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chuckula
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Status of 4K HEVC playback with a Core-M

Sun Jan 25, 2015 3:46 pm

So there have been questions about 4K HEVC playback including the AMD demo of Carrizo (http://techreport.com/news/27652/amd-ca ... n-desktops) and potential driver updates from Intel that would help HEVC playback (http://techreport.com/news/27677/new-in ... de-support).

Here's the question: Can a low-power chip like the Core-m handle 4K playback of HEVC video?
My preliminary answer with current (January 2015) software and drivers is: Playback works although it's still early days and more improvements and optimizations would be helpful. More particularly, when running on battery my Core-m can play back a 4K HEVC encoded file without too much trouble although there are the occasional glitchy parts of the video. Also, you have to have the right software since there is a radical range of results from the video being unplayable (VLC) to the video being almost perfect with the occasional glitch (the latest builds of Mediaplayer Classic).


My current sample video is a 4K HEVC encoded version of Sintel that I downloaded from here: http://www.divx.com/en/hevc-showcase
Note: While that site gives you the option of streaming, I downloaded the video and I'm running it locally so this review covers local playback. Also, I'm not actually displaying the 4K video file on a 4K display (don't have one yet) but the video scales down to a 1080P resolution.

My current playback software in Windows 8.1 is the nightly build of Media Player Classic (http://mpc-hc.org/). So far this is the only Windows based player that has given me any luck with playback of 4K video files. Note: Getting the latest builds (at least version 1.7.7, 64-bit) appears to be critical because even a slightly older version (1.7.6) doesn't work nearly as well.

I AM running the newest Intel drivers that purportedly include GPU-assisted HEVC playback. However, I have no idea if that acceleration is actually being used or if I'm still just relying on the CPU.

If anyone else has any questions or requests for tests, then let me know. Under Linux my 4770K desktop system handles the same file without too much trouble under the newest versions of VLC.
4770K @ 4.7 GHz; 32GB DDR3-2133; Officially RX-560... that's right AMD you shills!; 512GB 840 Pro (2x); Fractal Define XL-R2; NZXT Kraken-X60
--Many thanks to the TR Forum for advice in getting it built.
 
EndlessWaves
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Re: Status of 4K HEVC playback with a Core-M

Wed Jan 28, 2015 3:11 pm

Thanks for posting. I'm surprised none of the hardware sites tested this as it's arguably a more important release than even the GTX 960.

I'm not sure what the bit rate of Sintel is (and it appears to be slightly under UHD/4K) but if it's fairly high then from previous tests I've seen anything short of a recent desktop i7 was struggling with CPU decode and Broadwell-U managing it would definitely be with the CPU assistance.

What sort of CPU utilisation are you getting? Do the glitches correspond with 90%+? I'd be interested for the numbers for your i7 both with and without GPU assistance (assuming Intel has provided this is the Linux drivers too).

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