Hardware video decoding on MBP 2.2 GHz Core2Duo (2007)

[scrasee]

I have the above MBP with an Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT GPU
The Nvidia spec shows the GPU is capable of hardware video decoding, but Apple doesn't seem to enable this feature with its native drivers in any version of OS X since I bought it. (Playback performance and CPU activity tell me it's not being done on the GPU)

I've looked for OEM or 3rd party drivers that may resolve this, but no joy.
Anybody found one?

As an aside, it seems nonsensical that Apple would not use a feature that lengthens battery life when they push iTunes video sales so hard! I paid for the silicon, why can't I use it?

 

[ha1o2surfer]

I have the above MBP with an Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT GPU
The Nvidia spec shows the GPU is capable of hardware video decoding, but Apple doesn't seem to enable this feature with its native drivers in any version of OS X since I bought it. (Playback performance and CPU activity tell me it's not being done on the GPU)

I've looked for OEM or 3rd party drivers that may resolve this, but no joy.
Anybody found one?

As an aside, it seems nonsensical that Apple would not use a feature that lengthens battery life when they push iTunes video sales so hard! I paid for the silicon, why can't I use it?

Honestly, the 8800MGT isn't anything special in terms of power saving so your CPU might actually be more power efficient at decoding a video stream than that card is. That would be my guess.. Now a days it's a different story