G4 Optimized Mplayer (highly recommended!)

[zen.state]

I posted about this already in the "MP4's on old hardware" thread but felt it deserved it's own thread to help share this amazing player for G4 PowerPC that I can't seem to find anymore online after many googles and scouring through the old versions on the Mplayer site. Because of this I have decided to share it with anyone who wants it and belive me when I say this is hands down the best video player for any PowerPC Mac running 10.4+. This was released in 2006 by the way..

Mplayer G4 PowerPC Optimized Build
This is 100% open source freeware so there are no legal issues with sharing it..

For best results set the A/V and Misc. preferences exactly as shown below:

I am a video collection whore myself and have at least 2.8 of my 3.5TB storage filled with video. This build of Mplayer works like a champ on my G4 1.8GHz and even my Aunt's G4 500MHz tower. I can even play 480p h.264 with only about 42% CPU use and 720p xvid/divx at as low as 26% CPU use. The "drop frame rates on slower machines" option is great to have on. It only drops frames when it needs to. It can easily turn choppy playback into smooth.

The only bugs I have found in this is the playlist is a bit sketchy if you add more than one item at a time. Other than that one little thing it's tip top perfect.

Enjoy

 

[Hallivand]

I seem to have issues playing anything HD (720p or 1080p) with this app.

Is this expressly compiled for the G4 or just PowerPC in general?

I get a grey screen, the error logs spewing out:


[h264 @ 0x5a5844]decode_slice_header error
[h264 @ 0x5a5844]abs_diff_pic_num overflow
[h264 @ 0x5a5844]decode_slice_header error
Error while decoding frame!
Error while decoding frame!
[h264 @ 0x5a5844]abs_diff_pic_num overflow
[h264 @ 0x5a5844]decode_slice_header error
[h264 @ 0x5a5844]illegal short term buffer state detected
Error while decoding frame!
[h264 @ 0x5a5844]abs_diff_pic_num overflow
[h264 @ 0x5a5844]decode_slice_header error
[h264 @ 0x5a5844]illegal short term buffer state detected
[h264 @ 0x5a5844]illegal short term buffer state detected
Error while decoding frame!


MPlayer interrupted by signal 11 in module: decode_video
- MPlayer crashed by bad usage of CPU/FPU/RAM.
Recompile MPlayer with --enable-debug and make a 'gdb' backtrace and
disassembly. Details in DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports_what.html#bugreports_crash.
- MPlayer crashed. This shouldn't happen.
It can be a bug in the MPlayer code _or_ in your drivers _or_ in your
gcc version. If you think it's MPlayer's fault, please read
DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html and follow the instructions there. We can't and
won't help unless you provide this information when reporting a possible bug.
2011-04-03 01:41:33.590 MPlayer OSX PPC[3018:20b] Abnormal playback error. mplayer returned error cod

So yeah =/

I'm running this on a Dual 1.8Ghz G5 with 3GB RAM and a nVidia 6800 Ultra DLL

 

[zen.state]

I have never run this app on a G5 so I can't speak from experience about that. On G4's though it works amazingly.

For the record I have used this player on G4 7400, 7410, 7450, 7455, 7447 and 7448 and have had great results with all. I can guarantee good results on any of those chips.

 

[Hallivand]

Ah okay, thanks for the quick response

It was running on Leopard anyway, so G5 + Leopard not good combo perhaps?

I got two G4's (Quicksilver 933 and just revived Sawtooth 400) that I can try it on anyway.

 

[zen.state]

It was running on Leopard anyway, so G5 + Leopard not good combo perhaps

I run it on Leo on my G4 with no issues. Must be a G5 issue. He was a little too general just adding "PPC" to the app title. It should read G4 as that it whats it's specifically optimized for.

In my experience this app is a beast on a G4. Plays videos at lower CPU use than any other player I have ever used. Plays perfectly off a burned CD/DVD or over a network with the cache option on like I show in the screen cap above. It also scrubs very very well through video. Best scrubbing I have ever seen to be honest.

Scrubbing with the arrow keys:

Left = 10 sec. back
Right = 10 sec. ahead
Down = 1 min. back
Up = 1min. ahead

 

[cyberghoser1]

Just downloaded it on my old G4 iBook, man this is great, very useful thank you!

 

[Hallivand]

Just tried on my Quicksilver + Tiger, bloody brilliant.

And so PowerPC still chugs on. One app at a time.

Must have a hell of AltiVec optimisations to reduce general CPU usage that much.

Now for that sawtooth...

EDIT: Cheers for the help

 

[zen.state]

cyberghoser and Hallivand:

Awesome! Glad to hear.

All you need to get the most out of an old G4 is the right software.

 

[cyberghoser1]

Awesome! Glad to hear.

All you need to get the most out of an old G4 is the right software.

Tell me so, my iBook has 640mb of ram, and no airport, using a ralink usb dongle with that ugly utility was making it very slow, almost 45% of cpu being used by that, now i have a prefpane for it and its quite faster, mactubes for youtube is just a MUST, using quicktime as player and videos are playing like a charm, and now MPlayer optimized was just what i was missing.

 

[zen.state]

Must have a hell of AltiVec optimisations to reduce general CPU usage that much.

Yep. It's been proven over and over through the years by those that understood how to code for the best altivec support that you can literally increase computation by as much as 6x.

Truly optimized code is a very rare thing these days.

 

[Nameci]

Because newer developers are just so sloppy and lazy with coding... oh gone are those days.... nowadays it is just more of a drag and drop...

Tried on Leopard, it's choppy.

 

[zen.state]

Tried on Leopard, it's choppy.

Thats very odd since you have a dual 1.42. Even my Aunt's G4 500MHz plays a typical DVD rip with CPU to spare.

