Getting HD video to play on a PC

Mordred478 · 09-25-2005, 10:49 AM

So here's what it comes down to: My PC will not play HD video files without the image jerking, stuttering and stalling so much that I'm ready to to fire a BFG straight at my lovely Dell 24" LCD. I have a powerful new (nary six months old) model Dimension desktop from Dell, with a P4 3.2GHz CPU, an nVidia GeForce 6600 GT video card, 2GB of fast RAM, and a 10,000 RPM hard drive, and I use PowerDVD 6.0 for playing HD video files.
When I first got this desktop and tried to play HD files, and encountered this problem, the HD files I was playing were located on my slower, 7200 RPM drive. I theorized that the voluminous data could not be read fast enough from this drive, and that this was the cause of the jerkiness. Thus, I tried playing HD video files from my faster drive, and indeed, while the jerkiness persisted, the problem was much improved.
But still it persists, and drives me bananas, and more to the point, for reasons I cannot figure out, some HD video files will play with only minimal jerkiness, while with other files the problem is so severe that the files are unwatchable.
Another idea I have experimented with is breaking the HD videos down into smaller individual files using HDTVtoMPEG2. So, for example, instead of one 5.4GB HD video file, I'll have two files half that size, or even more files of even smaller size. So far, while I think this idea may have made certain particularly monstrous files playable, I don't believe it has helped. This is probably a RAM issue anyway.
Thus, I am soliciting help from all quarters. How can I get a nice HD file to play smoothly on my PC? Solve my problem before midnight tonight and receive a bamboo steamer as our way of saying thanks.

SpHeRe31459 · 09-25-2005, 12:58 PM

Actually you're more then fine with a 7,200RPM drive, the video card is great, and 2GB RAM is far more then adequate.

A standard compressed HDTV stream is only 19.2Mbit/sec which is only 2.4 Megabytes/sec and that isn't challenging to a 7,200RPM drive.

I honestly don't know why off the top of my head things would be so messed up.

First, make sure things are running properly, do you have any unknown devices in the Device Manager? are the SATA drivers properly installed? All of this is done for you by Dell normally.

Next, I am not sure of PowerDVD's ability to play transport streams. I know most in the HTPC community don't use PDVD, we use NVIDIA's DVD Decoder for multiple reasons.
Before you abandon PDVD totally grab the HDTV Pump filter, this is a special filter made to help playback digital TV transport streams in pretty much any media player you want. Then try opening the files in say Windows Media Player. WMP may tell you it doesn't know what a TS is but you can ignore that and have it play the file anyway. Another application that can play HDTV streams is the excellent open source Media Player Classic.

**rbinck** · 09-25-2005, 01:11 PM

Also be sure you know what tasks are running and that they are necessary. Many people will have so many background tasks running they reduce the computer power intermittently to as much as 20% of the potential. That will cause skipping for sure.

09-25-2005, 10:49 AM	#1
Mordred478 My plasma is High Def. Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 7	Getting HD video to play on a PC So here's what it comes down to: My PC will not play HD video files without the image jerking, stuttering and stalling so much that I'm ready to to fire a BFG straight at my lovely Dell 24" LCD. I have a powerful new (nary six months old) model Dimension desktop from Dell, with a P4 3.2GHz CPU, an nVidia GeForce 6600 GT video card, 2GB of fast RAM, and a 10,000 RPM hard drive, and I use PowerDVD 6.0 for playing HD video files. When I first got this desktop and tried to play HD files, and encountered this problem, the HD files I was playing were located on my slower, 7200 RPM drive. I theorized that the voluminous data could not be read fast enough from this drive, and that this was the cause of the jerkiness. Thus, I tried playing HD video files from my faster drive, and indeed, while the jerkiness persisted, the problem was much improved. But still it persists, and drives me bananas, and more to the point, for reasons I cannot figure out, some HD video files will play with only minimal jerkiness, while with other files the problem is so severe that the files are unwatchable. Another idea I have experimented with is breaking the HD videos down into smaller individual files using HDTVtoMPEG2. So, for example, instead of one 5.4GB HD video file, I'll have two files half that size, or even more files of even smaller size. So far, while I think this idea may have made certain particularly monstrous files playable, I don't believe it has helped. This is probably a RAM issue anyway. Thus, I am soliciting help from all quarters. How can I get a nice HD file to play smoothly on my PC? Solve my problem before midnight tonight and receive a bamboo steamer as our way of saying thanks.

09-25-2005, 12:58 PM	#2
SpHeRe31459 Can't wait for the switch Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: California, USA Posts: 213	Actually you're more then fine with a 7,200RPM drive, the video card is great, and 2GB RAM is far more then adequate. A standard compressed HDTV stream is only 19.2Mbit/sec which is only 2.4 Megabytes/sec and that isn't challenging to a 7,200RPM drive. I honestly don't know why off the top of my head things would be so messed up. First, make sure things are running properly, do you have any unknown devices in the Device Manager? are the SATA drivers properly installed? All of this is done for you by Dell normally. Next, I am not sure of PowerDVD's ability to play transport streams. I know most in the HTPC community don't use PDVD, we use NVIDIA's DVD Decoder for multiple reasons. Before you abandon PDVD totally grab the HDTV Pump filter, this is a special filter made to help playback digital TV transport streams in pretty much any media player you want. Then try opening the files in say Windows Media Player. WMP may tell you it doesn't know what a TS is but you can ignore that and have it play the file anyway. Another application that can play HDTV streams is the excellent open source Media Player Classic. Last edited by SpHeRe31459; 09-25-2005 at 01:02 PM.

09-25-2005, 01:11 PM	#3
rbinck Administrator Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Katy, Texas Posts: 12,301	Also be sure you know what tasks are running and that they are necessary. Many people will have so many background tasks running they reduce the computer power intermittently to as much as 20% of the potential. That will cause skipping for sure. __________________ www.highdefinitionblog.com www.BlogOfHawaii.com