Playing mkv videos on a G5 17" 1.9Ghz

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G'day folks,

First time here so be gentle!

I have bought an old 17" iMac G5 running at 1.9Ghz and have installed a fresh copy of OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard).

I would like to use the G5 as a very simple media player for my bedroom and have lots of content already on my network in HD 720p mkv format. I am wondering if the G5 is up to the task of playing these files smoothly and if so how?

I have tried the following but had very chooppy results with video and sometimes also audio:

  • Installing Perian and playing in Quicktime / Front Row
  • Installing VLC player
  • Installing MPlayer

What can I do to play these files, or is is it simply a case of having to reconvert all content to another format?

Regards

Ben
 

robduckyworth


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15" MBP, 2.5GHz i7, 750GB, 6770M 1GB, iPad 3, iPhone 4, custom PC
are you streaming the content?
 
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20" Intel iMac 2.4 Ghz/3G Ram/320HD, Snow Leopard. PBook G4, 1.5Ghz/1.5 Ram/250 HD, Leopard 10.5.6.
You don't say how much ram you have, but to be honest I think that it will struggle no matter what.
It's more a software issue to be honest, and sadly PLEX is Intel only, as it's the only player I have found to be able to cope with any MKV file.
 
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Ive now upgraded RAM to the max 2.5GB.

My plan was originally to leave all my video content on my media PC and watch it over wifi or Ethernet if needed. So it is streaming in a sense but from an internal network.

I have tried playing the files directly from the G5 too and this doesn't work either so I think I will need to re-encode my content to be playable.

I've tried a few formats so far: mov (HUGE file sizes), mpeg2 (no audio!) and mpeg4 (good quality and reasonable file size) but winder what format and settings would be best as the CPU isn't great and the fan can get quite loud!?

What format do you think would be best? I'm re-encoding to DVD resolution and for TV shows even 720 x 408.

Ben
 
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Your Mac's Specs
20" Intel iMac 2.4 Ghz/3G Ram/320HD, Snow Leopard. PBook G4, 1.5Ghz/1.5 Ram/250 HD, Leopard 10.5.6.
You could direct remux the MKV to MPEG4 and that will give the best quality, and the files would be the same size as the MKV.
 

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