What format/codec is the video you're trying to play? Resolution effects performance just as much as codec. Did you set all the prefs the way I show above? A dual 1.42 MDD shouldn't even break a sweat playing most rips.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I can play 480p h.264 and 720p XviD/DivX with plenty of CPU to spare on a single 1.8GHz 7448.

 

[Nameci]

It stutters, it uses more cpu than quicktime player. The thing is that it is passing from one cpu to the other, it is not using it at the same time. Maybe that is the reason of the stutter.

Maybe it was optimized on single cpu boxes.

 

[zen.state]

Maybe it was optimized on single cpu boxes.

Nope. I used it all the time when I had 2 MDD's (dual 867 and dual 1.42) and it played videos very well on both.

Your issues are very very odd. Please tell me the resolution and codec of the video you're trying to play so I can actually help you. I need more info than "it stutters".

 

[Nameci]

it is an h.264 MP4 I dl'ed from you tube. It is about 720p as I can recall...

Let me check again.

 

[zen.state]

it is an h.264 MP4 I dl'ed from you tube. It is about 720p as I can recall...

Let me check again.

720p h.264 is even too much for many G5's so i'm shocked that you claim this same video plays in Quicktime better. It should be the other way around. If you want 720p then stick to Xvid or DivX. I stick to 480p or lower when it comes to h.264.

Here is a screen of me playing an 832p DivX rip of Kill Bill 2. The player window and player combined are only using about 32% CPU total as you can see in the istat CPU menu. The video resolution is 1440x832:


As a true video collector/watcher I can tell you with great certainty that when it comes to a G4 system your best friends are XviD and DivX. h.264.. not so much.

 

[AdrianK]

720p h.264 is even too much for many G5's so i'm shocked that you claim this same video plays in Quicktime better. It should be the other way around. If you want 720p then stick to Xvid or DivX. I stick to 480p or lower when it comes to h.264.

Here is a screen of me playing an 832p DivX rip of Kill Bill 2. The player window and player combined are only using about 32% CPU total as you can see in the istat CPU menu. The video resolution is 1440x832:


As a true video collector/watcher I can tell you with great certainty that when it comes to a G4 system your best friends are XviD and DivX. h.264.. not so much.

Bitrate and codec profile are important too, from the look of that screenshot the bitrate is extremely low. Anyway, it would really help if people were posting media info logs, rather than just quoting codec and resolution.

 

[zen.state]

Bitrate and codec profile are important too, from the look of that screenshot the bitrate is extremely low. Anyway, it would really help if people were posting media info logs, rather than just quoting codec and resolution.

I disagree about bitrate being important performance-wise. I get similar performance from 4000kb or 900kbit. You're right about that video being a low bitrate. It's only around 800kbit DivX.

Here is another screen of me playing a 2039kbit (1239kbit more than my previous screen cap) video in mplayer and the CPU use is actually lower. I had the video open in QT also but only playing in mplayer simply so I could have the QT info window in the shot which is much more detailed than mplayer.



I have 2.8TB of XviD and DivX on my system and have ripped at least half of it on my own from my own collection on this very G4. I tell you from lots of experience that resolution and codec are the most crucial factors on performance.

 

[Nameci]

Guess would have to stick in QT then. There is a lag as well in QT playing the videos I have dl'ed but not so choppy compared to the MPlayer.

Anyway, I am not keen into playing HD as well, just tried out if it works with my rig.

On my Safari, flash is playing better than h.264.

 

[zen.state]

As you can see in earlier posts in this thread there two people with sub 1GHz G4's that had great results. One was a single 933 and the other a single 800.

 

[Joshuarocks]

720p h.264 is even too much for many G5's so i'm shocked that you claim this same video plays in Quicktime better. It should be the other way around. If you want 720p then stick to Xvid or DivX. I stick to 480p or lower when it comes to h.264.

Here is a screen of me playing an 832p DivX rip of Kill Bill 2. The player window and player combined are only using about 32% CPU total as you can see in the istat CPU menu. The video resolution is 1440x832:


As a true video collector/watcher I can tell you with great certainty that when it comes to a G4 system your best friends are XviD and DivX. h.264.. not so much.

Hmm.. just last night I was watching a 720p and even a 1080p video on my PCIe G5 Quad and it had no problems playing it.

 

[zen.state]

Hmm.. just last night I was watching a 720p and even a 1080p video on my PCIe G5 Quad and it had no problems playing it.

I said many not all. You have a quad 2.5 so yes it plays it. Try the same on a dual 2GHz and it will stutter a bit.

 

[Joshuarocks]

720p h.264 is even too much for many G5's so i'm shocked that you claim this same video plays in Quicktime better. It should be the other way around. If you want 720p then stick to Xvid or DivX. I stick to 480p or lower when it comes to h.264.

Here is a screen of me playing an 832p DivX rip of Kill Bill 2. The player window and player combined are only using about 32% CPU total as you can see in the istat CPU menu. The video resolution is 1440x832:


As a true video collector/watcher I can tell you with great certainty that when it comes to a G4 system your best friends are XviD and DivX. h.264.. not so much.

I said many not all. You have a quad 2.5 so yes it plays it. Try the same on a dual 2GHz and it will stutter a bit.

Ok, later when I get back from eating.. I will test the mplayer ppc version on my G5 Quad and post results.. I just downloaded the program and it works great on my PB G4 1.67 - my everyday machine when on the go.

 

[Hallivand]

I've read somewhere that the Velocity Engine in the G5's isn't as good as the AltiVec on the G4's. Perhaps something lies in that?

 

[SuperJudge]

Very nice app. Half the CPU % and a quarter of the RAM of VLC on my 2.3GHz (DC) G5. I will definitely be using this in the future. Thanks for the link!