Best Codec/Container and App Combination?

[mrmeister]

Hi,

I'm going to be travelling soon and will be on a long flight. I'm wondering if anyone knows of a particular App and Codec/Container combination that will optimise my Macbook Pro's battery life so that i can watch what i want?

Currently i'm just using VLC and .mp4's converted via Handbrake, i can usually get around 2+1/2 - 3 hours on a medium brightness. Keeping in mind the flight is around 9 hours, i would like a little longer if possible.

I don't have the money to spend on any of these HyperJuice batteries or the like, just after a free boost if possible.

Up to date specs in the signature.

Thanks!

 

[scaredpoet]

Your best bet would likely be to try viewing those mp4's in Quicktime X and see if that improves your battery life. In Handbrake, you'll also want to be sure to use presets for Apple/iOS devices when encoding.

Seeing as Quicktime has the tightest integration with the OS, and would probably be in the best position to take advantage of any battery-saving features while playing H.264 video, you're not likely to get any longer battery life from using any other player.

I'm pretty confident you'll see some improvement with Quicktime. VLC is a great player that will open and play just about anything, and that's its strong point. But, it's also a resource hog, particularly on Macs. Their dev team has ben chronically short of OS X developers, and so they focus more on features than on optimizations.