QuicktimeX h.264 HW acceleration: the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth

[gianly1985]

We've been speculating about this for MONTHS.

We were all waiting for a decent way to use the freakin' GPU for accelerating HD videos. Come on, on Windows a sh*tty ION based 199$ nettop can do 1080p and bluray with no effort thanks to the power of the GPU and PureVideo. An ATI 4670 or 4850 would be OVERKILL if we were able to use ati UVD (the "PureVideo" of ATI cards). A 9400 would be good to. So, the question was: in the age of HD videos, why are Mac users condamned to rely only on the power of the CPU?

Now Snow Leopard has been out for 2 months. We've put our geeky hands on QuicktimeX. So, what has changed?

Hence the reason of this thread. I'd like to use it to gather all possible information about this topic.
(myself, I cannot contribute a lot 'cause I don't have a Mac with nvidia 9400 and Snow Leopard)

So the main questions:

1) Is it true that "Qtx HW h.264 acceleration" only works with a nVidia 9400? Really? So if you buy a pricey 4670/4850 Mac you won't get a feature supported by the MacMini? Will other cards be supported in the future?

2) Does "Qtx HW h.264 acceleration" only works with h.264 mp4 files? Does it also works with the more common and useful "x264 MKVs?
(for ppl who ignore it: you can play MKVs in QuicktimeX after installing Perian and doing the "NicePlayer trick", i.e. installing NicePlayer and loading it once)

3) High-end iMacs now use powerful desktop CPUs...let's assume we cannot get GPU hw acceleration.....how will i5/i7 iMacs behave with high bitrate 1080p x264 MKVs?
(answers after the shipping of quad core iMacs)

4) Now a "political" question: making it so "hard" (if possible) to use GPU HW acceleration with common mkv HD files, can be consider a way for Apple to encourage the use ($$$) of iTunes HD videos and not_caring/discouraging the use of other HD videos? This is a serious issue of Macs....I mean, even ati x1600 and nvidia 7600 on 2006 Macs could have supported GPU accelerated video playback....but not on OSX! And even nowadays, they allow ONLY one card (9400) and ONLY in QuicktimeX (they don't provide 3rd party developers with a tool to use acceleration on their non-QT based players, like XBMC-based players).

Thank you for your attention.

[gjw4u]

gianly1985, what exactly is the point of your post? You somehow lost me with all the different font sizes, colors, & styles.

[robbieduncan]

1) Who knows? Why not try it out on a few different machines. Apple can add support for other machines whenever they like

2) It works with H264, not any non-standard degenerate variant.

3) Who knows?

4) I think you are reading rather too much into this.

[Eidorian]

Originally Posted by robbieduncan

4) I think you are reading rather too much into this.

It is rather annoying since Apple has been pushing h.264 and video work in general but all of it is done on the CPU.

I've been waiting since 2005 for video playback hardware acceleration. We're decoding DVDs on the CPU. That's depressing.

[robbieduncan]

Originally Posted by Eidorian

It is rather annoying since Apple has been pushing h.264 and video work in general but all of it is done on the CPU.

I've been waiting since 2005 for video playback hardware acceleration. We're decoding DVDs on the CPU. That's depressing.

Sure. I think I'd rather take a more optimistic viewpoint. This is the start of widening hardware acceleration support, both in terms of GPUs and in terms of formats accelerated.

[Eidorian]

Originally Posted by robbieduncan

Sure. I think I'd rather take a more optimistic viewpoint. This is the start of widening hardware acceleration support, both in terms of GPUs and in terms of formats accelerated.

It started with the Unibody MacBooks last year and it's still stuck on the 9400M G. Apple just wants you to by new hardware instead of widening support.

Not to mention the Mac Pro is entirely left out.

[Kilamite]

Thing with Apple is their lips are too sealed. Giving us some insight to their plans to use the GPU decoding video would be nice.. if it is something they are going to implement in the next few years..