Any of the video players take advantage of multi-threaded CPU's ?

[davexnet]

HI
I've seen a few articles here and there of custom versions of mplayer using the multi-threaded ffmpeg (ffmpeg-mt).

Using the supplied smplayer/mplayer my CPU maxes out at 50% when playing high-demand media files
using the xv mode. 

Is there any player within the repository that works  multi-threaded to take advantage of multi-core cpu?

Thanks for any info.

[T6]

thanks for sharing that info

never thought about that

all i know is that some video editors and video converters ask how many cores available can be used for a edit/convert task but never for a video player

since most cpus existing now when paired with a decent video card can handle 1080p with big effort, the remaining cores should be free for the system to be used for other tasks

maybe is useful for bluray playback on hard disk?

[davexnet]

Well there are certain flavors of video cards with various modes of HW acceleration.
It's nice to take advantage of it if it's there.  Some cards have limited HW acceleration,
so the next best thing is probably multi-thread in the CPU.

For example, my Nvidia 8600GT has only limited support for 1080p.
I can play these HD files better in Windows using MPC-HC.

[spidy]

have you tried Pitivi video editor, Gxine, handbrake, real player, vlc media player etc?

just look in synaptic under selection choose VIDEO then you have a list of video players converters etc
 some of the video players for Linux or PC Linux OS can handle HD video or make HD dvd movies
by the way you may need a codec X264 under synaptic to convert any video to HD

also VLC media player can handle any codec thrown at it!!!

[davexnet]

Thanks very much, I'll look into VLC, I believe multi-thread may have been added recently.

In Windows, (using Windows Media Player and CoreAVC H.264 decoder) I can play the 1080p
test file Planet Earth from Pole to Pole.  It's an incredible test.  It starts out with some sweep across the mountains
(50% cpu at that point) and opens up into this incredible scene of thousands of bird filling the whole landscape.
The detail is high, and the amount of birds increases.  (at this point the cpu is 95%).

It plays properly all the way through.  Smplayer/Mplayer single threaded is not cutting the mustard.

[T6]

could you share the video so we can test, i am interested to see how my old video card performs

[davexnet]

Sure, here it is - http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?tdukvcaj87nivn7

On my modest box (AMD64 x2 4200 / Nvidia 8600GT), I get 95% cpu (using CoreAVC)
but the CPU is reduced to 19% max if CUDA is enabled in the CoreAVC config.

Either way it works great.

CUDA seems to works better on my system (compared to DXVA in Windows)

In PCLinuxOS Smplayer uses VDPAU which I guess uses some kind of acceleration, but I don't know much about it.
It certainly doesn't work as good as CUDA in Windows.
Cheers,
Dave

[T6]

vlc hates mkv files here

mplayer could reproduce the file but reports wrong aspect ratio and also drops too many frames to be enjoyable

the codec used on this video is a cpu killer 

it says h.264 but not sure if it is really that

[Was_Just19]

My PC does not handle HD video at all well ......  essentially not watchable.

The best results I got when testing this video was with Loopy ......  less dropped frames etc etc.

I am new to Loopy and was quite pleasantly surprised with the result.


My PC
P4 3.2Ghz Hyperthreading, 4 GB RAM, Nvidia G71 (GeForce 7900 GT/GTO)

[jaydot]

you just piqued my interest with your report, just19, so much so that i gave hd a try on my new machine (quad core, 4gb ram) and it's surprisingly watchable, whereas it was impossible to watch on my multi-threaded machine.  there's no fancy graphics card in this new machine either; bog-standard onboard graphics.

[Was_Just19]

you just piqued my interest with your report, just19, so much so that i gave hd a try on my new machine (quad core, 4gb ram) and it's surprisingly watchable, whereas it was impossible to watch on my multi-threaded machine.  there's no fancy graphics card in this new machine either; bog-standard onboard graphics.

Yeah ......  this is the reason I want to change my hardware soon ........  HD video is a no go area on this.

It *should* .....  but it doesn't 

[Roc4fun]

I've struggled with VDPAU and my PCLOS machine.  Core 2 Duo 2.66  Nvidia GT 220, I should be able to fully use hardware acceleration. 

This file maxes out at about 70% cpu.  SMPlayer reports it is using the correct codec  ffh264vdpau.

I tried running mplayer from the command line using this command   mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau ./filename.mkv  with the same results.

My HTPC running XBMC Dharma from a USB stick uses about 12% cpu  similar hardware.

If I use Dragon player I end up using 130% cpu (100 + 30), so I'm clearly getting some value from VDPAU. 

Dave

[Bald Brick]

The best results I got when testing this video was with Loopy ......  less dropped frames etc etc.

A good tip. I'd never heard about Loopy before, but I installed it, and on my box it handled the video almost perfectly.
(SMPlayer became a bit hesitant towards the end, VLC couldn't manage the end at all, and Kaffeine gave up at the very beginning.)

2xAMD Athlon 7450 (Dual Core, 2399.30MHz).
Nvidia G96 (GeForce GT 120). Hardinfo reports it as GT 120/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW!
8188MB RAM.

[Roc4fun]

Just the opposite for me.  Loopy used as much or more CPU as Dragon player and had lots of judder and dropped frames.  I don't think I was getting any hardware accelleration.

[davexnet]

Apparently, from what I understand, Nvidia's CUDA is the best.  VDPAU and DXVA are similar.
Neither work as well as CUDA on my machine.

As I mentioned earlier, CoreAVC uses both cores of the CPU very well so if you disable CUDA,
it uses as much CPU as it can get/needs (95% on my box).

On the other hand Smplayer in pclos only uses 50% of the CPU, (no chance of playing this file like that)
hence my original point about multi-threaded player. 

ON my (relatively) old 8600GT, HW acceleration is not as advanced as some of the new cards.
For example, 720p H.264 files will play fine with HW acceleration in VDPAU and DXVA but 1080p will not - but 1080p
plays great with CUDA.