Expected CPU laod for bluray playback - much higher than HD?

[nikleb]

As I changed to a GE730 video card I checked some of the HTPC vitals. Noticed than when playing bluray that the CPU is ~50% loaded.
Granted my system is getting old. I use a Intel Core2 Duo E7500 Wolfdale Dual-Core 2.93 GHz CPU with the Ge730 GPU. PowerDVD 15.
Playing recorded HD is max 10% CPU.

Not saying this has anything to do with recent GPU change, just checking whether this is expected.

[jec6613]

A C2D E7500 is bordering on ancient - and yes this is to be expected. I'm surprised it's not higher, but that video card is probably doing most of the work. BD brings along a truckload of data, several times the bitrate of HDTV.

[nikleb]

I downloaded GPU-Z to do some measurements.
Somewhat surprised about the results

CPU GPU
"Idle" MC Start menu 7% 30%
"Idle" guide 12% 40%
TV live (HD) 12% 59%
BR (moderate enh.) 50% 34%
BR (no enhancement) 18% 25%

Needless to say that there are some surprises such as MCE shell GPU or BR enhanced doing more with CPU than GPU.

I have Win7, PowerDVD 15, Ceton, EPG123

[mercalia]

I have a similar old system Dual Core E8500( 3.16 Ghz, £10 from Ebay ) and Nvidea 760 ti. I get around 40% on both cores using Powerdvd 17. Fine. I am not sure Powerdvd uses the video card to do much. I rarely watch them as I rip them to mkv files using DVDFab where its more like 8% in Media Center. DVDFab by the way is one of the best bluray rippers only blemished by that its a subscription product unless you buy the life time option. I think the subscription applies to updates as it gets updates frequently, so I suspect it would still work after it runs out just wont get any updates ( I dont really know) It can rip a blu ray using my video card down to about 5GB in about 20 minutes & the quality on my 27" monitor is fine. Not bad for such an old PC. I have then used K-Lite codec pack so that Media Center will play them. Does a very good job. Really as good as any modern system in use