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buddy1065 · Feb 22, 2006, 03:30 PM

Considering buying a MBPro but I would really be impressed if it could show some of those high def movie demos like Transporter 2 or Serenity without stutter. Could a user just take a little time and download a demo and give some results? 720p is what I am interested in. I would appreciate any info.

slffl · Feb 22, 2006, 03:32 PM

I've only tried some 1080p trailers from apples site. Ran flawlessly. THey only used about 50% of each core as well.

Is there a place to download the demos you're talking about?

JKT · Feb 22, 2006, 03:53 PM

If it can run 1080p flawlessly, then 720 is not going to be any problem at all.

mduell · Feb 22, 2006, 07:26 PM

People have reported playing 2 and 3 1080p trailers simultaneously without dropping frames.

GeniusInABottle · Feb 22, 2006, 07:30 PM

It's too bad the MBP's native resolution isn't actually high enough to display 1080p. Hmm. Here's hoping that the Feb. 28th event comes with announcements on new Cinema Displays or some such, as their current line is pretty outdated now. Pretty, but outdated.

f1000 · Feb 22, 2006, 08:00 PM

Eug posted some results several weeks ago on H.264 playback speeds,

http://forums.macnn.com/82/applications/282269/quicktime-h-264-hd-playback-now/

I'm curious to know as to how MacBooks fare with .ts and WMV-HD.

Eug Wanker · Feb 22, 2006, 09:41 PM

Originally Posted by f1000

Eug posted some results several weeks ago on H.264 playback speeds,

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=282269

I posted some personal tests with the iMac Core Duo 2.0.

All 24 fps 1080p (1920xXXX) H.264 video I tried played perfectly. The one full rez 1920x1080 30 fps H.264 video I tried did not however. Not sure why though, since the CPU wasn't maxed out completely.

John123 · Feb 22, 2006, 10:13 PM

At the Apple Store today, some friends and I tried running two sets of 720p's at the same time. Gorgeous, no frame drops. Then we spun around to the other side of the table, and tried the exact same thing on the 15" PowerBook, which was still on display.

Not so smooth, as you might expect.

buddy1065 · 10:20 AM

Though not in a laptop feverish hurry, I may consider more seriously about buying one when they arrive in my local Apple store. Lack of firewire 800 is a small inconvienience as long...oops, then again, I may have to get some kind of firewire card to plug in both a FW HD and a camcorder simultaneously; PC card slot is not there, wonder if the slot they now have will accept any FW card on the market? Either that or get the largest internal HD and transfer to Ext when necessary. If it had double layer DVD burning I would be much closer to a done deal though.

Anyway thanks much for all the replies. Great news IMHO.

Here is a link to the Quicktime HD gallery for the one who asked:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/

Enjoy.

aristobrat · Feb 23, 2006, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by buddy1065

wonder if the slot they now have will accept any FW card on the market? Either that or get the largest internal HD and transfer to Ext when necessary. If it had double layer DVD burning I would be much closer to a done deal though.

IIRC, MacBreak.com interviewed an Apple guy who said that the plan was for FW 800 cards that work in the MBP to hit the market shortly after the MBP, so hopefully soon...

I thought the same thing about the Dual Layer, but now that I've given it a little more thought, I don't think I'd mind using an external DL drive, especially if it's 16x. When I'm home, that solution would be 2 times faster than the internal drive, and so far, I've never needed to burn a DL DVD while I've been away from home.

inkhead · Feb 23, 2006, 11:21 AM

WMV-HD? Where are you going to play that in Mac OS X? Or do you mean under Windows, if it "runs"?

WMV-HD is much more optimized than quicktime. I could play 1080p on my crappy 1.2ghz dell centrino notebook with 64mb video card. If windows is working on the macbook pro you don't have to worry, the ati 1600 card supports hardware acceleration of wmv-hd.

slffl · Feb 23, 2006, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by inkhead

WMV-HD? Where are you going to play that in Mac OS X? Or do you mean under Windows, if it "runs"?

WMV-HD is much more optimized than quicktime. I could play 1080p on my crappy 1.2ghz dell centrino notebook with 64mb video card. If windows is working on the macbook pro you don't have to worry, the ati 1600 card supports hardware acceleration of wmv-hd.

Really? I always thought WMV-HD needed more power than that. I remember when that T2 1080p movie came out. They were saying you needed like a 3ghz processor to run it smoothly.

I guess that's changed.

buddy1065 · Feb 23, 2006, 01:27 PM

I believe they were refering to Pentium 4; my 1.2 Ghz Centrino runs 720p smoothly even with the shared memory in my 10.6" screen Sony Vaio T250.

gperks · Feb 23, 2006, 02:48 PM

Firewire HD + camcorder simultaneously is very possible. All external HDs I've used have had two Firewire ports, designed to chain devices. Just plug the HD into the Mac, and the camera into the HD's second port. I've imported footage over FW400 like that, saving to the same firewire drive. Works great.

However, adding a Firewire iPod to the same mix means unplugging something.

buddy1065 · Feb 23, 2006, 02:55 PM

Thanks! Never tried that. Now if only they come out with the EVDO Verizon Expresscards...I have an EVDO PC card but of course it won't fit in the MBP.

buddy1065 · Feb 27, 2006, 10:15 AM

Just one more thing; can anyone update me on actual HD movies? Can they be bought and played on a MBP as one would play a DVD? Or are they still on hold debating Blue Ray or stuff like that?

mduell · Feb 27, 2006, 01:51 PM

Originally Posted by buddy1065

Just one more thing; can anyone update me on actual HD movies? Can they be bought and played on a MBP as one would play a DVD? Or are they still on hold debating Blue Ray or stuff like that?

No and you won't be able to ever play HD disks without upgrading the drive; the drive in the MBP supports neither HDDVD nor BluRay disks.
BluRay and HDDVD are still hammering out AACS (the new Digital Restrictions Management scheme), but as of last week they reached an interim agreement/draft so manufacturers can start putting together hardware.

You can play downloaded HD content, like movie trailers (and possibly movies in the future).