[Miniryu]

I have been trying to watch episodes of Naruto on my mac, but I keep getting error messages that frames are being dropped, with a suggestion: "Computer too slow?"

I am using Video Lan Client (VLC) and the Naruto episodes are 170-200 megs in size. I can't find another player that will play these type of files (they have an .avi wrapper). I have noticed a general slow down in my computer that began a couple of weeks after I began using it. It was getting to the point where I couldn't even move a window without a delay of almost 1 second. But then I upgraded to 10.3.9 and things picked up again. But now I feel they are starting to slow again. Recently I tried to play these Naruto episodes and they are too choppy to enjoy- plus I keep getting the error messages.

My Mac is a straight hackjob. I am on a 350 MHz PowerPC G4 (AGP graphics) with 448 megs of RAM (a 256 stick in the first DIMM slot and three 64 sticks in the other 3 DIMM slots). I am running my OS from the original hard drive (Quantum Fireball, 6 GBs) but I added a brand new Hitachi 160 GB internal to use for storage (only 130 GBs are usable since I guess the bus can only support up to 130 GB). As I said before, I'm running 10.3.9 now. Does anyone want to take a stab at what the problem could be? My guesses are that the drives are too full, or too old, or I have a virus.

edit: I can't play even 4 meg videos without getting the error messages.

[dru]

There are some things you can do with VLC. In Preferences, click "Advanced Prefs" tick box and then goto Decorders. Some decoders might give you smoother playback than others. ffmpeg or QT are what I usually use.

Next, and more helpful on 'slower' computers is this: Modules -> decoder, click the boxes for "Hurry up" and that will cause VLC to drop frames if necessary to keep up with the video.

I'm on the hardware below and I have to say it's getting harder to do playback on newer files and not experience jerky video. VLC has been a great answer; MPlayer OS X 2 was the best at showing a video I recently watched.

We should demand better. The Quicktime player, even QT7 is definitely not on par with even VLC in terms of playback on the same hardware.

If anyone has any other tips on smooth playback, let us know.

[dru]

Originally Posted by dru

There are some things you can do with VLC. In Preferences, click "Advanced Prefs" tick box and then goto Decorders. Some decoders might give you smoother playback than others. ffmpeg or QT are what I usually use.

Next, and more helpful on 'slower' computers is this: Modules -> decoder, click the boxes for "Hurry up" and that will cause VLC to drop frames if necessary to keep up with the video.

I'm on the hardware below and I have to say it's getting harder to do playback on newer files and not experience jerky video. VLC has been a great answer; MPlayer OS X 2 was the best at showing a video I recently watched.

We should demand better. The Quicktime player, even QT7 is definitely not on par with even VLC in terms of playback on the same hardware.

If anyone has any other tips on smooth playback, let us know.

UPDATE: I tracked down the jerky playbacks on QT7 to compatibility problems between the 3vix decoder and QT7 (3vix forums mention this). I got the latest "xvid" decoder from VersionTracker, pulled the 3vix plugin out of the QT folder and restarted the player. I find that the "xvid" decoder gives me smooth playback of the same movies.

[redoid]

try MS PLAYER OSX2

never failed on me when it comes to play something...

[Miniryu]

this has all been great advice but none of it is working- i suspect I have a virus or a hardware issue (other than slow speed) so i am gonna repost this in a more appropriate forum.

btw: Mplayer is a fantastic little player, I'll keep my eyes on it.