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Level 3

525 points

PM dual1.8GHz - Full HD Video?

G'day,

Would you expect a G5 dual 1.8Ghz PowerMac to handle playback of a full HD - 1920x1050 p50 - quicktime MOV file without missing a frame/s?

Back in 2007 I used Sony XD Cameras, which recorded full HD. We captured the footage using then new Intel Mac Pros, converting the files to .mov. Playing them back on my 1.25GHz eMac would result in lots of dropped frames.

My G5 is meant to operate about twice as fast as the eMac... (though bench tests show it currently isn't) I've just recorded full HD footage as noted above on a Panasonic TM900 prosumer camera, but the G5 can't even play a 1 minute clip from start to end - firstly its dropping frames, but by about 1/2 way through the clip, it stalls completely.

I was expecting I'd need to edit on my wife's Macbook Pro... but was a bit surprised that it couldn't handle playback at all...

Cheers

cosmic

PowerMac 2004 dual 1.8GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 1.25GHz RAM, 2x 1TB WD Green Drives, Stock Vid Card

Posted on Feb 22, 2012 8:58 PM

54 replies

BDAqua

Level 10

239,333 points

Feb 25, 2012 10:40 PM in response to Swampus

Altivec can easiy give a ten fold increase in performance if the App is so implemented/optimized! 🙂

Swampus

Level 2

180 points

Feb 25, 2012 10:48 PM in response to Swampus

Oh, I almost forgot the best part: I'm watching 1080p with no dropped frames on an MDD that is booted from one of those loathsome revolting Green drives attached to a broken SATA adapter with some duct tape. 😎

BDAqua

Level 10

239,333 points

Feb 25, 2012 10:59 PM in response to Swampus

WOW, MDD & Green Drives... what can I say! ???

PS. wish my 3 MDDS were still running... I have no heat in my house! 😝

Swampus

Level 2

180 points

Feb 25, 2012 11:08 PM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:

Altivec can easiy give a ten fold increase in performance if the App is so implemented/optimized! 🙂

Indeed. It almost makes you feel cheated when you see the potential of what can be done with this architecture.

BDAqua

Level 10

239,333 points

Feb 25, 2012 11:36 PM in response to Swampus

That & Firewire/1600/3200 & OSX being reduced to what an iPhone can do. 😟

Feb 27, 2012 2:41 AM in response to Swampus

After reading the post I done went an got coreplayer. Unforunatly it will not play wmv files of any kind. I was able to find codecs for windows but nothing for osx to solve this problem. Any thoughts? Any way to associate it with flip4mac? Oh well, it was just 15 bucks. Thanks

BDAqua

Level 10

239,333 points

Feb 27, 2012 11:32 AM in response to Jeff Coutras

Hi Jeff, not sure it'd wotk with coreplayer, but do you have Perian installed?

http://perian.org/

Feb 27, 2012 2:50 PM in response to BDAqua

Yes, I have perian installed. Coreplayer plays 1080p mp4 files great. Just no wmv. Maybe it's time to finally go "mini" and bid the ppc adew. Installed the flash hack also but still can't watch espn online.

Swampus

Level 2

180 points

Feb 27, 2012 6:17 PM in response to Jeff Coutras

Forgive me. I should have been more specific in that last post that I was using it to play h.264. I hope you'll get some use out of it, though.

There are some interesting threads on Mac Rumors about using CorePlayer to "stream" 1080p on a G4. I have stream in quotes because it isn't really streaming, per se. It's neat, though:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1225993

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1234656

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1291750

WMV trouble, eh? Are the files just too new for the last PowerPC version of Windows Media Player? I don't even know off the top of my head what version that would be. I don't think I have any WMV files. If you'd like to point me to a file you're having trouble with, I'll see if I can figure something out.

PM dual1.8GHz - Full HD Video?