Do I need PureVideo codec to get benefits from hardware accelerations?

I'm using GeForce 8600 and ffdshow codec. NVidia is selling PureVideo
codec. This is confusing. Does this mean that the PureVideo technology
in GeForce 8600 needs that codec to work? If I use ffdshow, does the
hardware acceleration still work? Since PureVideo codec is not a free
software.... I need to know about that.

Cat wrote:
I'm using GeForce 8600 and ffdshow codec. NVidia is selling PureVideo
codec. This is confusing. Does this mean that the PureVideo technology
in GeForce 8600 needs that codec to work? If I use ffdshow, does the
hardware acceleration still work? Since PureVideo codec is not a free
software.... I need to know about that.


Yes and no. You can get hardware accelerated YUV and post processing
through DXVA (Windows Media Player, MPC, etc); however for accelerated
decoding functions of MPEG2 and H264 needs a codec that interfaces with
your hardware through the driver (i.e. PureVideo). This means DVD and
HDTV playback are faster and use your GPU using PureVideo, but only use
your CPU and whatever MPEG2 codec you have installed without it.

Essentially PureVideo is a codec just like ffdshow (libavcodec) and
Divx, but one you have to pay for due to MPEG licensing cost (otherwise
it would just be included with the driver).

Ant wrote:
On 10/14/2007 10:32 AM PT, deimos typed:

Cat wrote:
I'm using GeForce 8600 and ffdshow codec. NVidia is selling PureVideo
codec. This is confusing. Does this mean that the PureVideo technology
in GeForce 8600 needs that codec to work? If I use ffdshow, does the
hardware acceleration still work? Since PureVideo codec is not a free
software.... I need to know about that.


Yes and no. You can get hardware accelerated YUV and post processing
through DXVA (Windows Media Player, MPC, etc); however for accelerated
decoding functions of MPEG2 and H264 needs a codec that interfaces
with your hardware through the driver (i.e. PureVideo). This means
DVD and HDTV playback are faster and use your GPU using PureVideo, but
only use your CPU and whatever MPEG2 codec you have installed without it.

Essentially PureVideo is a codec just like ffdshow (libavcodec) and
Divx, but one you have to pay for due to MPEG licensing cost
(otherwise it would just be included with the driver).

Doesn't NVIDIA driver comes with PureVideo?

PV rarely changes, and it's a separate package. You can download then
register the trail from the NV site. It's also a basic media player,
but the codec installs with a little tray icon that you can swtich your
PV options in any app. The driver contains components that interface
the card with the codec. It's a bit confusing indeed.