't have ION based netbook? Tired of skipping and slow Full HD video playback? I just found out a near perfect solution for any netbook, even for those with just 1,6GHz Intel Atom processor and Intel GMA950 graphic chip.
Required stuff:
- regular Atom based netbook (in my case ACER Aspire One AOA150)
- Media Player Classic Home Cinema (free)
- CoreAVC codec (unfortunately not free)
How to setup Media Player Classic - Home Cinema...
Install Media Player Classic. Click "View" and "Options...". Select "Internal filters" and uncheck (remove checkmarks) in front of:
H264/AVC (DXVA)
H264/AVC (FFmpeg)
Now go to Playback->Output where i suggest to leave the settings set to "System Default".
This is what i used and it worked really well.
Click Ok to save changes.
How to setup CoreAVC...
Install CoreAVC and open it's configuration menu. Set the settings like this:
- leave everything set to "Auto detect"
- set Deblocking to "Skip always"
- set Deinterlacing to "Hardware"
Click Ok to save settings.
Are you ready for some Full HD?
Go to http://www.hd-trailers.net and download some 1080p videos and play them in Media Player Classic. Be amazed, because that lil' weak netbook can playback Full HD video!
However there might be certain scenes that are just too complex for Atom processor to handle smoothly.
At that point audio might go slightly out of sync, but as soon as that scene is over, the audio will sync again. This happened only in some movie trailer "2012".
I was really surprised how efficient CoreAVC is. I mean, the capability of playing Full HD video on Intel Atom N270 is just amazing. So thank CoreAVC team for giving us option to enjoy Full HD video on our weak netbooks. Enjoy!
WIDGETIZE
Anonymous # 10. October 2009, 20:40
Such trailers are only 10Mbps whereas TV is up to 20Mbps and BD is up to 40Mbps. Also, in-loop deblocking is integral to the AVC standard and disabling it reduces quality. So alas, the netbook is not achieving anything near "Full HD" playback.
On the plus side though, the free DXVA decoder included with MPC-HC is very good and with a basic Radeon GPU utilizes nil CPU. So choose your netbook wisely.
RejZoR # 11. October 2009, 05:26
Even though it still won't be able to play BluRay discs directly (there is no BluRay or any kind of optical drive anyway), you'll be able to watch 1080p trailers and 1080p BDRip movies on it.
Thats something right?
But yeah, if i was buying new netbook, i would get myself ION based one for sure. Or if someone manages to magically make GPU acceleration with Intel GMA950
Jakub Marton # 12. October 2009, 11:51
I don't have netbook, but this softs pop ups first to me when I am reading about codecs of some kind, since they do not need any kind of codecs, they have their own codecs build-in.
RejZoR # 13. October 2009, 05:23
I just have to figure out how to get rid of the stupid video tearing which isn't happening in WMP11.
Omid Farhang # 15. October 2009, 22:29
@rejzor: well, CoreAVC is a very good decoder for H.264/AVC format, very lightweight, smooth playback, easy-to-use.
but it has some problem, for example if you set your MKV (or every other H.264 files such FLV/MP4/MOV) files to extract Thumbnails, windows explorer would crash! (would not happen if you use another decode such as DivX H.264 Decoder or FFDSHOW).
Also, between MPlayerC and MPlayerC HC, I found out Media Player Classic has a better quality in edges and tiled patterns, I don't know why they have different.
I'm not sure if your GPU Support it, so just give it a try, set your media player classic output to Haali and see if it works, it give you a better view.
Anonymous # 19. October 2009, 05:36
Haali Renderer is incapable of DXVA.
To avoid tearing in XP, use "VMR7 (windowed)". For Vista and Windows 7 with EVR try the option Alternative Vsync.
RejZoR # 19. October 2009, 16:37
Anonymous # 3. November 2009, 07:36
You can find the newest version of mpc home cinema at http://xvidvideo.ru/media-player-classic-home-cinema-x86-x64/
- set Deblocking to "Skip always"
->not recommended...
- set Deinterlacing to "Hardware"
->useless, leave it as it is(none)
@rejzor
tearing problem? Old or low cost graphic card?
->go to options->output and change from 3d to 2d.
->useless guide or author doesnt possess enought knowledge...
RejZoR # 3. November 2009, 09:00
And official page for MPC HC is: http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net
Why should anyone visit some russian page?
Anonymous # 6. November 2009, 15:24
try 2d(options->output, surface. YOu will see the difference..
->
forum: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=123537
http://xvidvideo.ru/ -developer's site with daily COMPILED builds
You also forget to include haali media splitter (gabest's matroska splitter in mpc is buggy and consume more cpu...
Anonymous # 12. November 2009, 10:43
Guide worked well for me, thanks, de-blocking off gave me that little boost I needed for perfect fullscreen playback.
Anonymous # 21. November 2009, 20:56
I always liked coreavc, however windows 7 has introduce new built-in codecs that really use low cpu resources, I'm here writing this from my amd netbook, and trying your sugestion, cpu usage is below 30% on this single core amd L110 1.2ghz, but the big difference for me can be seen in my desktop pc where cpu usage in vista 64(or earlier versions of windows) was just crazily high and unstable when viewing dvb-s tv, and in windows 7 (64bit) cpu usage is always below 5% and rock solid with no more dvb-s applications crashes.
Thanks you Microsoft.