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What have you done with a PowerPC today?

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Whilst having fun with InterWebPPC I've been reminded of the annoying bug in Firefox that fails to automatically check and highlight your spelling errors as you type - even when you've selected that very option in the preferences setting.

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Its been a while since I've had to fiddle with this - and I don't miss the annoyance that it caused me on every computer and new OS installation/re-installation! For anyone else who found themselves struggling with this issue, here is the solution.

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I soon remembered that you have to set the value to "2" otherwise the spellchecker will not activate automatically as you type.

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Voila, a little indulgence in tomfoolery to demonstrate that the spellchecker is now automatically checking my typing.

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Posted on my iBook G4/1.42. It took ages for my Imgur images to load up but that could be due to a lack of ram and/or issues with the browser not accessing the mobile site, even though I selected it. You'll also note that the MR site isn't displaying correctly - my username and associated information is not visible but the main thing is that it works well enough for me to create this post!

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Edit: it appeared correctly after I posted the reply. Interesting...

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I learned that compiling the current master branch of basilisk on this g4 imac I got for christmas takes ages. Like days. Why didnt I go straight for cross compiling?
 
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wicknix said:
Today i created a little launcher.app for my mplayer build. You can now just drop a video on to it OR better yet, associate your video files with it to be the default player. Works pretty slick. Added it to the garden link above for those interested.

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This is great, thanks! Seems like better playback than VLC 0.8.6i. But I can't get it to interact with PPCMC, which seems to require the install to be at /opt/local/bin/mplayer.
 
Correct. PPCMC defaults to the other MPlayer version made by @Lastic i believe. What you could do is create a symlink. If you haven't installed the other mplayer (or macports) do this:
Code: 
sudo mkdir /opt (might already exist, if so that's ok skip to next step)
sudo mkdir /opt/local
sudo mkdir /opt/local/bin
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/mplayer /opt/local/bin/mplayer

If you do have macports installed, do this:
Sass: 
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/mplayer /opt/local/bin/mplayer
Code:

It should work with PPCMC now.
 
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Tried to watch iZombie, wrote some and also listened to music and tried to surf the web which was too slow but got mad and then realised that I can do a RAM upgrade to 1.25GB.

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It’s £19 with free shipping… maybe that’s a bit pricey considering my MacBook Pro Ram was like half that… I’ll look on eBay as well.
 
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TheShortTimer said:
Beat me to it! Don't forget your very own optimised version of Mplayer which I use on an iBook G4 and with excellent results. :)
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I will do that. I decided I'm not gonna touch it until I get 1GB of RAM in it xD

Dronecatcher said:
Don't use QuickTime - that will add to your frustration if you're trying to watch videos above 360P or are relatively new.
Use CorePlayer, MPlayer, FFPlay, XBMC or VLC.
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I'm trying VLC, and it's not much better. It's probably a RAM issue, to be honest. I am going to try it with the 1GB RAM. It will improve it a lot, I bet.
 
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VirtuallyInsane said:
I will do that. I decided I'm not gonna touch it until I get 1GB of RAM in it xD



I'm trying VLC, and it's not much better. It's probably a RAM issue, to be honest. I am going to try it with the 1GB RAM. It will improve it a lot, I bet.
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CorePlayer would probably be your best bet, although it won’t play every format known to man. It‘ll play 720p video on my 1.0ghz TiBook with some light stuttering.
 
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VirtuallyInsane said:
I'm trying VLC, and it's not much better. It's probably a RAM issue, to be honest. I am going to try it with the 1GB RAM. It will improve it a lot, I bet.
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VLC has to be tweaked in it's preferences to be optimal. Judging by your RAM selection your iBook is sub 1.33Ghz - to play 720P you'll need CorePlayer or tweaked MPlayer/FFPlay.

Extra RAM will be beneficial but alas, not for video playback.
 
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swamprock said:
CorePlayer would probably be your best bet, although it won’t play every format known to man. It‘ll play 720p video on my 1.0ghz TiBook with some light stuttering.
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Yes, I will try that, thanks. I have several series that I can run through it. Compared to my MacBook Pro, it's so slow (well, the processors have something to do with that, I know). I am surprised the MacBook Pro can actually run 720p video very well, though.

I will give CorePlayer a try, seems like it might be good because I have a series of Music Videos in 240p/360p on the iBook that I play to test out programs, and when I try to fast-forward them or put them into fullscreen, they just give up and the program decides to shut down.

Dronecatcher said:
VLC has to be tweaked in it's preferences to be optimal. Judging by your RAM selection your iBook is sub 1.33Ghz - to play 720P you'll need CorePlayer or tweaked MPlayer/FFPlay.

Extra RAM will be beneficial but alas, not for video playback.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think it's 1.03ghz or something. 256MB RAM, 2004 model 12 inch. Not very powerful, but Apple-based apps work perfectly fine on it.
 
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swamprock said:
CorePlayer would probably be your best bet, although it won’t play every format known to man. It‘ll play 720p video on my 1.0ghz TiBook with some light stuttering.
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Yes, I love how efficiently CorePlayer is to fully use the resources on our PPC to play videos, but my criticism it's:

1) The "limited" formats it supports (not all video/audio codecs, but probably was from the period the software was being developed they didn't needed/had the proper documentation to implement)

2) The lack of support to any external subtitles format (I can understand reasonably well English content, but I watch many contents that aren't in English so subtitles are important) so unless the subtitles are embedded (hardsub), CorePlayer isn't a option.

3) The source code even to this day with the development stopped isn't available to the community, and this is a problem because so many advances could be achieved and players improved, but I can only hope, or someone can reverse engineering the "secret sauce" that allows CorePlayer to play 720p or even 1080p (in high-end G4 and almost all G5's)
 
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Sat in Costa, catching up on my emails and reading the forum. And pondering if the 1tb Goldenfir SSD I bought just before Christmas will go in this iBook G4..That way I can have my whole music library on the HD and use it to syn with my 1st gen scroll wheel iPod. I haven't sync'd the thing for ages and I think it's paired with iTunes on my Pismo.
 
Haemoglobin said:
And pondering if the 1tb Goldenfir SSD I bought just before Christmas will go in this iBook G4..
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Just a heads-up: the SSD uses SATA, the iBook uses PATA (IDE). So you’ll need an adapter, which will be a tight fit if the SSD is 2.5” already (but you could remove its potentially “tiny” PCB from the case to save some space).
 
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What have I done today? I took 4k source of The Last of Us, cropped to 4:3 and downsized to 1024x768. Compressed via mpeg2 with maximum quality. Plays smooth on iBook 2005 with crisp quality.
 

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I wonder what settings should I use in handbrake (on modern pc) so video would be playable in default video player
 
vorob said:
I wonder what settings should I use in handbrake (on modern pc) so video would be playable in default video player
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If you plan to run converted TV or film on a 2005 iBook G4, probably stick to preset General > Fast 720p30 mp4 (not mkv) and take care to verify the framerate FPS setting under the “Video” tab is set to “same as source” (as this is usually going to be either 23.97, 24, or 25). This ought to get you to a place where QuickTime, VLC, Mplayer, or CorePlayer can handle things just fine.

(Also keep in mind I use HandBrake 1.5.1 presently, not 1.6.0.)
 
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