Can a 1GHz Titanium PB hanlde 480p HD video?

[Moo-Boo]

Greetings my fellow Mac aficionados from the Antipodes,

Nice to be among you once again...it has been quite a while! I need some advice, and only you can dispense it. I am thinking of purchasing a 1GHz Titanium 15" PowerBook for a great price ($1095 Australian) but I'm not sure if it will handle 480p HD video. I know it can't handle 720p, but 480 is good enough for me, and it doesn't take too long to download. The PowerBook is also capable of playing Battlefield 1942, so I'm very pleased about that, but the HD video will be the cruncher. So, what do you think?

Thanks as always for your great advice and feedback,

Matt and the cat

 

[Jopling]

I had that same computer and I can get back to you on that. My brother has the computer now so I'll call him up. How much does that price convert to in USD?

 

[apfhex]

My (slower) PB can just barely play 480p at a normal framerate, so your 1GHz should be fine. I think it has a bit better of a graphics card too.

 

[Chundles]

I had that same computer and I can get back to you on that. My brother has the computer now so I'll call him up. How much does that price convert to in USD?

It's about US$840.

There's nothing with it's ability in the refurb store - at least not at that price.

The closest refurb is a 1.2GHz iBook G4 12" for A$1099.

 

[KingYaba]

My eMac with 1.25ghz w/ 512 RAM and a 32mb vid card can handle 480. FPS is about 23.xx

 

[Chundles]

My eMac with 1.25ghz w/ 512 RAM and a 32mb vid card can handle 480. FPS is about 23.xx

My iBook can do it too. 24fps ± 0.5fps.

Looks stunning too, much better than interlaced.

 

[7on]

Just so you know, DVDs are 480p

And technically it's referred to as EDTV...

 

[FF_productions]

For Final Cut Studio, the requirements to edit HD is to have a machine with at least a ghz processor, which you meet the category for. I'm not sure if you're going to use final cut studio but it's just a friendly reminder.

A gig of ram would also help.

 

[Moo-Boo]

My fellow Mac aficionados,

Once again, all of you have made me a happy man...thank you very much! I will be purchasing the 1GHz Titanium PowerBook because all of you are confident in its abilities to handle HD video at 480p. And yes, I agree implicitly, 1GB of RAM would certainly help, but that will have to wait a while. The configuration I have is 512MB, which will do the job under Tiger...just. Expenses over the next couple of months are going to mount up, as many of you would no doubt understand very well. Welcome to the real world, huh? Still, a nice PowerBook will sweeten the real world quite considerably!

Thanks once again for being so good to me and take care of yourselves,

Matt and the cat

 

[Chone]

Just so you know, DVDs are 480p

And technically it's referred to as EDTV...

What... I thought DVDs were interlaced not progressive and I'm not even sure they are 480 for that matter... and all computer and "progressive scan" players do is deinterlace them? I'm pretty sure thats right.

 

[MBHockey]

Hey, i am currently using a 1GHz Titanium PowerBook. I know it plays dvds fine (although i have no idea if dvd = 480p) but to be sure i went to Apple's trailer site and played this trailer in 480p.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/thedeparted/hd/

It' played fine, no dropped frames whatsoever.

 

[apfhex]

What... I thought DVDs were interlaced not progressive and I'm not even sure they are 480 for that matter... and all computer and "progressive scan" players do is deinterlace them? I'm pretty sure thats right.

I don't know... I could have sworn most DVDs now are 480p, but I can't find any information to support this. They are at LEAST all 480i though. That's the NTSC standard.

I know it plays dvds fine (although i have no idea if dvd = 480p) but to be sure i went to Apple's trailer site and played this trailer in 480p. It' played fine, no dropped frames whatsoever.

Yeah, the real test here is not if the computer can play DVDs, which are MPEG-2 encoded, but if it can play H.264 480p files which are significantly more processor intensive.

 

[iBookG4user]

Just so you know, DVDs are 480p

And technically it's referred to as EDTV...

It's actually SDTV (standard definition) unless they changed it since I last checked.

 

[MBHockey]

I don't know... I could have sworn most DVDs now are 480p, but I can't find any information to support this. They are at LEAST all 480i though. That's the NTSC standard.


Yeah, the real test here is not if the computer can play DVDs, which are MPEG-2 encoded, but if it can play H.264 480p files which are significantly more processor intensive.

Did i use the right file?

 

[zflauaus]

It's actually SDTV (standard definition) unless they changed it since I last checked.

480i is SDTV. 480p is EDTV.

 

[Collin973]

I've got a 1 GHZ Tibook and it plays 480 off of apples website perfectly.

 

[7on]

What... I thought DVDs were interlaced not progressive and I'm not even sure they are 480 for that matter... and all computer and "progressive scan" players do is deinterlace them? I'm pretty sure thats right.

Some older ones are 480i, but anything that's only a couple years old is progressive. I think it's because it's technically easier to make it progressive because it's digital and all.

I have a couple of DVDs from 99 that when played on a computer and paused you see the "interlacition" but more recent movies are not interlaced in this fashion. That I can tell anyway. Plus it's easier to interlace a progressive stream than it is to de-interlace an interlaced stream.

 

[dextertangocci]

My iBook can do it too. 24fps ± 0.5fps.

Looks stunning too, much better than interlaced.

What is interlaced?

 

[iHotu]

Just for reference, I have a 667 TiBook, 1GB and 16MB Video card and it can not play the 480p trailer above from Apples website without skipping frames.

However it plays DVD's just fine, even on an external 1680x1050 display.