[Sealobo]

I think i am getting a Dell real soon.



ATI Radeon 9650:

Chipset Model: ATY,RV351
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4150
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-A58503-115
Displays:
Cinema HD Display:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1920 x 1200
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Supported
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported
Display:
Status: No display connected

[ajprice]

Well I'm on a G4 here and its jerky, but to be honest I'd expect that. Which video were you trying to play? I just tried it out with the Resident Evil 5 trailer here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj9cP1LC2C0 .

I'll try out my MacBook when I get home and see how that does. It could be a software or browser issue or something like that, what graphics card have you got in it? I would have thought a Dual G5 would be able to handle HD Youtube.

[Thorzdad]

Dual 2 G5 here and it plays just fine. What, exactly, was the problem you were having? Crashing? Or just stream/buffering delays?

[Big Mac]

Plays just fine here too.

[chris v]

I've got a G5 dual 2.0 with a radeon 9600 256 mb vid card. In Safari, the HDv vid posted above was jerky, displaying about 1 frame a second, even after it was done "loading." So I tried Firefox. It totally became unresponsive while trying to play he video -- maybe 1 frame every 2 secs.. Couldn't pause/play, close the window, or anything. The audio was jerky, too.

[reader50]

After the YouTube video starts to load, a link appears in the lower right corner watch in HD. You need to click that link to jump to the HD version. The normal version plays just fine, of course.

The HD video itself is a 38MB mpeg4 file from a google server. 1280x720, video codec is AVC1, audio AAC.

I'm on a Quad G5 with both a 7800GT, and a 6600LE, in order to drive three monitors. Playback in various browsers sucked, regardless of the video card used. It looks like my Flash 9 plugin wasn't up to the task.

If you download the file and play directly, QuickTime Player plays it fine on either video card. So I updated to the latest Flash 10, there had been a news blurb that Adobe had greatly improved flash playback on Mac recently. Sure enough, upgrading cured the in-browser issues.

[ajprice]

Playing fine now on my white Macbook, once it had loaded up. Would Perian or something like that help video to play better?

[reader50]

Perian provides more codec types in QT. In this case, the movie is playing inside the Flash plugin, so Perian has no effect.

[gradient]

edit: I've got the same Dual 2.0 G5 with the crappy GeForce FX 5200 64MB graphics card and the "HD" Youtube videos are jerky as all hell. Not shocking to me, really. It was bound to start feeling outdated sometime soon. It's definitely not a download speed issue, either.

[chris v]

I've got the latest flash player installed. Still utterly takes a crap, trying to watch in on the web. Oh, well. I didn't buy this computer with the expectation of being able to watch HD video over the internet with it, and it does the things I wanted it for originally (Logic, Photoshop) quite well, so I'm still a happy G5 owner. It's not like I have a choice -- who's got a spare $2,700.00 right now, anyway?

[ajprice]

G5 graphics cards cost $2,700 now? I suppose it depends whether the G5 you've got is PCI-X or PCIe though, PCI-X cards might be harder to get hold of now.

Fair enough that you're a happy G5 owner, and Youtube HD stuttering isn't the end of the world. But if its a PowerMac G5 you're talking about the option is always there to upgrade, its not like its an iMac or laptop where the graphics is set and done.

[Big Mac]

Is it really the GPU making the difference here? I have the 9800XT.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by ajprice 

G5 graphics cards cost $2,700 now? I suppose it depends whether the G5 you've got is PCI-X or PCIe though, PCI-X cards might be harder to get hold of now.

My $600 Mini plays the video without a hitch.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by ajprice 

G5 graphics cards cost $2,700 now? I suppose it depends whether the G5 you've got is PCI-X or PCIe though, PCI-X cards might be harder to get hold of now.

Fair enough that you're a happy G5 owner, and Youtube HD stuttering isn't the end of the world. But if its a PowerMac G5 you're talking about the option is always there to upgrade, its not like its an iMac or laptop where the graphics is set and done.

It's AGP -- I thing the only real option is a used X800, which is still more money than I feel like throwing at this thing, and damn near impossible to find. What could possibly go in a PCI-X slot on this thing? What would be better than AGP 8X?

[chris v]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

My $600 Mini plays the video without a hitch.

