You guys may want to keep your eyes open for this software’s debut. It’s already out for the Mac and the high definition clips look amazing when played thru Quick Time 7 (QT7) on my 17” Powerbook. Here’s a link:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/

I tried downloading a 720p trailer of the movie “Serenity” onto my Sony T250 but Quicktime 6 would only give the soundtrack. Not that the T250 could actually play the trailer without flicker. My 17” Powerbook with the dedicated 64 MB ATI gives framerates averaging 18.5 FPS, with highs of 24 FPS and some lows of 13 FPS. So it is generally smooth but there is some stutter in places. But the resolution is eye popping; a definite improvement over DVD that you can plainly see on your laptop screen.

I’m seriously hoping Apple takes the Windows platform a little more seriously and gives us a a QuickTime client that takes advantage of the hardware on the PC. Its performance has traditionally been lackluster compared to the Mac version. Also, even with the paid for version of Quicktime with the better codecs (i.e. Sorenson 3) I cannot get a quality movie at a decent size. Microsoft’s free Windows Media Encoder spits out WMV files that are superior to whatever I can make with Quicktime.

In terms of HD content, we already have it on the Windows platform in the form of DivX-HD and WMV-HD . If you’ve seen the 720p and 1080i trailers that both DivX and Microsoft have out you will be blown away. These have both been out for a while too so there’s a growing amount of content. I have Coral Reef Adventure, Amazon, T2, and Step Into Liquid all in WMV-HD and it’s a mind blowing experience. I almost can’t watch regular DVDs because of these titles.  :wink:

Thanks for the tip GrooveyOne. Am I missing something? Terminator 2 at 720p plays without a stutter on my Sony T250 using Windows Media Player 10. I am downloading “The Rules of Attraction” at 1080p and will see how this does. It’s all new to me. Never knew HD was available on laptops until yesterday. :D

Microsoft and DivX both suggest at least a P4 2.4GHz processor to view HD content. The Pentium M 1.2GHz you have is probably the absolute bare minimum you can use since it’s equivalent to a 2.0-2.1GHz Pentium 4. And that’s just for 720p content. I think they “recommend” at least 3GHz for 1080i content.

1080i stuff is likely to drag your system down. Also, it’s larger than your screen so your computer will have to scale it down. 720p stuff is perfect for your T250’s screen and requires less horsepower to view.

Remarkably even at 1080p there was just a bit of stutter now and then while watching the Discoverers HD clip, probably due to not a lot of fast action sequences though. This is one neat little laptop!

I do notice in my opinion the Apple trailers look even better though, I guess because of the codec using more of the CPU.

Yikes! The “minimum” suggested configuration for 1080 content on the Mac is a Dual 2.0GHz PowerMac G5 with 512MB of memory and a video card with 128MB of memory. That’s more or less in line with PC numbers.

I forgot that PMacs don’t have a single CPU option above 1.8GHz unless you get an iMac. I wonder if the single CPU iMacs at 2GHz can pump out 1080p…

I think WMVHD is not bad but DivX-HD is probably a little better. H.264 is the future though (in terms of an actual standard). It exists on the PC side but not widely available yet. Part of delay is that most PCs in the world can’t use it (at least in the HD form).

Is it possible to convert any of our present divx or MPEG videos to HD?. I found this authoring guide on the same link groovy, but i dont know if its of much use.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/wmvhddvd/default.aspx

[quote author=“writetovarun”]Is it possible to convert any of our present divx or MPEG videos to HD?

Unless you have access to a high-quality source, there’s really no point. Just digitizing something means a loss (however imperceptable) in quality, but MPEG and DivX videos are highly compressed, losing a lot of quality in the process. You’re not going to get any of that lost quality back just by making the resolution higher. It’s going to look just as blocky as it did before.

[quote author=“Drachen”][quote author=“writetovarun”]Is it possible to convert any of our present divx or MPEG videos to HD?

Unless you have access to a high-quality source, there’s really no point. Just digitizing something means a loss (however imperceptable) in quality, but MPEG and DivX videos are highly compressed, losing a lot of quality in the process. You’re not going to get any of that lost quality back just by making the resolution higher. It’s going to look just as blocky as it did before.

Exactly. If you want to see what happens yourself then try this. Take any digital photo you have and crop/resize it to 720x480 (aka DVD quality resolution). Now, resize it (also known as resample) to 1280x720. Notice how crappy it looks?  :wink: Of course, it’s likely to be even crappier than that since most modern video codecs don’t use single frame captures. Most are temporal frames with a sort of motion blur in them that trick your eyes into seeing smooth motion.

Hey guys

I just received my Microsoft HD DVD Sample code Disc. They say its only available for video professionals blah blah but just make some crap up and they send it through.

I want to try playing the 1080p stuff out of it, lets see how it goes on my S3XP !

Cheers

Oh dear god, just played the coral reef video from the DVD. The quality on my 7.1 system is unbelievable ! Suddenly the rear, l & r speakers were blasting away like never before. The sound is so evenly spread out, its just out of this world. Such dramatic increase in the db levels and clarity ! WOW. And i havent even started talking about the video quality .. guys you have to have this disc.  :shock:

Hi,

I’d like to output HD video to my video projector. My Epson 550 does 1280 X 720 but whenever I hook up my TR3 both change to 1024 X 768.

Is there a display driver to output 1280 X 720 to the projector?

Help
BrianM

I should add I’ve seen this on other projectors. The 16:9 LCD screen always seems to get “squished” to a 3:4 ratio.