Looking for a fanless graphics card that supports h264 hardware decoding..

kaisersose77

I bought a dell pc before xmas to use as a media center, and all i have left to get is a decent graphics card. I bought a 6600gt off adverts in december without doing any research and as it has a fan its a wee bit too noisy to use for a media center. I have no intention of playing games on this pc, so im hoping someone could point me in the right direction of a graphics card like the 6600gt without a fan if there is such a thing. The 6600gt supports the hardware decoding of h264 with the purevideo drivers as far as i can remember but i cant find the site that listed all the cards that supported it atm. What i want this for is, satellite hdtv, my pc can just about support it atm with a ati x1300. I cant hear this card at all, so basically looking for something similiar that has the h264 decoding support.

The cheaper the better!

edit: im looking for a pci-express card, and hdcp support would be a bonus

game4it70

here is a link for you.theres a couple of cards on it.
http://www.komplett.ie/k/search.asp?q=passive

8T8

You are better off spending money on getting CoreAVC Pro then using a GPU for H.264 decoding.

If anything even ffdshow should be able to handle most H.264 streams.

The Cyberlink H264 pack does GPU assisted decoding with the ATI GPU through directshow filters but in general NVIDIA's work better at minimum to handle HD resolutions of H.264 you would want a 7600GS or 7600GT.

But I think buying CoreAVC Pro is a much better idea before spending money on a new GPU.

kaisersose77

Coreavc has a problem with dvb-s2 hdtv, it crops a lot of the picture. I'll look out for a cheap passive 7600gt as i'll be selling the 6600gt anyways and maybe the x1300 if i get a replacement. So that'll cut the cost a bit.

8T8

Sounds like a software configuration issue or bug to me;

Are you using the latest version of CoreAVC ?
Have you reported the bug to Core ?
Are all DVB applications affected or just one ?
(Try DVB-Dream or DVB Viewer)

Try installing the latest version of Haali's Media Splitter as some changes where made recently to the handling of TS containers CoreAVC uses Haali as well though it may or may not be up to date.

kaisersose77

same problem with alt-dvb and dvbviewer etc, cyberlinks codec works fine but its more resource hungry than coreavc atm for the sat tv programs i have used. I have read in other forums about ppl with the same problem, so hopefully its solved in the next coreavc or the actual sat tv programs if they cant handle coreavc properly. Havent seen a definite answer anywhere. And my processor is an e6300 so its gonna struggle with these h264 streams.

Would there be much difference between the 7600GS and 7600GT (apart from gaming)? And would the 7600gs be the same size as an x1300 ( basically would it fit in a dell e520 without any problems).

cheers

8T8

CoreAVC and Cyberlink's GPU H.264 are both directshow decoders basically anything that supports directshow can use the codec.

The Dell e520 can accommodate full size cards you can use a 7600GS or GT, as for which is better in gaming the GT is. Purevideo is somewhat dependant on the clock speed of the GPU among other things so better off going with the 7600GT really if you want to play it safe.

Yuo should contact Core on support@corecodec.com and let them now of the problem, this is the change log for the next version which is coming soon though one or two things may or may not be added to it;

CoreAVC H.264 Video Codec - Version 1.2.5.0
- Add: YUV Levels fix can now be enabled always, never, and for VMR9 only
- Add: An option to treat frames as interlaced when any AVC interlace coding options are used (fixes a problem with some broadcast streams that are not deinterlaced properly)
- Add: An option to always crop 1088 video to 1080 lines (enabled by default)
- Add: Recovery point SEIs are now properly handled when IDR frames are not available
- Add: Installer: Official support for Vista
- Add: Installer: Support for CoreNumber XP/Vista re-installs without having to re-register the codec
- Fix: Deblocking with extreme settings fixed
- Fix: VMR deinterlacing (interlaced YV12 output does not work properly with VMR9, we now use YUY2 in that case)
- Fix: Various (non-public) stream bugs reported by our OEM customers
- OEM: Added the new options to IPropertyBag
- OEM: Documentation on the related CorePlayer Colorspace Conversion
- OEM: Documentation for custom IPropertyBag interface
- OEM: Documentation for SDK toolkit and Demo toolkit

Haali Media Splitter - Version 1.7.60.20 (20070131)
- Add: Complete 3gp subtitles support when used with Gabest's VSFilter/Media Player Classic
- Add: A shell property page for media files
- Add: A better video shrinking method to the Video Renderer
- Add: A separate option to set the number of queued frames in Video Renderer
- Add: Video Renderer now uses multiple passes instead of complex shaders, and works on PS 1.1 hardware. Bicubic scaling is available staring with PS 1.4
- Add: DTS support in MPEG TS streams
- Add: A much better deinterlacer to the Video Renderer
- Add: Type 1 DV in AVI support to the splitter
- Add: Minimal support for reference files in MOV container (useful when playing files over http)
- Add: Minimal support for Bluray m2ts files (only tested with MPEG2/AC3)
- Add: Use BITMAPINFOHEADER to passthrough aspect ratio when using WMV3 video in Matroska (only works when using the Video Renderer for playback)
- Fix: Swapped width/height returns in the Video Renderer (Fixes incorrect video display in Zoom Player)
- Fix: Does not show error message dialogs when invoked from the shell
- Fix: A horizontal phase shift in Video Renderer
- Fix: A startup delay in Video Renderer on uniprocessor systems
- Fix: Seeking in WMV files when played with a Video Renderer
- Fix: Seeking when cues in matroska file are invalid
- Fix: Audio track switching to AAC tracks
- Fix: Handling of wrapping PTS in MPEG TS streams
- Fix: Video streams changing when using Matroska files with Ordered Chapters
- Fix: AVI subtitles handling
- Fix: Compatibility with ACM wrapper filter
- Fix: A rare crash during Simple Splitter destruction
- Fix: A muxer bug when a sample extends past the movie's end (rarely happens with subtitles)
- Fix: Matroska muxer to always use NALU size length of 4
- Fix: Eliminated tearing on some hardware when not using Soft VSync in the Video Renderer
- Fix: Better compatibility with DVD playback using a Video Renderer (still not perfect)

kaisersose77

Ye they know there is a problem but whether they do anything is a different matter (one of the sat forums says that it was brought to their attention on doom9 or another forum). I'll probably still go for the 7600gs as the 7600gt seems to be about 50 euro dearer. I'll have to stick the 6600gt back in anyways to see does it make much difference with decoding the bbc hd channel.

8T8

I'm not sure if this is correct or not but last I heard the BBC HD channels required PAFF and MBAFF interlaced support in the codec of which CoreAVC is the only game in town.

Like I said I could very well be wrong if you have already tested Cyberlinks decoder with the BBC HD channels & found it working.

For an extra 50 bucks for the fanless 7600GT I would go for it as you run the risk with the 7600GS lower clock speed not being enough then you are stuck with another unwanted GPU.