A $600.00 mini would hold 1/4 of my files, and 1/3 of the RAM, plus the laptop drive wouldn't handle 24-track audio recording/playback. I think at 4 years old, I can be content, for now, with the way this thing performs. I just don't watch a lot of video -- it's not my thing.

Edit: Seriously? an 80 gb hard drive? I didn't know such a thing was still made. Apple must have really stocked up on them. Minis are cheap for a reason.

[DCJ001]

Originally Posted by chris v 

A $600.00 mini would hold 1/4 of my files, and 1/3 of the RAM, plus the laptop drive wouldn't handle 24-track audio recording/playback. I think at 4 years old, I can be content, for now, with the way this thing performs. I just don't watch a lot of video -- it's not my thing.

Edit: Seriously? an 80 gb hard drive? I didn't know such a thing was still made. Apple must have really stocked up on them. Minis are cheap for a reason.

You're really only four years old?

You type really well for your age.

The HD YouTube link played fine for me on the MacBook in my signature.

Minis and iMacs might be upgraded next month.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by chris v 

It's AGP -- I thing the only real option is a used X800, which is still more money than I feel like throwing at this thing, and damn near impossible to find. What could possibly go in a PCI-X slot on this thing? What would be better than AGP 8X?

As I said, the 9800 is a great card, but it is quite expensive and hard to find.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by DCJ001 

You're really only four years old?

You type really well for your age.

Thank you! Ambiguity noted, however. English has so many of those pitfalls.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

As I said, the 9800 is a great card, but it is quite expensive and hard to find.

9800 XT's seem easier to find than the X800, but they're $300.00, at best. If I were just flush with cash, I'd consider springing for one, but like i say, this isn't a terribly important issue for me. Back when I did have money, I replaced the original 9600 64MB with the 9600 Pro 256 MB, which was a noticeable improvement. Money's tighter now than it was back then, though.

[Big Mac]

Looking back, I'm so glad I sprang for the 9800XT.

[mabaker303]

I also confirm that the Youtube HD playback on a Powermac G5 is an utter disgrace.

All of you who reported the video playing "just fine" ought first to click on "Watch in HD" and then watch your $2000 computer stutter in vain.

It's a shame that Adobe and Apple didn't resolve the Flash playback issue especially if the separately downloaded HD videos play just FINE. Now with Adobe's and Apple's policy it's the end users that have to endure the consequences.

Can't believe a dual processor can't handle an ordinary HD flash content as easily as the slowest single processor Intel counterpart easily does.

[Todd Madson]

Deleted - old information. My recent findings are the most correct and up to date.

[Big Mac]

Informative post - and I do have questions. I went looking for the G5 optimized Firefox, but all I found was a blog that had not been updated for years. Do you have a link? And in your post you didn't mention Flash video performance - have these tips helped speed that up in your experience?

Some YouTube videos purporting to have HD versions work fine on my G5, but it does choke on true 720p YouTube videos. Stupid Flash, stupid YouTube.

[reader50]

Optimized FireFox compiles are available from several places:

Beatnik Pad
Mozilla apps optimized for Mac
FireFox Mac Community Builds

[Big Mac]

Thank you very much, reader.

[Todd Madson]

It's most definetely Flash Video on PowerMac computers.

I fit all the hardware requirements and I've more or less proven that it's flash.

I found MANY links to similar complaints but here's a demonstration.

Here's a link to an HD video I did playing a guitar solo in my frozen basement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTvf_GMT8lQ
(link corrected 12/10/09 9:29 a.m.)

Here's a link to the original data file:
http://pod.ath.cx/hdguitar/I_See_You_In_The_Cellar.MP4
(sorry, it's 44 megs and in a dank frozen basement)

Open the original youtube link on a Powermac (any browser) with the latest version of Flash and the audio might play but the video barely plays at all. It more or less hangs any browser you might care to use.

Download the 44 meg link above and open it in a browser and it plays fine. So .MP4 HD videos in a flash wrapper aren't happy on the PPC side.

On a 2.2 ghz Core2duo Merom Windows Vista Laptop (Dell D630) it plays fine.

