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slipjack · Feb 15, 2002, 07:12 PM

Man... what's up with that? I was getting skipping and audio not keeping up with the video in 9 w/a DVD last night. X rocked the house.. but damn, 9 shouldn't be that bad should it? I used to able to watch DVD's on my 350 G4 before without too much problem (although alot of movement would cause skipping). I wonder if Apple has intentionally hamstrung 9 to convert ppl...?

Leonis · Feb 15, 2002, 07:35 PM

Usually DVD playback on OS 9 really sucks

firefly · Feb 15, 2002, 08:08 PM

I don't have much problem with OS9's DVD player on a dual 800. It is not as responsive as in OSX but once the movie has started playing it is fine.

Cipher13 · Feb 15, 2002, 09:28 PM

No probs with DVD on my G4 400... heh.

9.22 may be to blame? I don't know.

11011001 · Feb 16, 2002, 05:27 AM

My machine 867 Mhz G4... 640 MB...

k...

then, well I have not had problems with the DVD player in OS 9, only that it is rather unresponsive. But it is on all machines, cus most of the cpu is devoted to it.

I would say that DVD playback in X sucks. Sure it is responsive, but have you ever really looked at the screen in OS X DVD player, it is really blocky, and JPEG like. Arg...

Have you noticed in X that alot of stuff with black in it, is not black, it is blocky, and text is well ugly and not sharp? In OS 9, things just look we better, like 2 x's better...

But personally I prefer the OS X one cus it is way more responsive.

and I have about 100% cpu usage in 9 while running the DVD player, and about 30 or so in X, and I can still crunch RC5 and compile, and render, and this and that, and through some guy who I don't like out my window...

BTW I get the same problem with the OS 9 player too.. even on my machine, sometimes (really rare actually) I guess Apple just put way too much cpu juice into making it look good, and the side effect is that you sometimes get video lag, and audio-video sync problems. (I once had it so bad on iMac that they lag was like 2 seconds!!)

I guess apple noticed this problem and fixed it with X, by reducing the image quality.

Solution? I don't know if there is one, might try getting the latest version of DVD player from apple... or see if you can find a setting that increases the buffer, or something that lets it read the DVD more ahead... if you can find that this should solve the video lag, chopiness... I can't check, cus I am X, havenet booted to 9 in 2 weeks now

Dan Szwarc · Feb 18, 2002, 08:17 AM

OS9 DVD playback is fine, but you can't be doing anything else. No mousing, no window moving, and certainly no email or other programs running. Either watch it or turn it off.

KellyHogan · Feb 18, 2002, 04:43 PM

The mosht advanshed shyshtem in the world.

I see that the DVD decoding is of better quality in 9.2.2 than in OSX. OSX's player is responsive due to PMT but the menu features and subtitles have a strange blockiness. Terrible really.

Is there a reason why there are no third party DVD players like Power DVD? We need developers, developers....

I also noticed that the Geforce cards do a worser job of DVD than an ATI card. ATI video looks much better, clearer and has better colors. That's probably why my Ti-Book does a better job than my Dual 1Ghz.

Feb 18, 2002, 05:56 PM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:
Is there a reason why there are no third party DVD players like Power DVD? We need developers, developers....

Yes, the reason is the million dollar licensing fee for the decryption code from the MPAA (or whatever it's called). That's why that DeCSS program created such a stink - they cracked the code.

I also noticed that the Geforce cards do a worser job of DVD than an ATI card. ATI video looks much better, clearer and has better colors. That's probably why my Ti-Book does a better job than my Dual 1Ghz.

I've heard that too. My iBook 466 (ATI Rage 128) does a fine job playing DVDs in MacOS 9 and X. In MacOS 9, turning off appearance sounds fixed the audio problem for me.

saru boy · Feb 18, 2002, 11:41 PM

Anyone know if region-free playback is possible on OSX? (The all region hacks on the net seem to work for OS9 only.)

Cellery · Feb 19, 2002, 12:37 AM

Originally posted by saru boy:
Anyone know if region-free playback is possible on OSX? (The all region hacks on the net seem to work for OS9 only.)

All you need to do is update your firmware in OS9 to the region free firmware, and then use Region X to change the region settings and number of changes in OS X. Works like a charm for me.

11011001 · Feb 19, 2002, 04:25 AM

Yes ATI cards do a better job of DVD playback than nVidia cards.

Also the DVD player in X is more responsive, because the player does not decode the information to as a high a quality as the on in OS 9, and thus there is way more CPU free...

PMT helps, too as someone pointed out. Prememptive Multitasking is great isn't it? I can crunch RC5 in X and still do stuff... very choppy system in OS 9, when crunching RC5.

saru boy · Feb 19, 2002, 10:38 AM

Originally posted by Cellery:


All you need to do is update your firmware in OS9 to the region free firmware, and then use Region X to change the region settings and number of changes in OS X. Works like a charm for me.

Thanks dude, just downloaded Region X and it works like a charm.

Regarding the quality of the dvd picture between OSX and OS9, I don't really notice any difference.

iKevin · Feb 19, 2002, 01:39 PM

I'll 2nd the vote that DVD playback on OS9 just generally sucks...If you look at the monitor very hard(exaggeration) you can get it to lag. Forget doing anything like clicking the volume up or anything....that's a guarantee it will lag.

Thank goodness for the DVD player in OS X.....it's great

[ 02-19-2002: Message edited by: iKevin ]

KellyHogan · Feb 19, 2002, 04:32 PM

Originally posted by saru boy:


Thanks dude, just downloaded Region X and it works like a charm.

Regarding the quality of the dvd picture between OSX and OS9, I don't really notice any difference.

Try a movie like North by Northwest. Those old technicolor Vistavision and Panavision movies are awesome and the best way to tell if a DVD player is good. The quality of DVD is also heavily influenced by the graphics chip. ATI is better than Nvidia in any OS.

saru boy · Feb 19, 2002, 10:26 PM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


Try a movie like North by Northwest. Those old technicolor Vistavision and Panavision movies are awesome and the best way to tell if a DVD player is good. The quality of DVD is also heavily influenced by the graphics chip. ATI is better than Nvidia in any OS.

I used the standard Matrix DVD, and I really didn't notice a difference between picture quality between OS9 and OSX. (And I'm using a GeForce2MX.) Maybe there are movies out there that will show a difference, as you say. I would still take the OSX dvd player over the OS9 version since the OSX player doesn't skip, jitter, freeze and pee itself if you happen to move the mouse or change the volume while its playing. No matter how good the picture is, if the friggin picture is all jumpy and skipping, its a waste of time to attempt watching it.

Although to be honest, overall I prefer my Pioneer dvd player.