High CPU usage with ITunes video

[hotpurple]

Hi all,

I'm having trouble with playing HD video downloaded from ITunes through my HDTV (1080p).

The PC has the following spec:

Pentium Dual Core E2180
G33 Motherboard (Gigiabyte GA-G33M-S2H)
ATi Radeon HD5450 (CAT 10.2)
4gb 800MHz DDR2
Windows 7 Home Premium X64
1TB Samsung EcoGreen F2

This is connected to the TV via HDMI from the radeon card.

When I'm playing HD video downloaded from iTunes I am getting around 70 - 80% cpu usage and it drops frames quite regularly. GPU-Z reports around 45% GPU usage which, I would suspect, means that the DXVA component of the GPU is working.

So, given that the GPU should be able to decode 1080p video with no problem, why am I seeing such high CPU usage?

Thanks in advance,

Chris

[SiM]

Are you using itunes to playback the video? Try MPC-HC, it comes with an inbuilt h.264 dxva hardware decoder.

[hotpurple]

Thanks, I've tried that but the video won't play at all, it just comes up with "cannot render video". I would hazard a guess that this is because of the DRM (fairplay) on the video files that you can download from iTunes. Am I just better off selling the HTPC and getting an apple TV?

Chris

[SiM]

Am I just better off selling the HTPC and getting an apple TV?

Ha. Don't you apple n00bs ever learn? They will shaft you any way they can.

I suggest you try something like this. Then it should work with any media player

[hotpurple]

OK, that won't work either for a couple of reasons, first it is only for audio and second it is only for older iTunes versions.

I know that Quicktime / iTunes supports H264 hardware acceleration on my macbook through the integrated Geforce 9400M, does the PC version not do this as well through DXVA?

I don't think the apple TV is such a bad idea really. I don't need an optical drive as I have a stand alone Blu-ray player, no need for web browsing as I have a laptop, gaming is beyond the system anyway, and I have a Wii for that. So, really all I want is a system that will play my music (mix of MP3 and AAC files) and video files (mostly TV series and films downloaded from iTunes). The apple TV does all of this quite easily and with the minimum of fuss.

I was considering swapping it for an ion based system anyway, so maybe the apple tv is the better choice for me? In the mean time, I would still love to be able to use my existing system, without having to overclock it.

Chris

[SiM]

OK, that won't work either for a couple of reasons, first it is only for audio and second it is only for older iTunes versions.

Apparently it works for any media (including video) have a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay

If that particular program does not do video (don't see why it won't) then there is a list of others on the wiki page (Requiem works up to itunes 9.0.2)

... and if you read it carefully it lists how to use the old itunes too (virtual machine or mojopac)

Or... if you want to throw more money at apple to fix a problem that they invented then that is your choice

[hotpurple]

OK, thanks for the help, I'll see if I can get requiem to work then.

Chris