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[jimmy neutron]

I have all my standard DVD and Blu-Ray rips on an NAS and I have 5 HTPC's in my home all hard wired on my gigabit CAT-6 network. 2 HTPC's is too slow for Blu-Ray playback (Pentium 4), but play everything else with no hiccups (one PC is in the garage/workout room, and the other in my daughter's room). My question is can MC17 downrez the remote playback of my blu-ray rips on those PC's to something more easier for the PC's to handle? Something maybe from 1080p MKV rips to standard DVD quality playback? Currently Blu-rays will playback on those PC's except they run a little slow - kinda like in slow motion - but they do play. If MC can downconvert the quality on those PC's they may be able to playback remote HD content just fine.

Can this be done? On further thinking about this, this may be a useful feature to have MC able to do ( if not too difficult ). Not everyone who has a home network with DVD and Blu-Ray rips would have an HDTV or a newer PC, but would still want to watch those rips.

Jimmy

[CountryBumkin]

Do you have the option to install a video card in those Pentium machines? An nVidia GT440 or GTS450 would most likely give you the power to play BDs. I don't think CPU is power is as important as GPU power when it comes to playback.

[Sandy B Ridge]

Do you have the option to install a video card in those Pentium machines? An nVidia GT440 or GTS450 would most likely give you the power to play BDs. I don't think CPU is power is as important as GPU power when it comes to playback.

Paradoxically, doesn't bluray need less GPU power than DVD ( if you have a 1920x1080p screen) because you don't need to do as much upscaling ( only the chroma needs upscaling and the luma left as is ). Whereas upscaling DVD res to 1080p requires more grunt? Also bluray is only 23.976 FPS whereas DVD is 59.94 ( when deinterlaced ) and also needs GPU deinterlacing.

SBR

Edit: Doh! Just read the title, this thread is about downrezing...... Just ignore me. I'll get my coat!

[jimmy neutron]

They already have decent video cards installed. These are full-fledged PC's than play all my music files bit-perfect and output them digitally to my Krell and Pioneer for decoding. The video playback (all but BD) play superbly. Actually there is not 1 thing wrong with these HTPC's, despite their age and old CPU, that have me thinking why so many people feel they need such high power spec'd PC's for HTPC playback (unless, of course, you are looking for BD playback). These HTPC's are strictly media machines, there is no web surfing, game playing, or anything happening other than MC's capabilities. In fact these HTPC's start up on MC automatically in Theater View.

The video cards in these HTPC's are NVIDIA cards (PCI and AGP based), and each HTPC in question is a Pentium 4 2.8 gHz, and has 4 gigs RAM running XP on one and Win 7 on the other. Everything runs butter smooth and perfect. Even blu-ray playback surprised me that it actually plays on these machines with great color and full audio. It just happens to play slow - like in slow motion. It doesn't stutter, or rebuffer, it just runs as if I hit the slow motion button - approx 1/2 times slower than normal speed. Maybe this *is* a setting on the PC's in question or MC? I don't see any settings in MC's DSP config panel that allows user control over video properties. I understand that for the most part MC handles the video without user intervention perfectly well, but in this particular situation maybe I can tweak it on my end?

Ideas?

Jimmy

[fitbrit]

I know of no PCI video cards that can accelerate BD video decoding. Only a few AGP ones can. If you want smooth playback of HD video, you'll need AGP video cards that can decode h.264 and VC1 without taxing your slow CPUs. There may be some 8x00 series nVidia cards that do this or some ATi 2x00 series cards. Ideally you'd be using PCIe cards. With the right card you can play all videos without the need to downscale the resolution.

[jimmy neutron]

I'm limited in the type if video card I can install in those PC's. I'm not looking to playback blu-ray on those PC's, just looking to have them be downrezed to allow playback (in standard DVD quality mode). When I get my income tax return I may upgrade the mobo and cpu, but for now, being that these are not high priority pc's, I am planning to leave them as is and just use them for everything else minus direct blu-ray playback.

Jimmy

[CountryBumkin]

I think you want the program "handbrake". I use it convert movies to mp4 for playback on my andriod. You can downscale your BD to whatever you need for playback on your machines.

[jimmy neutron]

Remember, I'm not looking to change the actual blu-ray rip that is on my NAS. I'm looking for a way to view blu-ray content - on the fly - on my remote PC that cannot playback blu-ray content natively. Much the same way MC will upscale a standard DVD to 1080p on playback, except I want the reverse - downscale a blu-ray to 720 / 480 on playback.

Jimmy

[fitbrit]

Remember, I'm not looking to change the actual blu-ray rip that is on my NAS. I'm looking for a way to view blu-ray content - on the fly - on my remote PC that cannot playback blu-ray content natively. Much the same way MC will upscale a standard DVD to 1080p on playback, except I want the reverse - downscale a blu-ray to 720 / 480 on playback.

Jimmy

Since the decoding is done on the local PC, this is going to be tough. It doesn't matter what the final output resolution is, it's going to have to decode the native resolution and then downscale it, which may be even tougher on the CPU than to merely play it back as is. The only way around it that I can think of is to use an Android tablet with Gizmo and connect it to the TVs. Then MC can decode the video on your fastest PC and send it wirelessly at the resolution of the tablet.

[jimmy neutron]

Since the decoding is done on the local PC, this is going to be tough. It doesn't matter what the final output resolution is, it's going to have to decode the native resolution and then downscale it, which may be even tougher on the CPU than to merely play it back as is.

This is what I was thinking too. I think in the long run it will be of less headaches to just upgrade the PC. A new quad core AMD + mobo + 4 gigs af RAM only costs $250.00. Income tax refund is only 1 week away so this may be the best liable solution.
I still think JR should give this some thought as I know I am not the only one wanting to do this.

Jimmy