PowerBook H.264 Performance question

[phytonix]

My PowerBook 12" 1.5G has 100% CPU usage when playing back the new TV program from iTunes store. And sometimes it even choke.

While I have no virus scanning software, some programs running such as Opera, iTunes, Entourage and have about 20% CPU usage when idle.

So I am VERY curious about this. Why is it so slow on a PowerBook while you can actually play that video on an iPod? Is it the iPod too powerful or it is just because apple did not optimize enough for older Macs (pushing people to new hardware)?

I have just ordered a new iMac but I am not happy about my PowerBook which is just one year old.

Wish to hear your opinions about this matter. Thanks!

 

[Eidorian]

My PowerBook 12" 1.5G has 100% CPU usage when playing back the new TV program from iTunes store. And sometimes it even choke.

iTunes sucks for video playback. I can use VLC to play 720 x 480 XViD on my old Power Mac G3 450. But I can't play 320 x 240 MPEG-4 in iTunes and I get a slideshow of 3-5 fps in Quicktime.

 

[phytonix]

i did use QuickTime to play it. iTunes is definitely slower than QuickTime.

 

[Bibulous]

Are you using iTunes 7.0? seems to be alot better on older PPC systems. I can not play full screen TV and movies with out an issue, even on an old 667 G4.

 

[phytonix]

Are you using iTunes 7.0? seems to be alot better on older PPC systems. I can not play full screen TV and movies with out an issue, even on an old 667 G4.

Yes 7.0.

What do you mean? It plays better on older Macs? You can play the new 640x480 TV full screen on 667 G4?

 

[Bibulous]

Yes 7.0.

What do you mean? It plays better on older Macs? You can play the new 640x480 TV full screen on 667 G4?

yeah my first post did'nt make any sense. iTunes 7 play video much smoother on my G4 667 powerbook, full screen is not an issue. iTunes 6 was horrible with videos.