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eddiecatflap · May 7, 2005, 07:48 AM

im just wondering if any of the current and recent hardware apple have been selling is up to the job of playing hd video ?

will we need new hardware and how will we play the blue ray discs on current hardware ?

OreoCookie · May 7, 2005, 08:12 AM

1. You will probably need a new display, simply because of the resolution. ACD 23"+ or comparable. Otherwise, you won't see HDTV, you will see scaled-down hdtv.

2. I have seen hdtv trailers on a G5 1.6 and I heard it runs on faster G4s as well (1+ GHz).

What hardware do you have? My guesstimate is that you need a new display

Big Mac · May 7, 2005, 08:15 AM

Here is one thread on the subject. Additionally, Eug Wanker referred to the inability of an iMac G5 2.0 to decode H.264 in the thread that debate the purchase of an iMac versus the purchase of a Power Mac.

eddiecatflap · May 7, 2005, 08:20 AM

i have an imac G4/800 FP

i'm going to buy a new mac soon , i was definitely wanting the new imac - it's amazing , it's just this whole hd / h24 thing , i tried playing the fantastic four hd movie on my mac and it quite literally ground to a halt...

i just don't wnat to buy something and find i miss out on the next big thing , especially when the next big thing is quite literally round the corner

i had my fingers burnt in the past ,. when i bought a quadra in 1994 , the last time i bought a tower i thought , i'll buy a tower because of future expansion , lo and behold pci comes along and nu bus goes kaput , now we have pci-express looming on the horizon to do the same with pci / pci-x , thats the only reason i wouldnt buy a tower

OreoCookie · May 7, 2005, 08:23 AM

I don't know what codec was used with the trailers I've seen, but there wasn't a hitch. So I would assume the (faster) iMac G5 2.0 won't have trouble with that either. I don't know about h.264, though.

eddiecatflap · May 7, 2005, 08:29 AM

then again , i guess you could buy a tower now , the dual 2 ghz with pci for example , accept that pci is going to be out dated and realise that in 3-4 years you'll just have to upgrade again ?

hmmm..decisions , decisions

or just keep waiting

Big Mac · 08:44 AM

If you have strong reason to believe that you'll be using your expansion slots, then you may want to wait until Apple comes out with PCIe Power Macs. But I think it's safe to assume that many people do not utilize their expansion slots. Of all the Macs I have owned in the last fifteen years, I have only used one expansion card. Of course, creative professionals may well use many expansion cards and require the latest technology, but that does not apply to most users. I was caught up on the PCIe concern right before and after ordering my DP 2.0, but I no longer fear it. (And the fact that the Power Mac revision did not include had me smiling in a selfish way.) In any case, the main reason to desire PCIe is for superior graphics cards, but it's not like Mac users have much of an upgrade card selection to choose from.

Eug Wanker · May 7, 2005, 11:44 PM

H.264 performance list

jamil5454 · May 8, 2005, 12:08 AM

Man, the G5s really take off with H.264. It seems like the bus speed and memory bandwidth are the main bottlenecks when decoding H.264.

Sporty G · May 8, 2005, 01:20 AM

Very strange experience. Last weekend I installed Quicktime 7 on my DP 1.8Ghz PM G5 (1.25gb RAM, 64mb GeForce 5200). I downloaded the Serenity and Batman trailers (1080p) and was utterly astonished with both the image quality AND the playback performance. The framerates on both clips were perfect, expose functioned naturally and I could continue multitasking as if the clip playing in the background was as resource hungry as decoding an MP3.... I installed Tiger on Wednesday and today I tried playing the Batman clip (1080p) and it's not only incredibly choppy (maybe 10fps) but it sucks all of my system resources up. Initiating Expose with the clip playing almost grinds the system to a halt! Even clicking on "File" when the video is playing results in a 3-4 second delay!

Surely this must be a software issue. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what I might do to remedy this situation? Thanks in advance!

Cadaver · May 8, 2005, 01:48 AM

The 1080p Serenity preview, presented full-screen on a 30" display, is a sight to behold.

Pierre B. · May 8, 2005, 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by Sporty G

I installed Tiger on Wednesday and today I tried playing the Batman clip (1080p) and it's not only incredibly choppy (maybe 10fps) but it sucks all of my system resources up. Initiating Expose with the clip playing almost grinds the system to a halt! Even clicking on "File" when the video is playing results in a 3-4 second delay!

Surely this must be a software issue. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what I might do to remedy this situation? Thanks in advance!

How did you install Tiger? If on top of the Panther installation, this could mean that something got screwed during installation. Is erasing the disk and re-installing from scratch an option? If yes, give it a try. Otherwise, you can try to run HD content from another user account, to see if it is user-related.

Sporty G · May 8, 2005, 10:58 AM

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I did install on top of Panther.

I think you are right, a clean install is probably necessary at this point. I sure hope that that is the case!!

human · May 8, 2005, 11:24 PM

Just some numbers here: a Quicksilver dp800 with 1.5G RAM and a new Radeon 9800 Pro (128M) running two older Hitachi 19" CRTs and 10.3.9 is getting 7-12 FPS with the 138M 1080p "serenity" trailer. I'm viewing at the native resolution of 1920x816. With my monitor setup it takes up about one and a half of my two screens to show this. No other apps (besides background haxies, Launchbar and maybe a couple more) running. Not going to bother with my 1G G4 iBook.

eddiecatflap · May 9, 2005, 01:30 AM

looks as if the software is ahead of the hardware again

roll on dual core !

Sporty G · May 12, 2005, 02:16 AM

Originally Posted by Pierre B.

How did you install Tiger? If on top of the Panther installation, this could mean that something got screwed during installation. Is erasing the disk and re-installing from scratch an option? If yes, give it a try. Otherwise, you can try to run HD content from another user account, to see if it is user-related.

I decided to do a clean install of Tiger but alas the video is still terribly choppy and unwatchable. It's just so strange that it played flawlessly at 1080p under Panther w/ QT7 but under a clean Tiger install it's a waste of time to watch.

Pierre B. · May 12, 2005, 03:46 AM

Originally Posted by Sporty G

I decided to do a clean install of Tiger but alas the video is still terribly choppy and unwatchable. It's just so strange that it played flawlessly at 1080p under Panther w/ QT7 but under a clean Tiger install it's a waste of time to watch.

Sorry to hear that, but I am afraid I cannot help. It seems that there is something broken in Tiger, that affects at least some hardware configurations. It would be interesting to see what other Power Mac users running Tiger have to report on this one.