Will PT 8 have video benchmark capability?

[wonderwrench]

I would like to have the ability to test a PC's video playback ability of Flash, Silverlight, Movie Media Player 7, DVD and BR formats. I would also like to have a automated way to run these tests at several resolutions so it would be easy to see what a given PC can handle. This would be a huge challenge for passmark but it would be very useful in this day and age.

Bill

[David (PassMark)]

Even low end PC's can easily play back DVD & flash movies, etc..
BR is slighly more of a hardware challenge, but any machine with a BR player should play a BR disc.

For example my, rather mid range, media center plays back 1080p HD video content with only about 20% CPU load. But of course then depends on the codec and sound encoding in use as well, which varies from one video to the next.

That is to say, video play back should not come close to maxing out the hardware in the year 2011.

[wonderwrench]

Even low end PC's can easily play back DVD & flash movies, etc..
BR is slighly more of a hardware challenge, but any machine with a BR player should play a BR disc.

For example my, rather mid range, media center plays back 1080p HD video content with only about 20% CPU load. But of course then depends on the codec and sound encoding in use as well, which varies from one video to the next.

That is to say, video play back should not come close to maxing out the hardware in the year 2011.

Yes that's the way it should be but I have been seeing some bad results on newer hardware. I see many people on the net complaining of the same thing. CPU usage is not the problem. Either the lower end (quite/ passively cooled) video cards used in HTPC's are under powered or the drivers suck. Dropped frames are common playing 1080p HD video with high detail and motion at the same time. Even higher end video cards seems to have problems but to a lesser degree. Here is a 1080p video that will cause most systems to drop frames when driving a 1920x1080 or higher display. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSGBVzeBUbk
Watch closely in the open areas, when the camera pans and you can see dropped frames on most cards. BTW the credits that fill the screen at the end are a good test to see if you have enough CPU horse power. P4's or less get the crap beat out of them.

The ones that don't have this problem or have the problem to a lesser degree are dropping advanced filtering instead of dropping frames or are high end cards. Some just drop filtering altogether and sacrifice image quality. I think part of the problem is a lack of hardware on the lower end cards. There just is not enough hardware left to do whats needed. Another problem is most if not all newer cards declock themselves to save power in 2d mode. Some clock up to play video some do not. Some pump and can't make up their minds what speed to run. This looks really bad almost like game stutter.

Maybe I'm just too picky but it sure would be nice to know what can really handle HD 1080p video when played at 1920x1080 or higher resolution. having this info would come in very handy when building any system that is going to drive a 1920x1080 or higher monitor. Maybe there is no way a synthetic test could prove anything but it would be nice.

I learned of this problem the hard way. I thought I'd be trouble free with a HD 5450 in my HTPC box well I wasn't. I ended up finding a passively cooled 5670 and its getting me by.

[David (PassMark)]

Check out the video play back test in our existing BurnInTest product. It will do at least some of what you want. Including reporting on dropped frames.

[wonderwrench]

I was a long time owner of BurninTest Pro, since version 3 I think. The price has become more than I'm willing to pay considering the amount of use I have gotten out of it. Don't take this wrong BT is a great tool if you need it. If there was a way to add support for video playback in PT 8 the best part would be the benchmark charts that would be available. It would be easy to see what works and what does not. BurninTest would only confirm if a given card works or not after the fact. Its too late then.

Thanks for your time
Bill