Showtime vs Quicktime

[Difatoni]

Which player, or another player, plays h.264 the best (sorry for using this word), and requires the less horsepower to play them. Opinions on avc players please.

[dbzgundam]

As far as I know, QT is not a very liked word around here. ;)

[acidsex]

use the search function and your answer shall be found.

[unmei]

"QT" is OK as long as it refers to the trolltech framework ;)

[Randall]

something like mplayer or VLC or Nero Showtime uses the least amount of CPU. QuickTime is ok, but it eats your CPU bigtime, since Apple had to port some of their OS to get QuickTime running for Windows.

[nm]

Always so nice around here, aren't we ;)

Although I haven't personally tried either, Quicktime is often said to perform poorly, so I'd say odds are for Nero Showtime here. However, there are better players available and you should also take a look at the decoder comparison (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=99402) for more information. MPlayer is one of the fastest and VLC (http://www.videolan.org) is only a bit slower but has an easier interface.

[charleski]

Nero also has a few recognised bugs in its decoder <sigh>.

[bond]

striked for 1, the decoder comparison is even sticky

[Difatoni]

I use a mac and are than any other opinions of which player will play
nero encoded h.264 videos?

[Difatoni]

and as far as the sticky decoder comparison, I can't gather vlc's performance compared to mplayers or quictimes

[nm]

VLC is probably close to ffdshow since both use libavcodec (as does MPlayer, but VLC is not quite as optimized for speed). Why not test it yourself and tell us what you find out :)

[Sharktooth]

I found VLC (0.8.5 nightly for windows) is pretty fast at decoding h.264, comparable with mplayer if not slightly faster.
As a side note... avoid QT at all costs... :)

[Revgen]

As a side note... avoid QT at all costs... :)

I never thought you would say that! :eek:

[Difatoni]

I've been running VLC, and it seems to keep running, but it's not as smooth as quicktime, though quicktime completely freezes more often.
I'm using a 1ghz alumminum powerbook, but the thing I can't figure out is why this book freezes when my old titanium 1ghz didn't (the tibook was glitchy during fight scenes and such, but it didn't completely freeze like this one). Possible quicktime update or lemon pbook?

[Difatoni]

Bump.

[Revgen]

What is the processor brand?

If it's a Crusoe processor than the problem may be in the x86 emulation.

[guada 2]

Sharktooth,
It is for when VLC 0.85? :)

[nm]

What is the processor brand?Difatoni is talking about Powerbooks from Apple. The processor is Motorola G4.

As to the question, does QuickTime freeze the whole operating system (as in a crash)? If so, it is probably an overheating problem. Otherwise just a software glitch in QT. Are you using the same version of QT as you used to?

[Sharktooth]

Sharktooth,
It is for when VLC 0.85? :)
Dunno, you should ask the videolan guys, it's just in development. However 0.8.4 is as fast as 0.8.5, but i'm using 0.8.5 coz i had problems with audio with some mp4s.

[Caroliano]

It is for when VLC 0.85?
Something around february/march of 2006 they said. But this is not a fixed realise date that they will follow, it is more like a prevision. Until then VLC 0.8.4 shoud work fine, I don't have any trouble with it. And the decoding speed shoud be about the same yet. They are starting working in this new version right now, so not much thing is done at this time.

The big thing for VLC 0.8.5 that I'm anxious is the new subtitle engine. :)

[Sharktooth]

no big things but it fixed the audio silence for me :)

[Difatoni]

My cousins pbook 12inch 1.5ghz runs it in quicktime as well as my old titanium did, but mine freezes (not the whole computer, just the movie). Once it freezes it can't really catch up. My old titanium can. Sigh, hopefully my next intel pbook will rip these mp4s apart