How much CPU do you need?

[Pete1122]

This program works great but when I playback the MKV Blueray file I get some slight stuttering. I've tried every codec in the book including running windows 7, my specs are as follows:

C2D e4500 (2.1ghz dual core)
4 gigs ram
Nvidia 8500GT

Do I simply not have enough horsepower to play these MKV files back without some stuttering? When I playback downloaded 1080p files around the 6-8gig size they play perfect.

[Sybock]

That's certainly enough to run 1080p content, I've ran 1080p on much less. There was a thread on this forum about BluRays delivering jerky playback when converted, and that thread was never resolved.

[Cave Man]

What app are you using for playback? I'd suggest you try XBMC or some other that uses ffmpeg.

[Pete1122]

Keep in mind that I have no problem playing back Bluray disks using PowerDVD or Total Media Theater, it's only when I try playing the MKV rips where I run into problems. I have tried using VLC player and Windows 7 Media Center as my players. It seems to boil down to a lack of hardware/GPU decoding not happening with these files and I have tried every codec in the book...FFDshow, Shark007, CoreAVC...you name it and my CPU still is near maxed.

[Sybock]

I'm telling you Pete, the E4500 is way more than powerful enough to play .mkv files without problem. VLC isn't a very good player from my experiences, neither is Media Centre. I'd suggest trying the Combined Community Codec Pack and Media Player Classic or KMPlayer with CoreAVC.

Still though, are these your own backups made with MakeMKV? Because like I posted in this thread only two posts ago, there seems to be some kind of problem with these files as evidenced by another thread on this forum.

[Pete1122]

I'm telling you Pete, the E4500 is way more than powerful enough to play .mkv files without problem. VLC isn't a very good player from my experiences, neither is Media Centre. I'd suggest trying the Combined Community Codec Pack and Media Player Classic or KMPlayer with CoreAVC.

Still though, are these your own backups made with MakeMKV? Because like I posted in this thread only two posts ago, there seems to be some kind of problem with these files as evidenced by another thread on this forum.

I did try CoreAVC and Media Player Classic with the same results, I am pretty much stuck using Media Player becuase this is my Home Theater computer. I am thinking your right with the problem being the rips, they are my own personal Bluray copies. Any 1080p MKV off the internet plays fine with no stuttering, however those are at least half the size at 8-9 gigs.

[Icanseestars]

If you make the Blu-ray MKV manually you shouldn't encounter any stuttering.

[NomadCF]

I did try CoreAVC and Media Player Classic with the same results, I am pretty much stuck using Media Player becuase this is my Home Theater computer. I am thinking your right with the problem being the rips, they are my own personal Bluray copies. Any 1080p MKV off the internet plays fine with no stuttering, however those are at least half the size at 8-9 gigs.

There you go, you said it your self. The "blurays" your playing from the internet aren't really true blurays movies. There dumbed down or watered down version of a true bluray. There bit rates are halfed or more, the details while still being better then a DVD is lower then the org. movie. So trying to compare this downloaded "trash" VS a true bluray rip is like comparing frozen orange juice to a real orange. Sure it tastes "like" a orange but it's just not as good when compared side by side.

Yes a 2.1 should be able to play a real bluray alright, that is if all the outside requirements are met. Like a decent video card and sound card (non integrated, while a inner graded sound card normally doesn't matter all that much as far as play back. A Blurays sound even at AC3 compressed levels are +500mb. And even more so if your trying to play back LCPM. While true it's uncompressed so that means less stress on your CPU or sound card it more that needs to be "dealt" with.), And a decent player/codex. So if you have all those requirements met and your still having issues, then you've got OS issues. Weather that being too many background tasks or apps, bad drivers, badly configured hard drive settings, etc.

Side note: Using Mediaplayer classic + CoreAVC, I've been able to setup a single core HP NC6000 to playback true bluray rips with out frame loss.

[Pete1122]

Ok, I think your dead on with the hardware being good enough. I was able to get Coreavc to run with some of these MKV rips however the ones that dont use Coreavc still use a high CPU. I''ll have to figure this out, thanks guys.

[Sybock]

I did try CoreAVC and Media Player Classic with the same results, I am pretty much stuck using Media Player becuase this is my Home Theater computer. I am thinking your right with the problem being the rips, they are my own personal Bluray copies. Any 1080p MKV off the internet plays fine with no stuttering, however those are at least half the size at 8-9 gigs.

There you go, you said it your self. The "blurays" your playing from the internet aren't really true blurays movies. There dumbed down or watered down version of a true bluray. There bit rates are halfed or more, the details while still being better then a DVD is lower then the org. movie. So trying to compare this downloaded "trash" VS a true bluray rip is like comparing frozen orange juice to a real orange. Sure it tastes "like" a orange but it's just not as good when compared side by side.

There are rips that get re-encoded to shrink down to a particular size and there are the original quality Bluray rips. Assuming he has somehow only managed to download and watch re-encoded rips is kind of silly.

[Oldman]

Decoding high bit rate h264/VC-1 content does actually use a lot of CPU horsepower. What you download is usually probably around 5-10Mbps, while true blu-ray content is around 20-40Mbps. On windows 7 64-bit I rip my blu-rays using MakeMKV. I installed the Haali media splitter and Media Player Classic Homecinema. Under Options-->Playback-->Output I chose EVR as the Directshow filter. Under Internal Filters I removed the checkmark next to Matroska. You should be good to go with this.

http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/

http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/

My box:

Intel 6420 @ 2.1GHZ
Nvidia GTX260
4GB RAM

[Sybock]

I was able to play untouched rips from Blurays on a Pentium D 925, 2GB RAM and an 8500GT.

[NomadCF]

There are rips that get re-encoded to shrink down to a particular size and there are the original quality Bluray rips. Assuming he has somehow only managed to download and watch re-encoded rips is kind of silly.

Not really, as nearly all of Bluray & whats left of HD-DVD content on the web for DL is this watered down version of it's original self. And so good reason, no on whats to wait days or weeks or whatever to DL true Bluray content when they can simply DL a liter version of the same thing that not only still looks way better then a DVD, but also plays better on there CP/portable/etc device then true Bluray content would.

And his own example states that he's getting only this kind of content as 8~9 gigs for bluray content is too big for a straight rip of a TV show (episode of something) with completer sound and is way to small for a movie.

But what I do find silly is anyone trying to rip a bluray with anything other then just running the m2ts though tsmuxer to remove the unwanted extra sound options, subtitles etc. Sure you'll need to have a 2.5 UDF driver (but only if your using XP) and for *some* they'll need a something like AnyDVD HD. But that depends on your Bluray drive.

I was able to play untouched rips from Blurays on a Pentium D 925, 2GB RAM and an 8500GT.

Okay and this means what ? We've already covered you should only need about a single core 2.0 ghz with non on board video card and non on board sound card. So stating that you where able to play it on a "old school" dual core 3 ghz with a more then decent video card, is like saying "Hey guys my portable dvd player plays DVDs just fine."

[Sybock]

It means that there's no reason his hardware would be limiting him. Since you didn't follow along, I'll recap for you. He posted his hardware specifications and then said he believes that his hardware is to blame for jerky bluray rip playback so I posted a build in which I successfully managed to play uncompressed bluray content.

[Pete1122]

Thanks for your help, I narrowed it down to a codec problem. Some of the full Bluray rips play just fine using the CoreAVC codec using less than 30% CPU, the other rips use Microsofts default codec sending my CPU through the roof. I cant for the life of me figure out why some Bluray rips use one codec and the other uses a different. The video codec should be the same but it switches depending on the movie.