videos benchmarks on phoronix

[pouyoux]

Hi,

Phoronix site does a great job in testing graphic cards under *nix, which is very usefull, as those informations doesn't exist out there.

But the performance part of the tests focus on the comportement of the cards with games. But 3d is not the only use of graphic cards, with democratisation of HTPC (home theater PC) and the HD content waves, video performances are more and more sensible. Especially because we can observe very different comportement between cards due to hardware and drivers properties.

So I think that adding some video tests (with xvid, avc1, mpeg2, x264 movies) could interest lots of people.

What do you think about it ?

[Michael]

I hope some video benchmarks will be part of the Phoronix Test Suite. Well, they are on my TODO list. Once they are part of the Phoronix Test Suite, there will be video benchmarks appearing in original Phoronix articles.

The first bits of the Phoronix Test Suite should be out soon and after that anyone is welcome to make any video benchmark scripts, if you beat me to it

(Pouyoux: Were you the one that emailed me yesterday about video benchmarks? Anyways, my response to that email was going to basically be what's said above. )

[pouyoux]

Great move to "open" the test suite protocol !

I see 2 parts for the video test :

1/ performance part : how hard the cpu works to decode some samples in different usual formats at different usual resolutions (576p, 720p, 1080p).
For this part I could imagine some ways to script it.

2/ capabilities part : how good does the graphic card do its job.
Does it provide hardware decoding acceleration by playing some video formats ? is rendering tearing free ? does noise reduction do its job ? does 3:2 pulldown detection do work ? etc etc
For this part it's a lot more difficult to imagine how to script it

(Michael : yes I'am tho one who wrote to you yesterday. today I would like to check that I 'm not the only one in *nix world interested by (and using it for) video playback )

[Thetargos]

Interesting, I can hardly wait to see some results... by the way, how could performance be assessed for video playback (besides aproximate CPU utilization and XVideo capabilities)?

[pouyoux]

In speaking of brute performance GPU load would be an interesting item, but to my knowledge we can't get it.

For capabilities, that's not enough that GPU/drivers provide video enhancement, they have to do it well !! And trust me, a good couple GPU/drivers (especially under *nix) is quite rare.

To illustrate this, you can go there http://www.hqv.com/benchmark.cfm, you have some screenshots, and some pdf which explain deeper what a good couple GPU/drivers have to do to make a good job in video playback.

HQV test suite exists under serveral formats (PAL DVD, NTSC DVD, BLU-RAY, HD-DVD), maybe DVD version could be used to benchmark video cards ?
I think BR version need a BR virtual machine to work correctly, so we'll have to wait a few years before using it under *nix

I don't know how automatic HQV is.

[Vadi]

What a borked poll.

[Nando]

Hi,
i have edit a other test-resources to install/start a mplayer decoding benchmark.

If someone is interested ... but is can be make better.

phoronix-test-suite run mplayer

Would you like to save these test results (Y/n)? n

====================================
Mplayer (Run 1 of 3)
====================================

FRAMES: 2173.25
SECONDS: 7.86
SECONDS INTERLACED: 14.92
Decoding Rate: 276 fps
Decoding Rate Deinterlaced: 145 fps

====================================
Mplayer (Run 2 of 3)
====================================

FRAMES: 2173.25
SECONDS: 7.53
SECONDS INTERLACED: 14.03
Decoding Rate: 288 fps
Decoding Rate Deinterlaced: 154 fps

====================================
Mplayer (Run 3 of 3)
====================================

FRAMES: 2173.25
SECONDS: 7.73
SECONDS INTERLACED: 14.84
Decoding Rate: 281 fps
Decoding Rate Deinterlaced: 146 fps

####################################
Mplayer:


Average: 0.00 Seconds
####################################

Files http://vdrportal.de/board/thread.php...149#post730149

- without Option "-vo null" in script video plays in window
- with "-vc mpeg12" or "-vc xvid" or "-vc ffh264" other codecs would be able

bye,
Nando

[Nando]

Double post can be deleted.
(I could't read the Message that i have to wait.)

[Dieter]

> how could performance be assessed for video playback (besides
> aproximate CPU utilization and XVideo capabilities)?

Add Xvmc.
Measure power consumption.

This should be open source software only, nothing binary-only.

The quantity numbers should be relatively easy to test.
Quality aspects will likely be more difficult.

Perhaps multiple player software could also be tested?
Mplayer vs xine, vs ...

Interlaced context shown on progressing display. Progressive
content shown on interlaced display.

Some users want/need to build a HTPC to avoid problems
found in turnkey solutions:

Test the so-called "tricks" modes: freeze frame, slow & fast
motion, backwards, etc. The turnkey Ethernet to video bridges
are said to do poorly on this.

Many turnkey boxes (Tivo, CECBs ...) crash, especially when
displaying OTA closed captions.

Some HDTVs are said to have poor scalers, so test 480i to 1080i
and visa-versa.

[dashcloud]

It would be interesting to compare different video drivers (free & binary) against each other, and then compare different decoders against each other (I'd be interested to see if Fluendo's decoders are worth the money). The decoders could be a problem, as a very large majority of players use libraries from FFmpeg.

Encoding might be better suited to a CPU-style test, and if you want to do that, there's not a whole lot better now than the 1080P .pngs from Big Buck Bunny.