Video Player and Converter For G3

[Dronecatcher]

After a recent thread about video playback on a G3 I've bundled my mplayer scripts with an ffmpeg conversion script to produce what I've found to be an optimal video format on low powered G3s.
Download the package here and follow the included instructions or read below.

After trying various formats I believe on a G3 mp4 using the Apple MPEG4 compressor is the best balance between playback efficiency, quality and file size - in the package the script is written with converting 360P h264 in mind and converts to a 720kbps, stereo playback video at 20FPS. You can easily edit the script to change bitrate and framerate according to your needs - the script doesn't change the video resolution.

I've tested this on my 12" G3 iBook, 12" G4 Powerbook and Mac Pro 1,1 and haven't encountered any problems but as videos are output in myriad formats I can't rule out you might hit a video that refuses to convert.
On my 600Mhz G3 iBook a 360P video plays back at an average of 55-60% CPU using the bundled MPlayer.

Instructions as included in the package.

To install:
1.Unzip the archive and move the folder Video to Applications.
2.Inside the folder, move mplayer, mView and mViewX to Applications.
3.Inside the folder, drag G3V to the dock to create a shortcut.
4.Do the same with mView and mViewX

To use:
1.Drag video to be converted to the G3V shortcut in the dock (A 20 second test clip, Fluffy has been included.)
2.Click ok to confirm start of process.
3.Click ok when process finishes.
4.Move converted video (and rename) from root folder.
5.Drag video onto mView shortcut in the dock to play (or mViewX for greater efficiency.)

To change conversion parameters:
1.In Video folder double click Edit
2.Script will open - alter any parameters after the set arguments statement. These are the default parameters:

-f mov -vcodec mpeg4 -b 720 -r 20 -acodec mp3 -ac 2 -ab 128 -ar 44100

-b is bitrate (set to 720k/bits per second)
-r is framerate (set to 20)
-ac 2 is audio channels (set to 2 for stereo, 1 is for mono)
-ab is audio bitrate (set to 128k/bits per second)
-ar is audio sampling rate (set to 44100)

3.After any changes, click Compile then save and close.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Thanks for doing this.

 

[Project Alice]

Thank you for this. I'm testing now with my 600Mhz iMac G3.

 

[AtaruBarreau]

I've been using 10.2 on my low-end PPC lately so I was wondering; does a Mplayer version for 10.2 exist out-there? And if so, could we see a benefit by using this older version as opposed to Tiger? Great stuff otherwise!

 

[Dronecatcher]

I've been using 10.2 on my low-end PPC lately so I was wondering; does a Mplayer version for 10.2 exist out-there? And if so, could we see a benefit by using this older version as opposed to Tiger? Great stuff otherwise!

You might want to try Mplayer OSX - you can extract the executable from the package but I've found these older versions to be very picky about what they can play.

 

[swamprock]

This works quite well for mp4s that have been encoded for iTunes home sharing. I find that videos downloaded from YouTube have various issues; glitchy sound and frame issues that cause the video to skip ahead by 1/2 second or so on occasion. I would guess it depends on how old the videos are and how they’re converted when upped to the ‘tube, but I’m not that knowledgeable about such things.

In any event, nice work Wayne!

 

[Dronecatcher]

I find that videos downloaded from YouTube have various issues; glitchy sound and frame issues that cause the video to skip ahead by 1/2 second or so on occasion.

That's interesting, I did come across a video I'd downloaded years ago off Youtube and that one processed with the sound running at 3 times the speed of the video! There'll always be odd videos I guess - I dare say with some homework, there's probably a slew of extra parameters in ffmpeg that can iron out creases?

 

[Dronecatcher]

I find that videos downloaded from YouTube have various issues; glitchy sound and frame issues that cause the video to skip ahead by 1/2 second or so on occasion.

I think the problem might've been the aac encoder so I've changed it to mp3. However, for some reason the mp4 format disagrees with mp3 so I've altered the script to save as .mov - also I've noticed the sound disappears in QuickTime 7 but as the destination is MPlayer that shouldn't be an issue (it's ok in other players too.)