Korean Job Discussion Forums

[IlIlNine]

Hi guys,

I have a Celeron 2.2 Ghz stuttering (not to mention synching issues..) while trying to output x.264 720p video to my HDTV. (video card output is native 720p to an LCD).

I would like to upgrade this computer - but not have to shell out the money for the latest and greatest. I would like to keep my ram and regular IDE drives and video card. I understand that at this point, video cards to not accelerate x.264 and that it's processor bound.

Running around Yongsan, I saw that they were selling P4 2.4 chips and mobos for about 80,000. Would that do the trick, or should I look for something faster?

Thanks.

[gsxr750r]

For HDTV video, they recommend at least a Pentium 3.0 chip. I've seen people get by with 2.8, and I got some things to run on my old Pentium 2.4 with a decent video card. I wouldn't go with anything less than 3.0 -- and NEVER a celeron.

What is your video card? You weren't specific. You'll need a stronger video card capable of running higher resolutions well.

What kind of HDTV video are you planning to watch? If you're going to watch movies, you'll eventually need a whole new monitor with HDCP capability (that's a kind of HDTV copy protection). If you are just going to watch your own video you shot on your home camera, that is different.

It all depends on what you want to do with it.

[IlIlNine]

I have a 720p LCD hooked up via VGA port to the computer. Driving that is some random (slow) nVidia Geforce w/64 megs of ram. Resolution is set at something like 1440x720 (native to my tv).

I'm not interested in watching DRMed content, so I don't really have any immediate need to upgrade the video card for the HDMI-out (and thus HDCP) (anyways, VGA looks great!). And - like I said - I'm pretty sure that x.264 is not accelerated by any video cards - so spending a lot more money on one may be a bit of a waste (I don't play games on this computer). Perhaps more video ram would allow the card to buffer the stream better.

The video card is perfectly happy doing everything else ...

I actually got this computer for free - I would never have bought a celeron for myself. It's been quite snappy for everything else I've used it for - everything except the new 720p vids I downloaded recently.

So, yeah. All I needed to know was what processor I should upgrade to.

I've been out of the game for a little while --

When did Pentiums (Core Duos) start using the dual-channel DDR? Or - in other words - what's the fastest chip I can use my old DDR sdram on? I'm really trying to keep costs down here...

[IlIlNine]

Well, Gsx750r (why it's not gsxr750, I don't know!)

I went out and bought a P43.0, 1.5GB of ram, 320GB of HDD space and kept my old crappy $20 a year a go Geforce4MX or whatever card (nvidia drivers are great for hooling up to HDTVs!).

And guess what?

It works great! I can watch all of the 720p movies I've downloaded. So, I'm pretty happy. I got this nice HTPC case - so it looks something like an integrated amp. Total cost was about 250,000.

Just in case anyone else had the same ideas.

[hanguker]

Great job! I think you did well for yourself at 250K. I'd like to make one of those myself. However, I just bought a new desktop so that's gotta wait.

Happy watching