HD Video on my PPC Tiger

You can't upgrade your GPU - it's a Mac mini. Have you tried the G4 optimised Mplayer posted by Zen? And what format is the video in?

charleyfarley said:

i have a PPC G4 1.2ghz macmini that is always on and manages my music collection thru itunes remote on the ipad just flawlessly... the problem i have though is getting it to play hd video files on a 51" samsung plasma

i'm running tiger 10.4.11 and vlc 0.9.10 is unwatchable with anything 720p or above... having looked around for a while i have tried mplayerOSX ppc which coughs and splutters a few grey screens before shutting itself down then i came across MPlayer OSX extended which is the absolute best of the bunch so far BUT although the video is pretty clean and crisp it is playing at a slightly slower speed, maybe half speed, i've fiddled around with all the preferences to no avail and i have tried numerous 720p video files all with similar results

having red thru a couple of threads on this subject, props to zen.state, i am now looking at my options being to change my graphics card (currently a ATI radeon 9200) OR upgrade to Leopard which i don't really want to do (those original discs are expensive)

is there any hope for me finding a solution without making these proposed changes

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The ONLY way to make this work is to overclock the s@&t out of it. Like my 2.00 ghz powerbook.

rabidz7 said:

The ONLY way to make this work is to overclock the s@&t out of it. Like my 2.00 ghz powerbook.

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Wow, just wow... I've long been a reader of these forums, since my first iMac g3 bondi to be exact but it's actually took your utter stupidity to force me to sign up!

The guys here are far too pleasant in their replies to you, I'm still not sure what your game is here, because you help no one with your rediculous replies and threads and just serve to make life more difficult for people out there genuinely looking for help.

If you come back with detailed instructions of how to over clock the guys Mac mini then ill eat humble pie, until then, you my friend, are a stain on these forums.

Neilobrien said:

Wow, just wow... I've long been a reader of these forums, since my first iMac g3 bondi to be exact but it's actually took your utter stupidity to force me to sign up!

The guys here are far too pleasant in their replies to you, I'm still not sure what your game is here, because you help no one with your rediculous replies and threads and just serve to make life more difficult for people out there genuinely looking for help.

If you come back with detailed instructions of how to over clock the guys Mac mini then ill eat humble pie, until then, you my friend, are a stain on these forums.

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Just cut off some resistors of the cpu with a pocket knife. http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/macmini/

Neilobrien said:

Wow, just wow... I've long been a reader of these forums, since my first iMac g3 bondi to be exact but it's actually took your utter stupidity to force me to sign up!

The guys here are far too pleasant in their replies to you, I'm still not sure what your game is here, because you help no one with your rediculous replies and threads and just serve to make life more difficult for people out there genuinely looking for help.

If you come back with detailed instructions of how to over clock the guys Mac mini then ill eat humble pie, until then, you my friend, are a stain on these forums.

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+1. Thank you.

rabidz7 said:

Just cut off some resistors of the cpu with a pocket knife. http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/macmini/

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Yes, we can all use google apparently... Now post a picture of your 2ghz PowerBook or for the love of all that is holy stop wasting everyone's time around here, this guy is genuinely asking for help, which you appear to be incapable of giving.

Neilobrien said:

Yes, we can all use google apparently... Now post a picture of your 2ghz PowerBook or for the love of all that is holy stop wasting everyone's time around here, this guy is genuinely asking for help, which you appear to be incapable of giving.

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the powerbook is open because I am still working on it. And overclocking the mac mini would defiantly help with hd video! How it that wasting everyones time!?

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charleyfarley said:

Sorry i'm a right novice, what does overclock mean?

I get the s@#t bit

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To make a part of a computer run faster than it was designed for. http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/macmini/

A 1.25 ghz mini might be too slow for 720p, but it's worth a shot! In OS X Mplayer Extended (the Tiger version), go to preferences under Video and mark Framedrop as "soft." Then go to Advanced and check the additional parameters box and type in:

-lavdopts skiploopfilter=all

If that doesn't get you the framerates you want, enter this instead:

-lavdopts skiploopfilter=all:skipframe=nonref

I know there's a GUI option for skipping the loop filter, but if you add another lavdopts argument in the additional parameters section, it seems to confuse the player, so put all the lavdopts options in one place. Also, for a few extra frames per second, go to Display preferences and set output to "As separate window (CoreVideo)". The only downside is there's a bug here that keeps the menubar displayed when you switch to fullscreen.

That "G4 optimized" version of Mplayer is old and doesn't work on many newer AVC codecs. For the absolute best CPU efficiency with Mplayer, you should use it from the command line. If you want to get nerdy, there's more here about command line options, and there's a newer binary with better MKV support available here. Also, get B-G's Mplayer scripts to automate everything.

charleyfarley said:

Also are you saying a graphics card upgrade is not an option?

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Correct.

charleyfarley said:

Does anyone know where i can get hold of a copy of the G4 optomised MPlayer please?

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Try zen.state's blog

charleyfarley said:

Yes i think i have tried the same mplayer posted by zen... the video files i have tried are all mkv

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Download Any Video Converter and convert your .mkv videos to .avi. It may take some time, but the .avi container runs more smoothly on both VLC and MPlayer.

not because the container? my imac g4 which also is 1,25 ghz can't play h264 mkv in 720p, but it can play divx avi in 720p. but I though that was because of the codec..

I own a 2GHz PowerBook... upgraded by Daystar back in the day.

It overheats a lot.

Once upon a time...

...there was a fair app named Coreplayer. If you had 20 George Washington Dollars it would have enabled you to playback 720p. Alas, now fair coreplayer sleeps in a tomb, locked away by her rights holders, who went bankrupt, probably forever.

Do what the Luddite says (MacinDan), if that doesn't work then you are stuck with the indignity of 480p. What we used to call "high quality" back in the day before everyone and their Brother's uncle felt like 720p or higher was the only acceptable video quality.

And, don't forget to try XBMC. It probably won't work either, but it's worth a shot.

Imixmuan said:

...there was a fair app named Coreplayer. If you had 20 George Washington Dollars it would have enabled you to playback 720p. Alas, now fair coreplayer sleeps in a tomb, locked away by her rights holders, who went bankrupt, probably forever.

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Coreplayer works best with CI capable graphics card, otherwise it will render using CPU. So in OP's (R9200) case it wouldn't be much of improvement if any (if it would be still alive OFC )

charleyfarley said:

The default MPlayer extended is as close as i can get to good playback but like i said the video lags

I retried all of the preference mods once i realised my cpu was running at 80% with multiple safari tabs and windows open... It changed the video framerate but still not right

Looked at the binary links and that looks beyond me to be honest, do you have to run commands every time to play a file?

I was hoping for a simple workaround for my std G4 but it looks like the best option could be to open up my wallet and splash some cash on a newer macmini

I really appreciate the responses and help from you guys on here, muchos gracias

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As I suggested previously, if you convert your .mkv files to .avi with Any Video Converter you'll enjoy seamless video playback. It's free and works like a charm.

I've had this problem too, you can't upgrade the GPU, as 720p videos won't play well at all on 64VRAM for me, and I don't wanna even try 1080p, but I believe if you encode it down to about 720x480 the video plays at full rate.