HD Video Playback
Test 1: Blu-Ray: Casino Royale Chapter 2 (Chase through the construction site). Casino Royale is encoded in High Definition 1080p format using MPEG4 AVC compression (rather than Mpeg 2 which is used on older Blu-Rays) and comes on a dual layer (50 GB) disc. The aspect ratio of 2.40:1 is used with letterbox bars at the top and bottom of the 16:9 image.
Test 2: HD-DVD: Superman Returns Chapter 16 (Plane Rescue). Superman Returns is encoded in High Definition 1080p format (VC-1) using a dual layer 30 GB disc. The aspect ratio used is 2.4:1 with letterbox bars at the top and bottom of the 16:9 image.
NOTE: Just before going to press we received word that a new bios would be available which features enhanced HD video acceleration on the EQS and all 690G boards. Unfortunately we had a number of stability issues with this bios and could not view it’s effectiveness in video playback. We will endeavour to find a fix for these issues and update the article if successful.
What we can see from the above tests is that currently the Nvidia based boards are the performance leaders in video acceleration. Using the Abit board we achieve full 1080p over HDMI without issue allowing us to fully enjoy HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies, hopefully AMD’s claims of improved acceleration make 1080p playback a reality on 690G boards.
