Would it be possible to play back Blu-Ray discs on my Powermac G4 or do I need a special video card and / or specs?
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Powermac G4 DP 1.25mhz and Blu-Ray playback?
- Thread starter princealfie
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The G4 is not powerful enough to play 1080P video. My dual core 2.3GHz G5 barely plays 1080P video.
Even if the G4 could power HD video, there is no software to play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD video on the Mac.
Even if the G4 could power HD video, there is no software to play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD video on the Mac.
At that rate, I might as well buy a 320 GB 2.5" external drive to store stuff. I don't see much reason to burn discs for storage anymore.
I have the same exact question. I know there are PCs with Blu-Ray drives, that can actually PLAY 720p and 1080p Blu-Ray movies and display them fullscreen via DVI display on the PC...using special software under Windows XP and Windows VIsta, there are several programs out there for Windows that can play Blu-Ray disc movie content...
So how...how? HOW!?!?! --can we play Blu-Ray movies on a Macintosh. ANY Mac? Can you install a Blu-Ray player in a Mac Pro and play the movies in Windows under bootcamp?
I have 2 ACDs, a 23" and a 30" -- and it would be nice to enjoy the wonderful world of super-high resolution films that are widely available now on Blu-Ray disk...without having to go buy a Blu-Ray set top player and a HD Television just to watch them. NO, I don't have an HDTV, and yes, I am broke after buying this new 30" Cinema HD display, soo...it would be nice if I could watch Blu-Ray movies on it.
Thanks.
-Ward
PCs have hardware support (and driver support for the hardware) from newer generation graphics cards for hi-def HD-DVD/Blu-Ray playback. The Mac doesn't, yet, and unfortunately for anyone with a G4 or older G5, never will, as they won't be developing any AGP-compliant DX10 cards with hi-def Blu-Ray decoding capabilities.
There is no Mac Software currently out that allows you to properly decode a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc.
Specialized hardware really has nothing to do with it. You just need enough CPU grunt to playback the file. Newer video cards allow offloading of the H.264 decoding to the Video Card which frees up the CPU to simply idle or perform some other task.
Tracer
Specialized hardware really has nothing to do with it. You just need enough CPU grunt to playback the file. Newer video cards allow offloading of the H.264 decoding to the Video Card which frees up the CPU to simply idle or perform some other task.
Tracer
Specialized video cards, particularly those with UVD, do most of the heavy lifting when decoding Blu-Ray movies. In fact, all that the CPU has to do is process audio and the encryption.
In the Windows world, motherboards with the new AMD 780G chipset are playing Blu-Ray at 1080p with single core Sempron 3200+ processors.
See this link for more info.
Since the new iMacs have UVD ATI video cards, playing Blu-Ray should not be a problem in Windows.
As others have said, I doubt that we will ever see such video cards for PPC Macs.
In the Windows world, motherboards with the new AMD 780G chipset are playing Blu-Ray at 1080p with single core Sempron 3200+ processors.
See this link for more info.
Since the new iMacs have UVD ATI video cards, playing Blu-Ray should not be a problem in Windows.
As others have said, I doubt that we will ever see such video cards for PPC Macs.
No. Blu-ray playback requires an HDCP compliant video card and monitor, neither of which Apple has on any of its computers or displays.
This is false. I play 720p video flawlessly on my Powerbook G4 laptop, and 1080p on my G4 dual 1.4 MDD.
Of course, Quicktime, Windows media player or VLC will lag to death; you only need to buy CorePlayer. This thing is the only real option for HD video on a powermac. It costs 20 bucks, and will perform at least 2X (no kidding at all) better than any other software for video playback for powerpc.
it aint about CPU grunt either. My Octo mac pro doesnt play Blueray in Mac OS, plays fine in winslows.
Then something isn't right. My 2.26GHz C2D can play almost all BDs I can throw at it, including BDs with AVC @ 30mbit.
It depends more on the bitrate than resolution in my experience. A ~5.5mbit/second 1080p H.264 video file plays fine in VLC (but not in Quicktime) on my dual 1.8GHz G5. ~10mbit/second not so much, ~30/mbit/second will be horrid.
For anything on PowerPC or older Intel Macs even the truth is the exact opposite of what you say.
Resolution and codec have the biggest effect on video playback.
lol, you mis-interpret what i meant, or maybe i just didnt say it right
what i meant is that the MAC OS (not sure about Lion though, maybe they have introduced BR playback in lion) doesnt support playback of Blue ray.. period. its not dependent on cpu power or anything else.
what i meant is that the MAC OS (not sure about Lion though, maybe they have introduced BR playback in lion) doesnt support playback of Blue ray.. period. its not dependent on cpu power or anything else.
I can play 1080p with lower bitrates, but not with higher bitrates.
That is what I was pointing out.
Psh. You don't need to spend money. NicePlayer will use the GPU to process any video if your GPU can do CoreAnimation/Video accelerated. I can play 720p compressed (MPEG-4 or similar, H.264 is a no-go for HD) files flawlessly on my 1.5 GHz PBG4 with it.
Of course, codec has a lot to do with it. If I encode videos in Apple Intermediate Codec, I can play full 1080p in QuickTime Player while using maybe 75% CPU or less. The videos are, of course, massive in that format.
A fairly un-scientific test I just conducted would back that up.
(for both resolutions; x264 with High@L3.1 was used)
*Have to necro-post.*
My config is PowerMac G4 1.25 + Radeon 9000 Pro + Cinema display 21".
I have converted video in different formats to find out which is the best.
The easy and decent way to watch video on PowerMac is DVD 9gb.
The BEST way is to convert to custom MPEG2 (as it has hardware acceleration) at 1280x720.
My config is PowerMac G4 1.25 + Radeon 9000 Pro + Cinema display 21".
I have converted video in different formats to find out which is the best.
The easy and decent way to watch video on PowerMac is DVD 9gb.
The BEST way is to convert to custom MPEG2 (as it has hardware acceleration) at 1280x720.