high cpu load with h264 videos

[elchi]

Hi,

I would expect such a high CPU load (~40%) for a h264 Video on my Windows7 PC. 10%-20% would be somehow ok but 40% ????
For me it looks like every HW accleration isnt used at all.

WMplayer says 15% !

ffmpeg say: Metadata:
handler_name : Core Media Data Handler
Stream #0:1(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 2984 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 30 tbn, 60 tbc (default)
Metadata:
handler_name : Core Media Data Handler
Stream #0:2(deu): Subtitle: mov_text (text / 0x74786574)
Metadata:
handler_name : Core Media Data Handler
Stream #0:3(und): Video: mjpeg (jpeg / 0x6765706A), yuvj420p, 1280x720 [SAR 72:72 DAR 16:9], 0 kb/s, 0k fps, 30 tbr, 30 tbn, 30 tbc
Metadata:
handler_name : Core Media Data Handler

System:
Lenovo W500 T9400 @2.53GHz Core 2 Duo
Windows 7 x64 Prof.
VLC 2.1.4 x64
ATI Mobility FireGL V5700
Driver Version 8.641.1.1000

[JohnDC]

I asked about this months ago, and the official answer was to use WMP. I think the unofficial answer is that commercial h.264 codecs (CoreAVC etc) are better at finding and using h/w acceleration than VLC's resident codec.

EDIT: Sorry, meant to add we see a 15-20% cpu drop with all 2.x VLC versions if we disable mouse wheel tracking (Tools/Prefs/Hotkeys/toward the bottom, set "MouseWheel up-down axis Control" to ignore). At least on our system it makes the difference between watchable HD h.264 and unwatchable in VLC.