HD video on a 1.5gbz Mini?

RobinS · #1 February 23rd, 2008, 05:00 PM

So I've tried downloading some 1080p and 768p trailers and they don't play properly. I'm using the latest 10.4.11 with VLC. Is there a better player? Is the video on the Mini making this impossible? I've tried closing every other program as well to help things. No dice.

So if the Mini won't play HD, what do I need for a video card in a Mac Pro (no integrated monitor for me so no iMac) to watch 1080p at either 1900 x 1280 (24"-28") or 2560 x 1600 (30")?

And just as a reference, what iMac plays 1080p?

(The stills are so vivid in their sharpness that I'm totally sold on HD!) Can't wait to see something on a 30". Coupled with good headphones it takes a movie or good TV show to another level.

Jeffo · #2 February 23rd, 2008, 07:18 PM

I have watched HD trailers from apple.com in the h.264 codec on a 24 inch intel core 2 duo 1.8(?) imac and it had plenty of extra horsepower to do some other things. it was playing it at full 1080 also becuase the screen is 1920 wide and i think it was 1200 tall.

is your mini a G4 or the intel? I know they made both in the 1.5 ghz. If it is the G4, then that would not surprise me. when they came out with the intel mini i went to the apple store to play with one. i used a core solo 1.5ghz (i think) and tried to play one of the HD trailers and it wouldln't do it completely smoothly. it was close to playing all 30 frames per second, but not quite. maybe someone that has hardware closer to the border of good playback and bad playback can give more insight but, for the full 1080 res i would guess that a core duo 1.6 would probably be about the minimum.

well, that is my two cents.

(edit: fixed typo)

Mikuro · #3 February 23rd, 2008, 11:19 PM

They never made a Core Duo 1.5GHz, so you must have either a G4 or Core Solo. Neither can be expected to play 1080, but both could probably handle 720. (My 1.25GHz G4 Mac Mini can handle some 720 videos.)

I don't think this is a matter of video cards so much as processor speed. Video decoding is still done in the CPU. Any Mac with a 2GHz+ processor should be fine. Any video card in a Mac Pro can drive a 30" display.

Dual-core processors can help, but only in some cases — last I heard, VLC and MPlayer's H.264 decoders could not take advantage of multiple cores, but QuickTime's can.