Intel's Haswell - An HTPC Perspective: Media Playback, 4K and QuickSync Evaluated
by Ganesh T S on June 2, 2013 8:15 PM EST4K for the Masses
After our experience with Trinity and Ivy Bridge builds for HTPC purposes, we had reached the conclusion that a discrete GPU was necessary only if advanced rendering algorithms (using madVR's resource intensive scaling algorithms) or 4K support was necessary. In fact, the 4K media player supplied by Sony along with their $25K 84" 4K TV was a Dell XPS desktop PC with a AMD graphics card's HDMI output providing the 4K signal to the TV. Ivy Bridge obtained 4K display support last October, but not over the HDMI port (which is the only way to get 4K content on supported TVs).
The good news is that Haswell's 4K over HDMI works well, in a limited sort of way. In our first experiment, we connected our build to a Sony XBR-84X900 84" 4K LED TV. The full set of supported 4K resolutions (4096x2160 @ 23 Hz and 24 Hz, as well as 3840x2160 @ 23 Hz, 24 Hz, 25 Hz, 29 Hz and 30 Hz) was driven without issues.
4K H.264 decode using DXVA2 Native and QuickSync modes in LAV Video Decoder works without issues (this works well in Ivy Bridge too, just that Ivy Bridge didn't have the ability to output 4K over HDMI or any other single video link). Using madVR with 4K is out of the question (even with DXVA2 scaling), but EVR and EVR-CP both work without dropping any frames.
Now, for the bad news: If you are hoping to drive the ~$1300 Seiki Digital SE50UY04 50" 4K TV (the cheapest 4K TV in the market right now), I would suggest some caution. Our build tried to drive a 3840x2160 @ 30 Hz resolution to the Seiki TV on boot, but the HDMI link never got locked (the display would keep flickering on and off). The frequency of locking was inversely proportional to the HDMI cable length. The NVIDIA GT 640s that we tested in the same setup with the same cables and TV managed to drive the 4K Quad FHD resolutions without problems. We were able to recreate the situation with multiple Seiki units.
At this juncture, we are not sure whether this is an issue with the ASRock Z87E-ITX board in particular or a problem for all Haswell boards. Intel suggested that the HDMI level shifter used by ASRock might not be up to the mark for 4K output, but that doesn't explain why the output to the Sony 84" TV worked without issues. In short, if you have a Seiki 4K TV and want to use a PC to drive that, we would suggest using a NVIDIA GT 640 or greater / AMD 7750 or greater for now. We will update this section as and when we reach closure on the issue with ASRock / Intel.
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meacupla - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
there's like... exactly one mITX FM2 mobo even worth considering out of a grand total of two. One of them catches on fire and neither of them have bluetooth or wifi.LGA1155 and LGA1150 have at least four each.
TomWomack - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
The mITX FM2 motherboard that I bought last week has bluetooth and wifi; they're slightly kludged in (they are USB modules apparently glued into extra USB ports that they've added), but I don't care.The Haswell mITX boards aren't available from my preferred supplier yet, so I've gone for micro-ATX for that machine.
BMNify - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
I know you're trolling but the fact is more people are content with converting their 5 year old C2D cookie cutter desktop into an HTPC ($50 video card + case + IR receiver = job done) than buying all new kit.We reached the age of "good enough" years ago. Money is tight and with all the available gadgets on the market (and more to come) people are looking to make it go as far as possible. Intel is going to find it harder and harder to get their high margin silicon into the homes of the average family. Good enough ARM mobile + good enough x86 allows people to own more devices and still pay the bills. It looks like AMD has accepted this, they've taking their lumps and are moving forward in this "new world". I'm not sure what Intels long term strategy is but I'm a bit concerned.
Veroxious - Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - link
Agreed 100%. I am using an old Dell SFF with an E2140 LGA775 CPU running XBMCbuntu. It works like a charm. I can watch movies while simultaneously adding content. That PC is near silent. What incentive do I have for upgrading to a Haswell based system? None whatsoever.kallogan - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
2.0 ghz seriously ??? The core 45W Sandy i5-2500T was at 2,3 ghz and 3,3 ghz turbo. LOL at this useless cpu gen.kallogan - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
Forget my comment didn't see it was a i7 with 8 threads. 35W tdp is not bad either. But the 45W core i7-3770T would still smoke this.Montago - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
I must be blind... i don't see the regression you are talking about.HD4000 QSV usually get smudgy and blocky.. and that i don't see in HD4600 ... so i think you are wrong in your statements.
comparing the frames, there is little difference, and none i would ever notice while watching the movie on a handheld device like an tablet or Smartphone.
The biggest problem with QSV is not the quality, but the filesize :-(
QSV is usually 2x larger than x264
ganeshts - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
Montago,Just one example of the many that can be unearthed from the galleries:
Look at Frame 4 in the 720p encodes in full size here:
HD4600: http://images.anandtech.com/galleries/2836/QSV-720...
HD4000: http://images.anandtech.com/galleries/2839/QSV-HD4...
Look at the horns of the cattle in the background to the right of the horse. The HD4000 version is sharper and more faithful to the original compared to the HD4600 version, even though the target bitrate is the same.
In general, when looking at the video being played back, these differences added up to a very evident quality loss.
Objectively, even the FPS took a beating with the HD4600 compared to the HD4000. There is some driver issue managing the new QuickSync Haswell modes definitely.
nevcairiel - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
The main Haswell performance test from Anand at least showed improved QuickSync performance over Ivy, as well as something called the "Better Quality" mode (which was slower than Ivy, but never specified what it really meant)ganeshts - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
Anand used MediaEspresso (CyberLink's commercial app), while I used HandBrake. As far as I remember, MediaEspresso doesn't allow specification of target bitrate (at least from the time that I used it a year or so back), just better quality or better performance. Handbrake allows setting of target bitrate, so the modes that are being used by the Handbrake app might be completely different from those used by MediaEspresso.As we theorize, some new Haswell modes which are probably not being used by MediaEspresso are making the transcodes longer and worse quality.