Can your iMac play this 4k movie trailer?

It did not play fine on my late 2012 iMac 27" 3.4GHz i7 24 GB Ram with fusion drive. It showed 31% CPU usage. Was stuttering considerably.

Which trailer do I choose and how do I see my CPU usage?

I clicked play latest and downloaded it to my iMac first then played it in QT, no issues.

3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB

StephenCampbell said:

Huh, perhaps there's something wrong with the way that 4k file was created.

My machine can play at least four 1080p videos simultaneously, utilizing about 70% of the CPU. A new iMac should be able to do about twice that, right?

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No, it's in the list below, the only entry that has a 4K option on the righthand side. It's 420mb.

Click to expand...

Downloading it now to try it, thanks!

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StephenCampbell said:

Huh, perhaps there's something wrong with the way that 4k file was created.

My machine can play at least four 1080p videos simultaneously, utilizing about 70% of the CPU. A new iMac should be able to do about twice that, right?

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No, it's in the list below, the only entry that has a 4K option on the righthand side. It's 420mb.

Click to expand...

How do I show CPU usage?

I can't even get the site to load, but when it does I'll test it.

2012 3.4Ghz i7, 32GB RAM, 680GTX

*edit*

Site is working now.. Downloading trailer...

*edit*

Works fine. Between 14-20% CPU usage in Boot Camp Windows 7 using VLC.

I tried viewing it in Firefox. Never tried to download it. Same thing here, first trailer would not even download to Firefox. 1080 would download in Firefox but was problematic playing it.

StephenCampbell said:

My 2006 Mac Pro stutters terribly trying to play this, but Activity Monitor shows only 30% of my CPU being used.

Can your iMac play the 4k trailer? Please also list the percentage of CPU being used as well as the year your machine was manufactured.

http://www.hd-trailers.net/movie/elysium/

Click to expand...

Late 2009 iMac Sound is fine, image is stuttering and not moving. CPU for Quicktime was maybe 10% if that much.

For comparison, clean 1080P playback is 5.2% CPU usage for Quicktime.

I think Quicktime is running in multiple processes - in either case there was negligible load on the system even with the 4K trailer. I think it was just too much video data to handle.

OK, got it and it hung in three places every time I tried to play it. Most of the CPU usage was around 10% but spiked to 90% about 1/3rd through.

StephenCampbell said:

The thing is that my machine can play at least four or five 1080p videos simultaneously with no problem. I'm sure yours can do up to nine or ten.

I wonder what the issue is with playing this video...

Click to expand...

I'm still downloading it so all I can do is guess right now.

I'd say it's mainly due to being 4K. Doesn't 4K use 120MHz refresh on a display ?

Most displays can only handle 60 MHz.

I'm probably wrong but I'll look into it as soon as it's downloaded.


[edit]

I just played it with no problems. Even full screen.

My specs :

2012 15 " cMBP
2.6 GHz i7 w/ 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M w/ 1GB VRam
Thunderbolt display
SSD HD

I used Quicktime under OSX 10.9

Peace said:

I'm still downloading it so all I can do is guess right now.

I'd say it's mainly due to being 4K. Doesn't 4K use 120MHz refresh on a display ?

Most displays can only handle 60 MHz.

I'm probably wrong but I'll look into it as soon as it's downloaded.


[edit]

I just played it with no problems. Even full screen.

My specs :

2012 15 " cMBP
2.6 GHz i7 w/ 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M w/ 1GB VRam
Thunderbolt display
SSD HD

I used Quicktime under OSX 10.9

Click to expand...

FYI, 4k is nothing to do with refresh rate (24hz, 60hz, 120hz, 240hz etc).

StephenCampbell said:

This is very interesting. Perhaps something needs to be set up within the OS to allow proper 4K playback, and Apple has included this in 10.9, naturally because they're going to be releasing 4k displays in the near future and what not.

Click to expand...

I'll reboot in a second and try it in OS X 10.8.4...

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OK so:

2012 iMac, 3.4Ghz, 32GB, GTX 680MX, Windows 7 64 bit, VLC:

14-20% CPU usage


2012 iMac, 3.4Ghz, 32GB, GTX 680MX, OS X 10.8.4 64 bit, VLC OR QuickTime:

~ 50%-150% CPU usage, depending on what's going on onscreen.

I see no difference in performance between VLC and QuickTime. CPU usage seems very high, but no dropped frames/stuttering, I checked the Media Information screen on VLC and there are no dropped frames. Looks perfectly smooth.

*edit*

Same results in Plex.

My macbook pro 13 inch with the crappy intel hd 4000 played this just fine, but it might have to do with using os x 10.9. I was only using 5% of my cpu and about 50 mb of memory. I think that any iMac should handle it fine

Don't try to use Handbrake to down sample it to 1080P. It crawls at 6fps under 10.9.

StephenCampbell said:

On what hardware?

Click to expand...

The same hardware listed in my earlier post.

Using OSX 10.9

StephenCampbell said:

Were you playing the 4k, 420mb file?

If so, this is definitely looking like 10.9 allows for 4k playback and there's some kind of blockage in the software with 10.8 and before.

Click to expand...

Did you miss my posts above? 10.8. No issues playing 4K files.

Tried playing the 4K file on my black MacBook (2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR2 667, OS X 10.7.5), lol. Audio came in loud and clear. CPU stayed at 99% the whole time. Video was a clear while screen at the correct aspect ratio of the video file.

dakwar said:

Tried playing the 4K file on my black MacBook (2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR2 667, OS X 10.7.5), lol. Audio came in loud and clear. CPU stayed at 99% the whole time. Video was a clear while screen at the correct aspect ratio of the video file.

Click to expand...

It played well on both my Retina MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 15") and Mac Mini (Late 2012). Both have the same Core i7 2.6 GHz Quad Core processor with HT. I tested it with and without Automatic Graphics Switching enabled on the rMBPro before testing it on the Mac Mini. It played well in all cases at several different resolutions. I'll test it on a 2011 iMac 27 (AMD 6770) later on.

OS X 10.8.4 on all machines.

1440x900 (Best for Retina), 2880x1800 (Native Resolution) and 3840x2400 (virtual resolution) all played the file the same without stutter (video or audio).

FWIW, the text overlay looked amazing on the retina display. Not so much on the Mac Mini with a 1280x1024 panel connected.

Note I could not stream the file as I'm bandwidth limited (50 Mbps TW Cable "Wideband", what a joke to call it that.) It would stutter on both machines to the point of being unwatchable, even if I back stepped the video after it buffered about 1/3rd of the file.

I know you're asking about playback on the iMac, but I'm currently on the MBP and saw your thread.

cMBP 15" mid-2012
2.3 Ghz i7
16GB 1333 Mhz DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512MB
Samsung 830 SSD (SATA3)
OS X 10.8.4

I downloaded the 4K and the 720p versions and played them in full screen with QuickTime.

The 4K played well and only stuttered a few times. CPU barely registered anything.
The 720p played well and never stuttered at all. CPU barely registered anything.