Rev B major problem with HD playback

[andrewp]

My 1,86 120gb MBA finally arrived 2 days ago after 2+months of waiting (denmark).

No lines on the screen, no extreme overheat and even World of Warcraft was very playable, so I am overall very happy with the purchase. At least I was.

Now there's one thing that has bothered me quite much. When I try to play movies in high definition they begin to lagg and become unwatchable in just a few minutes. I'm using VLC player and the processor states that it's eating up 90-110% of the cpu speed.
I really can't understand this since I'm able to playback the same movies on my old laptop PC (core2duo 1,5ghz) without the cpu power getting above 30%.
The normal temperature is at 45-50C, and goes up to 65 when playing HD movies.

Does anyone have some suggestion of how to avoid this? Is it just a codec problem or is MBA really only made for searching the net. If so, I should have sticked to a simple Asus eee pc for 300 bucks.

 

[jackiecanev2]

Hmm. Are you trying to play .mkv files? VLC is notorious for only utilizing one core for processing .mkv files, which in turn taxes the core heavily causing the heat and stuttering. The revB is certainly not limited to being a netbook...

 

[errol]

Sorry to hijack, but is there a program better than VLC for playing back .mkv files? After about 20 minutes of watching a 720p movie, my Rev A. goes nuts, overheats and the video starts to stuffer.

 

[SummerBoy]

man..

I wish macbook air had no problems..no more

 

[glitch44]

Sorry to hijack, but is there a program better than VLC for playing back .mkv files? After about 20 minutes of watching a 720p movie, my Rev A. goes nuts, overheats and the video starts to stuffer.

you could try perian. it adds mkv (and many other formats) support to quicktime:

http://www.perian.org/

 

[andrewp]

I already tried persian in QT, and it didn't help, still the same error and high cpu level...

Something is wrong I just don't know what , are any of you having the same problems, or can anyone recommend a good player for mac, like media player classic is for windows.

 

[glitch44]

I already tried persian in QT, and it didn't help, still the same error and high cpu level...

Something is wrong I just don't know what , are any of you having the same problems, or can anyone recommend a good player for mac, like media player classic is for windows.

You have a Rev A with a 4200 RPM hard drive, so 720p content probably won't do the best on your system but you could try mplayer:

http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/

 

[andrewp]

You have a Rev A with a 4200 RPM hard drive, so 720p content probably won't do the best on your system.

How come? As mentioned I can do it without problems on a slower windows machine, meaning that my mac acts like it's a single core 1,2ghz machine or something.

And of what I know the hardisc RPM shouldn't have any impact on the playback at this level.

 

[6SSD4]

Normal for me: 45-55 degrees.
When playing video: 65-75.

Just saying so you wont worry. But It shouldnt lagg.

 

[andrewp]

Normal for me: 45-55 degrees.
When playing video: 65-75.

Just saying so you wont worry. But It shouldnt lagg.

Ye i'm not worried about the temps, my other laptops have gotten even hotter...
But what do you use for playing it, and what kinda file is it?

 

[orpheus1120]

PLEX is your answer.

Google it.

 

[andrewp]

Thank you so much Orpherus, that was indeed the answer I was looking for, and man, that's a nice piece of software....

Nonetheless, my MBA is like a dream now