Download the file at http://pod.ath.cx/hdguitar/video_fro...eo_dot_com.mp4
which is a file I got from one of those sites that lets you "keep your youtube video"
and the high-res file saves not as an .flv file but as an .mp4 which plays fine.

I've found numerous reports of this being a problem all over the web:
http://dreamweaverforum.info/flash/1...-hd-video.html

That's just one.
There are others.

[Todd Madson]

At my in-laws on a 20" iMac Core2Duo 2.0 ghz machine with 1 gigabyte of ram.
The video plays flawlessly and I've taken a cell-phone video of it running.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTvf_GMT8lQ plays fine on it.

So, it's definetely an overlooked QA job by the Adobe people not testing 1080p video with Flash on Power Macintosh computers.

The real problem is: is Adobe aware of the issue and does anyone have a contact there to show that this is happening?

This is a major problem IMHO - Youtube is becoming a major way of communicating with the world these days and making $2500 computers second class citizens doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

[Big Mac]

I'm sure they will argue that those G5s that can't play it just aren't capable of handling that level of Flash.

[Todd Madson]

Preposterous rubbish:

I have six times the memory of the computer I am typing on this now on my home pc.
I have half again the clock speed (an additional 500 mhz clock per processor).
I have a faster frontside bus to boot (1.25 ghz versus 800 mhz).

Regardless my computer can play H.264 content any other way:
Quicktime
Quicktime with Perian extensions
Quicktime IN THE SAME BROWSER
Mplayer
FfmpegX
VLC

This is proof positive of sloppy QA practices done by the Adobe.

It could be a backhanded way of telling people to update to Intel macs but I believe it's rubbish.

It's a problem, it needs to be fixed.

Plain and simple..

[Big Mac]

It's just too bad that Flash became a video container standard somehow. I'd even take WMV over Flash. Scratch that, WMV sucks even more with all its DRM.

[Todd Madson]

Latest info from my testing (I have worked as a software tester in the past):

It works like this:

PC XP Any Browser - HD Flash Works OK
PC Vista Any Browser - HD Flash Works OK
Intel Mac Any Browser - HD Flash Works OK
PowerPC Mac Any Browser - HD Flash plays audio, video plays perhaps a dozen frames and stops, then randomly starts but freezes eventually.

If you open the browser and watch the raw MP4 file, it plays fine via Quicktime.
If you open the file via ffmpegx it plays fine in the preview tab.
If you open the file via Quicktime with Perian extensions it works fine.
If you open the file via mplayer it works fine.

So, H.264 content in an MP4 file as viewed thru a Flash container is broken on all PowerPC macs, even high end ones.

Test machines:

PowerPC Mac: G5 2.5 ghz dual with 7 gigs of ram running Leopard 10.56 + 2 TB disk, 128meg Radeon 9600XT AGP8X.
XP Machine for test: Athlon64 2.5 ghz, 2 gigs of ram, Firefox 3.x, 256 meg ATI Radeon X1300 AGP8X.
Vista Machine for test: Core2duo 2.2 gigs of ram, Firefox 3.x, 128 meg NVidia Quadro NVS135M video.
Intel Mac machine for test: Core2duo 2.0 ghz, 1 gig of ram, Firefox 3.x, Leopard 10.56, ATI Radeon 2400 XT 128 megs.

[Thorzdad]

How does your G5 handle Vimeo's HD content?

[Big Mac]

I wonder how low on the Intel Mac scale you have to go before Flash performance falls off.

[Sealobo]

Thanks for the info guys.

Todd, i got the G5-built Firefox and updated my Flash player... HD content is now "playable" on my machine... frame rate is about 5-15fps depends on the intensity of the picture dynamics. Before the browser and Flash upgrade, it was more like 1fps!

Searching for the display card accelerator now...

[Sealobo]

WAIT! i only get 5-15 fps when i try to play cartoons with much less color and ****! Try this and it's totally crap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1gTXQCS-pY&feature=hd

[Sealobo]

Guys, any thought on using this?

http://thomas.perrier.name/index.html

[Big Mac]

I'm trying Shiretoko, a G5 optimized build of Firefox 3.1b from one of the sites linked above. FYI: The fonts and layout of the forums are all fluked up using this build, and my Flash HD video performance doesn't seem any better. Now I just switched back to the regular Firefox, and my fonts on here are still wrong. It did something to my user's Firefox.

