[horseflesh]

Today I tried playing a 720p quicktime movie... And my system couldn't keep up at 24 fps. I was pushing about 15 frames per sec which doesn't seem right for the system specs.

I have the 17" 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, with the Nvidia 8600 GPU, hi-res screen, 4 GB RAM, OS 10.5.1, fresh reboot, no other apps running except for a RAM/CPU meter in the menu bar. (Raging Menace - MenuMeters)

I tried removing Perian, just for kicks, but no change.

This is the clip:
Star Trek trailers and video clips on Yahoo! Movies

There are links to hi-def versions under the embedded video.

Is something screwy, or is this normal hi def playback performance?

Thanks for your thoughts.

[horseflesh]

Bump, added info. Thanks...

[Simon]

It's the streaming. In the beginning I played 24fps on my 2.4 GHz MBP just fine with about 50% CPU load. But then suddenly the stuttering appeared. As I noticed it was exactly when my network transfers dropped. If you download a full 720p h.264 clip onto your HDD, you'll see it will play back just fine on your MBP.

Apple - QuickTime - HD Gallery - wildlifeHD Reel
30fps, 720p, played fine with 50% idle on my MBP.

Apple - QuickTime - HD Gallery - The Macaulay Library
30 fps, 1080p, played fine on my MBP, 10%-20% idle

[horseflesh]

In this case it wasn't the stream, I downloaded it. I got the Wall*E trailer from Apple and it was fine--it was the file that was bad in this case, I think.