X220: Any problems playing 1080 Video? Audio Line Input?

Hi,
I'm worried about Intel's dedicated GPU, and I was wondering if anyone had any problems or stuttering while playing 1920 x 1080 video (such as "Elephant's Dream") to the smaller local screen or out to an external monitors. Please specify your processor.

Have you had any video resolution, timing, or switching issues for external monitors

Can you record stereo audio through the jack, from line input?

Thank You.

 

Intel IGP has been able to play 1080p since two generations ago with the 4500MHD. The HD3000 is a truly powerful gpu now though. While 1080p movies would play fine without any enhacing, With the 4500MHD I could only apply maybe the maximum of Sharpening pixel shader (and even that would be too much on some movies), but now the current igp can handle Sharpening as a Screen Space Shader and even Denoising shaders. It was worth it getting the i5-2520 for the extra 200mhz gpu speed when using screen space shaders for really taxing scenes.

If you go through the last 5-10 pages in the owner's thread, there's a guy who seems to be quite an expert in audio recording. Iirc, he confirmed stereo recording.

 

Wait, I went back and looked through the last 7 pages of the owner's thread, and I didn't see anyone confirming stereo line input.

As far as I understood, no one was able to get stereo line input working. It appears that the jack is a auto-sensing TRRS jack, similar to the one that most smartphones use. TRRS allows for one stereo playback channel, and one, mono recording channel for the mic

I don't remember anyone specifically confirming that the combo jack will indeed record stereo line in.

 

Hi Brenda!
To answer your qs:

1080p video - yes to anything, it plays them with ease (including blueray rips).

Audio input, I'd love to hear your thoughts about it because I think I'm the only one trying to do those things as well!

I've found that the pinout can be a bit odd, but in all connections the TRRS like you mentioned does seem to only take an input only as mono. Would be nice if the software somehow let me swap that around (stereo input is more important to me).


I'm currently trying to find a nice usb audio input to use. Ideally I may find an expresscard one or even see if I can convert the esata port to give me extra usbs, but thats just how to plug that in.

 

Just did some testing, and I can play 5x 1080p streams at the same time with no hiccups. All the videos were over 5GB in size too. Any more than 5 and it starts to lag. Takes quite a toll on the CPU though.. all cores maxxed out and temps in the 95 C range (so no turbo of course). This is with the Core i7 2620M w/ 8GB of ram, movies stored on an external 2TB USB 2.0 drive.

Spoiler

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

WOW now I'm impressed !

I was really concerned about 2 things with X220 (other than screen issues ect)

1) Starcraft 2

2) 1080p

Good to know ut can handle both.

Intel did a good job with the HD3000 imho.

Imagine if they started making dedicated GPUs lol

 

I believe the last time I checked, VLC uses the CPU more than the GPU. I believe Intel demoed a quad core Sandy Bridge last year running 8 1080p streams and a video analysis program with no lag, and it could handle some more, and it did not use any GPU decode.

I'm going to test how many 1080p streams I can run now with MPC-HC, as that is my preferred media player as it has great hardware acceleration support.

Edit:
Wow, the Intel HD 3000 pushed 5 1080p streams without stuttering. Adding a 6th introduced some blockiness and stuttering in the highest quality stream. And then I tried with the Quadro 1000M just to see what the results would be. The max the Quadro 1000M could handle in Optimus mode was 3 streams, trying to run a 4th caused all of them to be unwatchable.

 

The video thing is good news.
Having to get a audio interface for a portable computer is a sad situation.

If it had a stereo line input, the user could still buy a "skype adapter." We need audio input. The record companies want to close the analogue loop, and they are getting their way.

Line-input is broken on the T61P as well. ?

 

I tend to get some lag when connecting to my Dell 22" monitor (G2210) in 'Extend' mode but not 'Projector only' mode, which is completely fine. This is playback of standard (eg non 1080p) material and is the same in VLC or WMP.

I have 4GB ram and CPU is i3-2310.

Have tried loading Dell's (pretty old) driver and it seems to be similar with or without it.

I would like playback to be perfect on the monitor via 'extend'. Any suggestions appreciated.

 

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema - Video Player

Try that.

 

What is the resolution of the external monitor? GPUs do have a limit of how much they can actually push. Also, do you have 2 modules of RAM or 1?

 

I doubt that's a problem. I run 2x 22" Dell Ultrasharps at work on a Core i5 2520M (not that much better than an i3) and there is no lag whatsoever. I think it might be a problem with your monitor or the connection itself.

 

Thanks Floz. Will try that later

It's only 1680 x 1050 (16:10). Hmm, maybe that's the problem, seeing as the internal is 16:9?

I have 2x 2GB of 1333 mhz. Will be replacing it with 2 x 4GB later today though. See if that makes a difference

Well, max graphics clock on the 2520 is 1.3 GHz. On the 2310 it's 1.1GHz

I also suspect it could be the monitor or displayport to DVI cable but, then again, why would there be no lag with 'projector only'? I do have an older Sharp monitor. Will see how that fares later today.

 

Just a quick update. Tried 'extend' through an old Sharp monitor and it played perfectly. So, the Dell monitor seems to be responsible, surprising because it is a current model:

Dell G2210 - 22" ( 56 cm ) Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor ? (TCO03) - Byfarthecheapest.com

 

Are you using VGA to connect both monitors? Have you tried swapping the cable?

 

Hi Floz. I'm using a Displayport to DVI cable. Works fine with the sharp monitor. Maybe I should ask Dell about their monitor.

Sorry to hijack the thread, Brenda

 

In terms of a solution Brenda, have you made any progress?