[Sealobo]

this G5-opt Firefox that i am using can load IGN.com much faster.

stock: 14 seconds
G5-opt: 9 seconds

[Big Mac]

Which build, by chance?

I had to completely clear all private data for the fonts to reset, btw.

[Sealobo]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Which build, by chance?

I had to completely clear all private data for the fonts to reset, btw.

http://firefoxmac.furbism.com/

Just the built from 2009.01.05

[ajprice]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I wonder how low on the Intel Mac scale you have to go before Flash performance falls off.

Whats the lowest spec Intel? I'd think either the original Core Duo Macbook or the Macbook Air Rev A? My white Macbook C2D 2GHz GMA950 graphics is fine with HD.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson 

If you open the browser and watch the raw MP4 file, it plays fine via Quicktime.

I was about to reply the same-- found the ,mp4 file in the Activity window, downloaded it,and Quicktime had no problem with the file at all. (Dual 2.0 G5 Radeon 9600 256 mb VRAM)

This isn't a video card issue, this is a Flash sucks on Macs in browsers issue.

[Todd Madson]

I've been using ATICellerator II - you just need to be careful about the speeds you increase your card to.

Since the person who made the database of possible speeds is offline (the Macbidoulle people) I'd
be very careful, try 10%. Then 15%. Then 20 if you're lucky, etc.

I forwarded my findings to Macintouch but they seem more jazzed on the Macworld announcements than
bothering to dredge up this stuff.

[OreoCookie]

HD video is very demanding, but a dual G5 should handle most of them.

[flabasha]

I think it has to be a PowerPC issue, or an issue with the browsers made for PowerPC (as opposed to a graphics card issue). I had uploaded an HD version of a trailer I made, and got complaints from numerous people on the LA Final Cut user board, guys with QUAD G5'S and X1900 cards, who couldn't get more than 2 fps out of it. (Warning: R-rated humor)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBUHRTqcjtc&fmt=22

I myself have a dual 2.0 G5, but with an overclocked 9800 Pro with 256mb VRAM, and I can't run it for crap... but my MacBook Pro dual core 2.4 runs the trailer just fine. Oh, and I can run the h.264 that I uploaded to YouTube like butter on my G5, at fullscreen.

Now if quad G5's with top of the line video cards (that can use FCP's Color in realtime) can't run a simple HD YouTube video, there's some SERIOUS choke point other than the video card or the processor.

[Todd Madson]

Vimeo.com/hd plays SOME videos (the chickens from the Japanese animators)
"okay" (really, it was jerky and terrible) but the snow video and the "two wings"
was jerking along like I was running HD on a 400 mhz G4.

Seriously, this is a bug, no doubt in my mind. I'm absolutely sure that the
development crew at Adobe are all running x86 macs by now and it was
just overlooked or "it should work" was said.

Anyway, does anyone have a contact at Adobe - at all? This is getting annoying.

Youtube is about as ubiquitous a website as you could ask for and if the PPC
mac machines fail to run these videos (arguably a big majority of video production
done on PPC macs) it's an ironic disinclusion.

[imitchellg5]

I don't have any HD video playback issues on a 1.8GHz G5 with 2 Gb of RAM pretty much anywhere.

[reader50]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson 

Seriously, this is a bug, no doubt in my mind. I'm absolutely sure that the
development crew at Adobe are all running x86 macs by now and it was
just overlooked or "it should work" was said.

Anyway, does anyone have a contact at Adobe - at all? This is getting annoying.

Adobe Bug Report Section for FlashPlayer.

I browsed the bugs found when searching for 'ppc', it hasn't been reported yet.

[flabasha]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

I don't have any HD video playback issues on a 1.8GHz G5 with 2 Gb of RAM pretty much anywhere.

Really? You can run the link above without dropped frames? Because that would seriously be a first. Not a single G5 I, or people on the FCP boards, has tried can run that simple HD YouTube video.

[flabasha]

By the way, here is a link to the discussion that happened over this problem on the LAFCPUG boards...

http://www.lafcpug.org/phorum/read.p...891#msg-221891