PC specs for BDrip playback

[Desu]

hi
i would like to download some anime series in BDrip format (MKV), but i read everywhere that playing them eat up a lot of resources
they will be both 1080p and 720p

my pc is a core 2 quad 6600 (4 x 2.40 GHz), with 4 GB RAM and a crappy video card with shared memory, but i'll replace it soon, so it doesn't matter in the equation

am i good to go?
do you have any recommendations for a good & cheap video card?

and while we're at it, i was thinking about buying a multimedia external disk... or whatever in the hell they're called now, just for BDrips, any hint on this?
the best i found is the MKVjuice, but maybe there's something better...

 

[chompy]

Yea, that's plenty.

I have similar specs and playback 1080p live action and animation just fine, even with DXVA and CUDA (video-card processing, essentially) disabled my CPU usage is satisfyingly low.

You might want to make sure your screen is 1920x1080 or higher before bothering with 1080p rips, otherwise you're just wasting space and resources.

I only play back on my computer as I have no television, so I can't offer much advice on multimedia playback solutions.

 

[Desu]

uhm, i definitely have to change the video card AND the monitor then, cause as of now i can't go over 1280x1024

quite expensive just for Bakemonogatari and Darker than Black, so i'll probably look forward for more HD stuff

many thanks chompy

edit: i'm browsing some websites (argh! the best ones are US based and only ship to US) for a video card but i'm already lost....
i've been out of these things for too long dammit!

what should i search for?
coreAVC, which is told to be THE hd decoder of choice is designed for nvidia so i'd go that way, but which series? and what would be the "right" price for something i only use for movies (no videogames at all)? less than $100, $100-150, or more?

 

[chompy]

If you're just using it for movies, you're looking to spend about $30 on one. That's if you need to upgrade at all. The 8400GS is around $35 and is overkill for everything besides gaming.

1280x1024 is great for 720p movies as they will playback with no scaling and your current hardware will be more than fine.

I would recommend MPC-HC and ffdshow tryout (which actually benchmarks at lower CPU usage than coreavc pro)

Easiest solution is to just download CCCP (http://www.cccp-project.net/) which includes MPC-HC and ffdshow tryout.

 

[Desu]

just $30? i'm relieved

1280x1024 is great for 720p movies as they will playback with no scaling and your current hardware will be more than fine.

i'll begin with 720p then, and i'll see how it performs

I would recommend MPC-HC and ffdshow tryout (which actually benchmarks at lower CPU usage than coreavc pro)

i already have CCCP installed so i'm ok, but i think i'll give coreavc a try, just to understand the reason of all this buzz about it being super duper

thanks again chompy

 

[chompy]

Remember to disable H264/AVC in both ffdshow and MPC-HC's "internal filters" so that coreavc will pick up the processing.

 

[Desu]

good video card is good

i'm experiencing surprisingly low cpu usage (relatively low, that's it) while playing 1080p

and the cpus are almost not working with 720p

could it be that i underestimated my video card? it's a GeForce 8500GT, and i've always thought it was bad because of the shared memory, but it seems to do its own dirty work rance:

 

[cattz]

i'm experiencing surprisingly low cpu usage (relatively low, that's it) while playing 1080p

could it be that i underestimated my video card? it's a GeForce 8500GT, and i've always thought it was bad because of the shared memory, but it seems to do its own dirty work rance:

Heh

I can watch all 720p's and some 1080p's pretty easily with the integrated GeForce 6150 SE that my older comp I leave downstairs uses.

It's a roll of the dice for 1080's with whether the audio/video will sync or not, but that's about the only problem. Can play them all easily with this one though.

It is weird when you realize that it isn't that "high a requirement" on a pc as you would expect.