MBP 17" 2.93GHz 7,200RPM HD Can't Play 1080P Videos Smoothly!!

[evsmotors]

I bought the top of the line MBP 17" w/ 2.93GHz, 7,200RPM HD and 4gig Ram.

When I try to play a 1080P video through QT its choppy and the sound doesn't match the video. Audio comes first followed by the Video Sequence. Also when I edit videos in iMovie or even Adobe Premiere the preview window plays the video preview back extremely choppy! I have my computer set to high performance and its still like that. I thought with the way my MBP is configured I shouldn't have had any playback issues. Anyone else having these problems?

 

[Apple Corps]

Good Grief - I playback 1080p full screen on my 2.33 MBP with an ATI X1600.

Very smooth and no complaints. I also use this MBP to drive an HD projector - again, very pleased.

Something does not sound right - there should not be an issue.

 

[DoFoT9]

I bought the top of the line MBP 17" w/ 2.93GHz, 7,200RPM HD and 4gig Ram.

When I try to play a 1080P video through QT its choppy and the sound doesn't match the video. Audio comes first followed by the Video Sequence. Also when I edit videos in iMovie or even Adobe Premiere the preview window plays the video preview back extremely choppy! I have my computer set to high performance and its still like that. I thought with the way my MBP is configured I shouldn't have had any playback issues. Anyone else having these problems?

STOP USING QUICKTIME! its a hunk of junk.

Plex is your friend

 

[ViciousShadow21]

Plex is great also try VLC.

 

[jjahshik32]

Sadly video playback on macs I noticed has gone to s*its.

I have a samsung nc10 netbook with a 1.6GHz atom processor a GMA 950 and using windows media classic player with a little bit of tweaking I can play a 720p MKV movie and turning off the subtitles (ffdshow) I can even manage to play a 1080p mkv file just fine!

Its a shame that a 17" mbp cant even play a full 1080p especially with quicktime player which is the main central player that osx uses.

I love osx still but man I just found out that windows does have something good going on.

My mac mini cant handle 1080p mkv files via vlc nor mplayer for some reason but it can play it via plex player and surprisingly play 1080p trailers via quicktime just fine.

Maybe something is wrong with your 17" mbp?

 

[DoFoT9]

Sadly video playback on macs I noticed has gone to s*its.

I have a samsung nc10 netbook with a 1.6GHz atom processor a GMA 950 and using windows media classic player with a little bit of tweaking I can play a 720p MKV movie and turning off the subtitles (ffdshow) I can even manage to play a 1080p mkv file just fine!

Its a shame that a 17" mbp cant even play a full 1080p especially with quicktime player which is the main central player that osx uses.

I love osx still but man I just found out that windows does have something good going on.

its the coding of quicktime, its pathetic. thus plex is your friend. my CoreDuo 2.16ghz MBP can play 1080p movies with plex and/or VLC, quicktime is really badly coded.

 

[dsnort]

Something that's not clear from your post, what else do you have the MBP doing while you're playing back video?

The MBP is a powerful comp, but there are limits to everything.

Check your Activity Monitor, see where you stand with CPU Usage and Free Memory during playback. If either is "maxing out", ID what process's are using it up.

Plex is better than QT, but even then a MBP should handle this no problem.

If your CPU or memory isn't getting used up, but you're still having stuttering, you might have a bad unit, and need to get it back to Apple.

 

[DoFoT9]

Something that's not clear from your post, what else do you have the MBP doing while you're playing back video?

The MBP is a powerful comp, but there are limits to everything.

Check your Activity Monitor, see where you stand with CPU Usage and Free Memory during playback. If either is "maxing out", ID what process's are using it up.

Plex is better than QT, but even then a MBP should handle this no problem.

If your CPU or memory isn't getting used up, but you're still having stuttering, you might have a bad unit, and need to get it back to Apple.

maybe his mac is getting "stuck" on the 9400M?

 

[macfrik]

I bought the top of the line MBP 17" w/ 2.93GHz, 7,200RPM HD and 4gig Ram.

When I try to play a 1080P video through QT its choppy and the sound doesn't match the video. Audio comes first followed by the Video Sequence. Also when I edit videos in iMovie or even Adobe Premiere the preview window plays the video preview back extremely choppy! I have my computer set to high performance and its still like that. I thought with the way my MBP is configured I shouldn't have had any playback issues. Anyone else having these problems?

I agree with the others, try Plex or VLC. They are the best.

My guess is that there is something wrong with the video. Try playing some other HD video that you got and compare with the one thats choppy.

 

[bli625]

maybe his mac is getting "stuck" on the 9400M?

The 9400m can play 1080p files just fine.

 

[DoFoT9]

The 9400m can play 1080p files just fine.

lol... 9400M + quicktime + 1080p file = FAIL

 

[DooDaaDame]

G4 Powerbook can play 1080p files.

