PureVideo/nVidia Card

[235301]

I am a bit confused on the nVidia PureVideo decoder. I just bought a 7600GS card that is "PureVideo" enabled. Does this mean I get the PureVideo decoder with the card or do I need to pop for the PureVideo HD decoder? And is "PureVideo" and "PureVideo HD" different products or the same thing?

:eek:

Looking like a noob, which I am.

[sub]

No, you dont get the decoder with the card. Its something you buy separately.

"PureVideo" is the name used for both the nvidia decoder, and the playback accelleration features offered by nvidia videocards. "PureVideo HD" refers to the HD accelleration features offered by very newest cards (for H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2 video). Older cards only had accelleration features for standard definition MPEG-2 video.

[zaphod7501]

It's even trickier now. The 90 series drivers will allow other applications to access the PureVideo "Silicon" on the card without purchasing the PureVideo decoder from NVIDIA; but you may need to obtain another filter or purchase another application. You still need a decoder filter that can use the new drivers but you don't necessarily need to buy NVIDIA's and you may be able to get one as part of another player package (ie free).

In the past you had to buy a package from NVIDIA. This was a combination of decoder filter and DVD Player software (as I understand it). The decoder filter could be used by other applications as well as the NVIDIA player. You could select the NVIDIA filter in things like Power DVD, ffdshow, Media Player Classic, etc: or assign it a high merit so any directshow player could use it and give them access to the hardware on the cards.

You can do it now by using an application that has a decoder filter that can use the 90 series drivers to access the PureVideo hardware on the card. There is, however, no NVIDIA decoder, as such, that you can select in other applications. So their decoder has to be used and most newer applications (players) should have the needed filter.

For instance, my MSI NX-7600GS came with a copy of PowerDVDxp that I'm fairly sure has a decoder that can access the hardware but it will not install on my Win2000 system. I found that the filters that came with my Hauppauge HVR1600 will work for me and MediaPlayer9 picked them up and I could add them to Media Player Classic as an external filter. The chances are that the DVD Player that is usually packaged with a new card will work with the 90 series drivers to "unlock" the hardware. It's also possible that the bundled OEM version will be crippled and you would have to buy the "Full Version" to get the needed functionality. You just have other options now besides NVIDIA. (You also won't get a little popup telling you that you are using the PureVideo decoder when you play something)

At least I think that the above is the case since I can now play a 1080i HD transport stream at 50% CPU with a Sempron 3000+ while before it was at 100% and would not actually play more than a couple of still frames. (using the same filters) I have not seen any good articles explaining just exactly how the new 90 series drivers grant access to the PureVideo hardware or how to configure filters or players to work with the new drivers; just a statement that the new drivers do allow other applications to access the PureVideo hardware.

[sub]

Correct, there is a lot of other video decoders (such as the Cyberlink one), which can access these hardware accelleration features of the nvidia hardware. This possibility has existed for several years now. That said, there is still a lot of other quality differences between decoders that often make people prefer nvidia purevideo decoder over some of the alternatives (colour, sharpness etc).

The poster specifically asked about the 'nVidia PureVideo decoder', so this was the angle of my response.

[235301]

Thanks for the good posts. I had the trial PureVideo driver installed on my system just to see how it would work with my old Ti4200 card(yeah I know that was a stretch). Using the PureVideo decoder in gbpvr was not useful, quite a bit of stuttering and poor video so I went away from it. Even though I wasn't using it in gbpvr but it was installed on my system it had the nasty side affect that I could no longer hear audio from my DVD player. I've seen several posts on this forum of ways around the problem. If I have the PureVideo driver installed is it simple enough to install the AC3 decoder and then use that for video playback? Or do I have to go to more extreme means? With the new 7600GS card I know I'll likely have to purchase the PureVideo driver to do HD.

[zaphod7501]

... access these hardware accelleration features... possibility has existed for several years now.

The 90 series drivers are supposed to allow access to the actual PureVideo hardware and not just the generic hardware accelleration. This is supposed to be a brand new feature.

If I have the PureVideo driver installed is it simple enough to install the AC3 decoder and then use that for video playback? Or do I have to go to more extreme means? With the new 7600GS card I know I'll likely have to purchase the PureVideo driver to do HD.

I don't know about these. The audio problem probably has to do with the version of PureVideo installed.

You will need some video decoder that does HD. My old version of InterVideo WinDVD does not. The uninstallable (on Win2000) version of Cyberlink PowerDVDxp might. The built-in filters of MediaPlayerClassic do not seem to. (they can do HD but not access the PureVideo hardware) The Hauppauge hcwSMD07 MainConcept filters do. I don't know if the Hauppauge filters (freely available for download) will install unless there is a Hauppauge card installed. When I installed hcwSMD07, MediaPlayer9 dropped to 40% on 1080i but MPC stayed at 100% until I added the Hauppauge filter as an external filter and set it to "preferred".

I would suggest checking out the version of DVD player bundled with the card. It may install a decoder filter that can do HD and access the PureVideo hardware with the 90 series drivers. (without the cost and audio limitations of nVIDIA's PureVideo Decoder) You can always try installing the Hauppauge decoder even if you don't have a Hauppauge card. You have to use the setup program and uncheck everything you can except the decoder. Running the hcwSMD07.exe by itself did not seem to work for me.

[235301]

I have a Hauppage card so I'll first try out the Hauppage decoder with the new card to see how it goes. If it isn't enough horsepower then I'll look at the PureVideo decoder.

[-Oz-]

hauppage is not your video out card thus it doesn't decode the signal really. cyberlink, purevideo, etc are decoders.

[zaphod7501]

hauppage is not your video out card thus it doesn't decode the signal really. cyberlink, purevideo, etc are decoders.

The hcwSMD07 is a MainConcept/Elecard mpeg decoder supplied by Hauppauge for use with it's newer cards. It supports HD streams, but I was not sure it could be installed on a system unless it had a Hauppauge card installed; hence his comment on having a Hauppauge card so that he would try to install it.

[-Oz-]

ah, interesting, i need to be more up and up.