new MacBook Pro - Quicktime isn't playing smoothly

[lars666]

Hi everybody,

this probably isn't asked for the first time, but I really find no solution: I own a new Unibody MacBook Pro, 2.4 GHz, 4GB RAM. It doesn't play iTunes Store HD videos and Apple 720i and 1080i trailers smoothly. Playing these kind of videos with Quicktime doesn't produce real hickups or something like that, but the picture also doesn't flow perfectly "fluent" (don't know if this is the correct word in English ...). I can play 1080i videos with VLC perfectly fine. I have the newest Quicktime version and the CPU isn't even maxed out when playing the files. No other big programs running. The better graphic card of the MacBook Pro is turned on. I need to watch my iTunes Store HD purchases and the Apple trailers with iTunes/Quicktime, so does anybody have a clue why it doesn't work perfectly? The hardware should be more than enough to have no problems, doesn't it? Thanks in advance!!

 

[kenned]

It's a problem with the 9600m GT, try switching to the 9400M and see what happens, it has more than enough power anyways, and runs much cooler.

 

[lars666]

Oh my God, it really works - thanks for the hint. BUT: What does that say about the 9600 GT in my MacBook Pro?? As I am not really caring about battery time (and heat), I'd prefer to use the better graphic card. What's the point in it if I am damned to use the inferior one now - will this be solved somebody in the not too distant future by a software update or do we deal with a hardware problem here?? If last, I would even think about selling my MacBook Pro again, as, to be honest, I couldn't understand to pay for a better graphic card and use the "cheap" one ... Thanks again!!

 

[alphaod]

The PureVideo HD encoder is in the 9400M; hopefully in the future we can switch on the fly (without having to log out), so we can utilize the best of both worlds.

 

[lars666]

I have to admit that I'm not enough into this specific tech problem, but - if I understand you right - if there is a (hardware) HD decoder in the 9400 and the same thing missing in the better 9600, I would be still disappointed even if Apple manages to change cards on the fly - especially looking forward to Snow Leopard with this graphic card accelerator thing. Really, what's the point of having the neccessary HD decoder only in the cheaper one?? To my understanding, even to be able to switch on the fly would mean: I still have to always check that I switch to the inferior one when I want to watch videos and to the better one when I want to benefit from it for all the rest. Isn't this annoying and stupid like hell or am I miss something? The least I would expect is that OSX manages to automatically detects when to use which and change it by itself ...

 

[lars666]

Now that I've changed to the 9400, I have to find out that HD videos play fine, but YouTube videos are flickering. Oh boy ... I'm sad.