Uh..somethings not right here, I can play 1080p files on my G4 1.67 Mhz, 2 Gigs of RAM with Quicktime 7.5.5. Do it all the time!
Maybe its the codec of your files? I'm just throwing this out there as another thing to check...It should play fine.

 

[DoFoT9]

Uh..somethings not right here, I can play 1080p files on my G4 1.67 Mhz, 2 Gigs of RAM with Quicktime 7.5.5. Do it all the time!
Maybe its the codec of your files? I'm just throwing this out there as another thing to check...It should play fine.

what bitrates are your files at?? i was under the impression that his/hers were quite large

 

[Chundles]

lol... 9400M + quicktime + 1080p file = FAIL

My Unibody MacBook has no problems at all with 1080p video in QuickTime.

 

[DoFoT9]

My Unibody MacBook has no problems at all with 1080p video in QuickTime.

yes but there are SO many more variables that we need to consider.

• bitrates
• format type
• codecs used
• can QT play it without any plug-ins?
etcetcetc

what are your files 'specs'?

 

[DooDaaDame]

Bitrate

what bitrates are your files at?? i was under the impression that his/hers were quite large

I generally run a 3,000 bitrate

 

[sammich]

Yes, the OP needs to see if this happens with a quicktime trailer, have activity monitor open to make sure nothing else is happening.

Quicktime can handle any video you throw at it, especially on the OP's MBP. VLC just does the job more efficiently.

Please post the bitrate/size/codec of the 1080p video in question.

 

[DoFoT9]

I generally run a 3,000 bitrate

well there you go, HD videos can go up to endless amounts: 10,000, 20,000, 50,000... anything really. resolution doesnt really matter.

Yes, the OP needs to see if this happens with a quicktime trailer, have activity monitor open to make sure nothing else is happening.

Quicktime can handle any video you throw at it, especially on the OP's MBP. VLC just does the job more efficiently.

Please post the bitrate/size/codec of the 1080p video in question.

i completely agree

 

[evsmotors]

I put my laptop on high performance mode and it is choppy. I am using quicktime. I will try Plex, I am new to Mac so I don't know whats good and whats not. But besides the QT playback issue, even when using Adobe Premiere the preview video window is *EXTREMELY* choppy when playing back the previews of 1080p videos. I'll try Plex, is it free?

 

[DoFoT9]

I put my laptop on high performance mode and it is choppy. I am using quicktime. I will try Plex, I am new to Mac so I don't know whats good and whats not. But besides the QT playback issue, even when using Adobe Premiere the preview video window is *EXTREMELY* choppy when playing back the previews of 1080p videos. I'll try Plex, is it free?

yes its free. what format/codec/bitrate are you 1080p videos?

 

[evsmotors]

Thanks for the recommendation for PLEX!!! That did the trick for 1080p video play back. Though I'm still disappointed that QT couldn't do it! Where do I go in QT or Plex to find the bitrate?

 

[redsteven]

I put my laptop on high performance mode and it is choppy. I am using quicktime. I will try Plex, I am new to Mac so I don't know whats good and whats not. But besides the QT playback issue, even when using Adobe Premiere the preview video window is *EXTREMELY* choppy when playing back the previews of 1080p videos. I'll try Plex, is it free?

don't be afraid to set up an appointment at a genius bar in an apple store

 

[Lone Deranger]

That's probably because you did something wrong. Sorry to be blunt, but your Mac (and less powerful ones at that) is perfectly capable of playing HD content back real time and full frame.
As others have mentioned there are a lot of factors at play that can affect the quality and playback ability of a movie file. Crummy codecs and badly defined encoding settings can bring any combination of data, player, and hardware to it's knees.

Though I'm still disappointed that QT couldn't do it!

 

[evsmotors]

That's probably because you did something wrong. Sorry to be blunt, but your Mac (and less powerful ones at that) is perfectly capable of playing HD content back real time and full frame.
As others have mentioned there are a lot of factors at play that can affect the quality and playback ability of a movie file. Crummy codecs and badly defined encoding settings can bring any combination of data, player, and hardware to it's knees.

What is it that I am doing wrong. I purchased Quicktime Pro and tried playing back a 1080p movie. Not much I can do wrong. The video card is set to the higher performance one. What is it that I did wrong? That doesn't explain the poor video preview performance within iMovie and Premiere though. Help me if I really am doing something wrong.

 

[chaos86]

Could be a weird video file. Is it doing it with all 1080p files you try?

Also, have you recently installed any new codecs in quicktime? They're in /Library/Quicktime.

I've had funky codecs take over video playback from Quicktime's default ones, and cause weird slowdowns, choppiness, sometimes cause the proc to go 100% for a minute or so when you open a video file.

Try disabling all the extra codecs by moving them out of that folder, log out and back in (to make sure none of them are active), and play your 1080p file. If that works it's a codec problem. If you want to test whether it's a funky file, get a movie trailer from Apple. They're in H.264 and encoded properly (not by some 11 year old dvd ripper in the latest unknown, unsupported, beta format).