1080p Video on Old Mac Mini

[gretschdrummer]

I have a 2005/2006 Mac Mini with a 1.5 Intel Core Solo processer. I can't view 720p or 1080p videos without them getting super choppy and slowing down my computer.

If I have 1080p videos that I want to edit together, how would I do this? I have iMovie 09. My computer won't even play 720p videos correctly.

(Also, I can't download Lion. I don't have the requirements.)

Thanks.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

The Mac mini is from 2006.
How do you watch these 720p/1080p videos? Via QuickTime Player or some other video player or within your browser of choice as Flash object.
If it is the latter, then know that Flash is CPU intensive.

Adobe Flash Player is CPU intensive, thus more power is needed to feed the CPU, which results in higher temperatures and often higher fan speed(s) on mobile computers. As more power is used due to Flash, the battery life of mobile computers is shortened by a good bit.
To check, if Adobe Flash Player is responsible for less battery time, go to Applications / Utilities / Activity Monitor and select to show ALL PROCESSES and sort by CPU.

There are a variety of Flash blockers for all the four major browsers available.
A Flash blocker does what it says, it blocks Flash content, but via a click on the marked Flash object, the Flash object can be activated and used.

• Safari: ClickToFlash, for which there is an extension and a plug-in; CTF allows you to download YouTube and other kinds of MPEG-4 encoded video too.
• Opera: has a built-in Flash blocker
• Firefox: Flashblock is an add-on to block Flash
• Chrome: FlashBlock is an extension to block Flash

Also make sure to have the latest Adobe Flash Player version running, you can get it here.​

To edit 720p or 1080p video in iMovie you have to create .mov files using the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) for video and Uncompressed for audio via MPEG Streamclip and its option to "Export to QuickTime" (CMD+E).*

Btw, what is the source of your HD footage?



*

 

[gretschdrummer]

How do you watch these 720p/1080p videos?

Btw, what is the source of your HD footage?

Via Youtube. Can't view any HD video without Safari going crazy. Sorry, but I am not understanding what the "CPU Intensive" thing is supposed to mean.

The videos I tried to edit were for my friends iPhone 4, but I will be getting my own iPhone4S, so that will have 1080p recording.

Thanks!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Via Youtube. Can't view any HD video without Safari going crazy. Sorry, but I am not understanding what the "CPU Intensive" thing is supposed to mean.

The videos I tried to edit were for my friends iPhone 4, but I will be getting my own iPhone4S, so that will have 1080p recording.

Thanks!

What is a CPU? - measured in MegaHertz (MHz) and GigaHertz (GHz)

The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is responsible for interpreting and executing most of the commands from the computer's hardware and software. It is often called the "brains" of the computer.

CPU intensive means, that the CPU is used to its maximum (or nearly to its maximum).

Watching 720p and 1080p videos via Flash on YouTube will not work on that machine of yours. You could try using the HMTL5 beta of YouTube, to watch the videos in its native format: www.youtube.com/html5
Or you could try this trick to download the videos and watch them in VLC Player or Movist.

As to your iPhone question, when you use iMovie, the 1080p video will be transcoded (converted) into a format iMovie understands and is not as CPU intensive as the video the iPhone records, as the format and codec used by the iPhone to get the small file sizes is very CPU intensive to decode, especially when you going to edit them frame by frame.
But there are probably dozens and even more guides about how to use the iPhone in iMovie.

 

[gretschdrummer]

Thanks a lot. The HTML 5 Youtube 5 still doesn't work. Anyways, could this be fixed by upgrading the processor?

(my iPhone question is now solved)

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Thanks a lot. The HTML 5 Youtube 5 still doesn't work. Anyways, could this be fixed by upgrading the processor?

(my iPhone question is now solved)

Probably, but I don't know to what you can upgrade*, though a Core Duo would be better to play 1080p content.
Btw, did that other method I linked to work?

* There will be many threads about this though.

 

[dolphin842]

The 2GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini is generally considered to be the baseline model for smooth 1080p playback. More experienced folks here will be able to say whether you can upgrade or not.