ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 3 Platinum with SimHD Overview and Benchmarks
TotalMedia Theatre 3 Platinum with SimHD Overview
Main screen
ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre is a universal multimedia DVD and video player software. It includes a unique technology called SimHD, which allows very high DVD video upscaling made possible through advanced post processing technology. This program uses CUDA technology to bring DVD movies and SD videos to near-HD quality by taking advantage of ArcSoft’s SimHD upscaling technology. SimHD technology uses an advanced GPU accelerated algorithm that provides better image quality than standard DVD upscaling.
Video settings menu
Without CUDA acceleration, the CPU can upscale content at a rate of two frames per second, which is much lower than the 30 frames per second required for smooth playback. With CUDA enabled, ArcSoft claims their software will playback movies close to 30 FPS.
Region and language options menu
Upon entering the program, users are shown an interface similar to Windows Media Player. The main image shows all the formats and technologies it supports. I think this image might be confusing to first-time users because some of the images look like buttons they can click. The top right has two buttons for changing program options and modifying audio and video effects that can be added to enhance the video during playback.
Power manager menu
In the settings menu, the main items of interest are enabling both HW Acceleration and SimHD to fully enjoy the benefits of CUDA and GPU acceleration. This will ensure users get the best image quality during playback. If hardware acceleration is disabled, TotalMedia Theatre will only use the CPU for DVD and other video playback.
Comparison screen playing “Bolt” movie at 1920×1080 with CUDA disabled on the left screen and enabled on the right screen
In this section, users can also modify the video mode from normal, splitting, and comparison. Normal will upscale the entire movie to cover the entire screen. Splitting mod will play the movie using normal DVD upscaling on the right side and SimHD upscaling on the right side of the screen.
Comparison screen playing “The Lord of the Rings – The Twin Towers” movie at 1920×1080 with CUDA disabled on the left screen and enabled on the right screen
This feature rich, CUDA-enabled video player is an interesting application that uses CUDA in a way that should definitely be noticeable by consumers. Smooth video playback is essential for those with multimedia and basic home PCs who frequently watch DVD and Blu Ray videos from their personal computers.
TotalMedia Theatre 3 Platinum with SimHD Benchmarks
For this particular benchmark, we couldn’t use Handbrake because it doesn’t have a video playback function to test against TotalMedia Theatre 3. So, we used the application’s built-in comparison mode to see both CUDA enabled and disabled screens side-by-side that also included CPU usage information in the top right side of each screen. This will give us a good indication of how much of the workload is being sent to the CPU as well as what type of image quality we will receive with CUDA, SimHD, and NVIDIA Pure Video working together.
Comparison screen playing “Bolt” movie at 1920×1080 with CUDA disabled
Comparison screen playing “Bolt” movie at 1920×1080 with CUDA enabled
Comparison screen playing The Lord of the Rings – The Twin Towers” movie at 1920×1080 with CUDA disabled
Comparison screen playing The Lord of the Rings – The Twin Towers” movie at 1920×1080 with CUDA enabled
After running our DVD upscaling benchmarks on Bolt and The Lord of the Rings – The Twin Towers, we were able to validate Arcsoft’s frame rate claims with CUDA enabled and disabled during DVD playback. With CUDA enabled, we noticed extremely smooth playback at 1920×1080 as well as crystal-clear video that didn’t studder once. We were also able to multi-task and check e-mail, write an article in Microsoft Word, and download torrents without any noticable difference to video playback. We were also averaging 24 FPS with CUDA enabled, which is pretty close to our target goal of 30 FPS.
When we changed our settings and turned CUDA off, that’s when things started to change. Our frame rate dropped to 2 FPS and we noticed considerable lag and studdering through the entire movie. We also noticed a weird green line on the right screen during our tests with CUDA disabled. Needless to say, watching upscaled movies through TotalMedia Theatre 3 requires CUDA to be enabled at all times because the CPU alone couldn’t handle the job.
