Can an iBook G3 play mp4 videos well?

[rwm514]

I bought my 8 year old daughter an ibook to watch dvd's and listen to music. I am wondering if I could figure out how to upgrade from itunes 4 if it would be able to play some of our mp4 videos in itunes. For some reason software update says its up to date even tho its running itunes 4. Thx

 

[bizzle]

Is it running Tiger? Apple loves to things difficult for people, especially with their older software. When iTunes 10 was released, it was the only version pushed out through software update, even on OS's that did not support it. Because it does not support that version, software update just thinks the newest version available is installed. You need to install it manually.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1056 iTunes 9.2.1, will work on a G3 even though Apple says it does not, as long as it's running 10.4.11

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL857 iTunes 8.2.1, the last "officially" supported version of iTunes for G3 Macs.

As for the G3 being able to play said media files, I wouldn't count on it unless they are low resolution and low bit rate.

 

[MacHamster68]

playing the mp4 files with vlc player is the easiest way and works , vlc plays i think everything you can throw at it , i always wonder if it does by chance even plays word documents
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html

downloads
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

and there is another app called Mplayer which is good too

http://mplayer-os-x.en.softonic.com/mac


and there is perian the swiss army knife for quicktime player
http://www.perian.org/

http://trac.perian.org/wiki/SupportedFormats

 

[mrsir2009]

My iBook can handle games with videos in them, and quicktime videos too. So videos in iTunes should be ok - But why not play them in quicktime instead?

 

[rwm514]

I had major stuttering and lag in quicktime. Its running 10.4, 700 MHz. Thx for the links!

 

[MacHamster68]

maybe you should convert the mp4's in a more sensible format for the graphics card like avi , avi`s (divx format)play perfect in my iMac g3 600mhz using vlc player and quicktime player (perian installed)and mplayer too

no need for big file rips if you play on a computer or laptop and 700mb files is maximum size i would rip ever, they dont fill up the harddrive quickly, ok i know 1 tb is cheap today , but why waste money , i still have the original dvd 's just to lazy to take them out the shelf and i filled up already 3 tb with my dvd collection using 700mb files

 

[spinnerlys]

I had major stuttering and lag in quicktime. Its running 10.4, 700 MHz. Thx for the links!

If you can, open the video in VideoSpec and post the report here.
10.4 version: http://laurent.ettouati.free.fr/VideoSpec_0.7.1.dmg
G3 version: http://laurent.ettouati.free.fr/VideoSpec_G3_0.6.5.dmg