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Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
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May be a strange question and I may be asking for more than expected, but I had always assumed that when I switched to Mac the quality of video playback from sites would be quite clear and sharp, not always, but mainly so, and yet a lot of video is quite pixelated and blurry, not constantly but with movement it pixelates briefly then settles and repeats etc. Is this an i5 thing and i7 would give a better result or am I just configured wrongly. It's no biggie but wondered if the i7 is a lot better or settings can improve those things.
 
Nov 28, 2010
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Could you link to examples?

Normally the CPU in the computer you use has nothing to do with pixelated playback, the reasons are rather a bad transcoding process by the uploader or that the video is very, very CPU demanding, but even if it is the latter, you would experience more sluggish playback than pixelation.

Again, could you link to examples?
 

Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,038
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Hi, pretty much all of them, when I go on Channel 4 online programmes, UK, they are all pretty erratic. YouTube I thought would be clearer for the main part also, but it's not bad.

While we're on this subject, for AVI files, would you get a better view downloading DIVX for Mac from the divx site, which is what the Mac points you to, or just use VLC for all, I didn't get on so great with VLC, Is that the preferred playback with all you guys?
 
Nov 28, 2010
22,670
31
located
Hi, pretty much all of them, when I go on Channel 4 online programmes, UK, they are all pretty erratic. YouTube I thought would be clearer for the main part also, but it's not bad.

While we're on this subject, for AVI files, would you get a better view downloading DIVX for Mac from the divx site, which is what the Mac points you to, or just use VLC for all, I didn't get on so great with VLC, Is that the preferred playback with all you guys?

When watching YouTube or similar sites with videos, look at Activity Monitor and see how much CPU is in use and report back and provide a link or two to test.
Also please provide information about the exact Mac model and Mac OS X version you use.

For playback of .avi files, VLC Player is quite okay, but there are also MPlayer X and Movist to try, you don't need the DIVX codec installed, especially not the Divx codec downloadable by some shady website. http://www.divx.com/en/software/mac is the official address for the Divx codec.

I can play 720p content on YouTube (embedded in Flash) more than okay on my 2007 iMac with a C2D CPU with 2GHz. 1080p content is still sharp and has no artefacts, but sometimes it lags.
For example, this video plays okay in 720p or 1080p (despite some minor lagging).
 

Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,038
87
I think that was the link the Mac gave when it said it couldn't play the AVI, but wondered what you guys do, and that's to d/l a player rather than the codecs, I've only used VLC but got rid as it wasn't so great. Wonder why it's not on the App store either?

I have a May 2011 MBP i5 Snow Leopard v 10.6.7, 2.3 GHz, 4GB Memory

I do get some lagging, to be expected when you're mainly wireless, but that video wasn't too bad.

Thanks for your help
 
Last edited:
Nov 28, 2010
22,670
31
located
I think that was the link the Mac gave when it said it couldn't play the AVI, but wondered what you guys do, and that's to d/l a player rather than the codecs, I've only used VLC but got rid as it wasn't so great.

I have a May 2011 MBP i5 Snow Leopard v 10.6.7, 2.3 GHz, 4GB Memory

I do get some lagging, to be expected when you're mainly wireless, but that video wasn't too bad.

Thanks for your help

So you didn't experience any pixelation issues with the video I linked to?
Normally pixelation only occurs on badly transcoded video, especially when fast movements occur, thus I assume, the videos you may have watched with those issues, are just uploaded by an uploader with bad transcoding habits.
The video I linked you to was properly transcoded, as the uploader is the official Muppets YT channel, which probably has money to properly transcode their uploads.

Lagging should occur due to a wireless connection, just wait until the video is loaded completely.
 

Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,038
87
No, there was no pixelation on that, It occurs on the catch-up channel of Channel 4 and Channel 5 tv stations, not related to sudden movement like you get on football on some LCD televisions. The thing I don't understand is when the download bar has almost completed on things like YouTube it still stops and starts
 

Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,038
87
P.S. Is there an idiot proof way of putting the AVI files on to a DVD and being able to play on a DVD player, I'm guessing it's not just a case of putting a DVD in the MBP and dragging the file on it?? Can it be done like that without any software needed?
 
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