Yes you CAN watch 1080p JUST FINE

[chrono1081]

So, there was a potential troll thread floating around saying Macbook Air owners can't watch 1080p flash video smoothly. FYI this is completely false.

I'm watching 1080p youtube videos just fine in Flash format. Other HD material plays just fine too.

My machine is the 13 inch macbook air, 4 gigs of ram. Newest flash update is installed.

 

[ghileman]

So, there was a potential troll thread floating around saying Macbook Air owners can't watch 1080p flash video smoothly. FYI this is completely false.

I'm watching 1080p youtube videos just fine in Flash format. Other HD material plays just fine too.

My machine is the 13 inch macbook air, 4 gigs of ram. Newest flash update is installed.

Heat? Fan noise?

 

[Stingray454]

I went down to the store today and tried 1080p movies on the 11". In Plex (ie, not playing with flash player) 1080p was totally fine - checked with the info pane, it skipped a few single frames just as the movie started to play, but after that it was 100% perfect with no skipped frames what so ever. And this was on an 1.4Ghz 11" with 2Gb ram. I only tried it for a minute or two, but no noticeble noise or heat from that.

I hear flash-based playing of 1080p works great on the same machine too as long as you have the latest flash player (that supports hardware decoding), so it should be no problem at all on a 13". Sadly I couldn't try this since there was no flash player installed and I wasn't allowed to install one in the store.

 

[etjazz]

with latest Flash build:: 1080p Youtube flash is watchable but will stutter a bit and drop frames in some clips. 720p is completely smooth.

(11.6/1.4/2/128)

 

[montblanc1]

I think that depend on what kind of 1080p clip or movie it is!

for instance, the mov or mp4 1080p clip which can be played by quicktime and itunes will be perfectly fine on MBA, say, the apple trailors

WHILE, the mkv 1080p movie might not be that easy; try to play a 1080p movie using VLC or Plex on 11.6" 1.4ghz MBA, and see the results?
I don't own one, so i can't say the results, hope anyone volunteers to give the result! I don't think after half an hours of playing, the fan will still stay quiet!

 

[thinkdesign]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 8.12; MSIEMobile6.0) Sprint T7380)

I just looked at the 1.86 ghz 2 Gig RAM 13" in NYC's SoHo store. I went to YouTube and tried to play a trailer for Blade Runner. Got an error message saying I had to download Adobe.... didn't say which one exactly.

Well, I guess that takes care of hearing the fan run, or seeing what'll make it heat up.

BTW, they did have the maxed out one in stock.

 

[truciet]

I believe the 13" has no problem at all...

However, I just came back disappointed and empty handed from the apple store with the intention of picking up the 11"

Overall, I love the 11" over the 13"! It is the PERFECT size! Everything was quick and cool. It was extremely fast, mainly due to the SSD.

However, I went to youtube and tried to play the Transformers 2 trailer in 1080p, it completely slow down

It was completely horrible. It could not play it at all. It played 720p smoothly though. If anyone ask why I need 1080p, it's because all 2010+ macbooks with displayport will play audio over HDMI now and I use it a lot.

 

[EthanNixon]

It seems Apple needs to reformat every MacBook Air and include the latest Adobe Flash, that way people won't be hearing false accusations.

 

[Stingray454]

However, I went to youtube and tried to play the Transformers 2 trailer in 1080p, it completely slow down

It was completely horrible. It could not play it at all. It played 720p smoothly though. If anyone ask why I need 1080p, it's because all 2010+ macbooks with displayport will play audio over HDMI now and I use it a lot.

Default flash plugin is one that doesn't support hardware decoding of movies. Update the flashplayer and it runs smooth on the 11" as well.

Admittedly, I have no idea why anyone wants to run HD content through flash player other than watching youtube trailers (or even then). I personally tried some movies in Plex on a 1.4/2Gb, no stuttering, frameskips, sound errors or other problems at all.

 

[cleric]

Using default chrome flash on 13" w/ 4gb of ram i was able to play big buck bunny 1080p fine! Couldn't do that on my Rev B.

 

[Bluemeanie1976]

I'm not too sure what the point of running a 1080p picture is on a screen that is only 1366 by 768... Surely you might as well watch in 720?

 

[re2st]

I'm not too sure what the point of running a 1080p picture is on a screen that is only 1366 by 768... Surely you might as well watch in 720?

Move along if you don't understand. This is too hard of a concept for you to understand.

/sarcasm

 

[Bluemeanie1976]

Move along if you don't understand. This is too hard of a concept for you to understand.

/sarcasm

Ah... Taking the charm route, I see. Why exactly are people like you on forums if you're going to have such a way about you? Unless you are going to use an external monitor, what exactly is the point of playing 1080p on the air?

 

[GeekLawyer]

I'm not too sure what the point of running a 1080p picture is on a screen that is only 1366 by 768... Surely you might as well watch in 720?

The point is, I suspect, when using an external monitor. It has that mini DisplayPort for a reason.

 

[chrono1081]

Hi guys,

FYI a few more plays with 1080p video:

-No increased fan noise / cpu. Its silky smooth.
-1080p content was tried from YouTube, as well as MP4 files I have of Avatar, Lord of the Rings, and Terminator Salvation all in 1080p as well.

As others have said 720p is awesome too.

Just so everyone knows, I did update flash to the newest version out of the box, and I do have the 13 inch 2.13ghz, 4 gigs of ram, 256gb solid state.

I played the videos in iTunes and in Quicktime as well as Quick Look. I did not try in VLC or Plex.

 

[TheAngryKiwi]

There's a lot of info flying around, but it seems there are 2 key points.

- Updating to Flash 10.1 'Gala' will help Flash leverage the power of the graphics chip inside the new MBA and thus make 1080p video much smoother/possible on websites like YouTube. 1080p videos stored locally seem to play fine.

- BUT, Not all media is created equal; people have reported that some YT videos play well at 1080p with 10.1, and others don't. Remember that two videos with a resolution of 1920x1080 aren't necessarily the same! One may have a higher bitrate or more detail that will make the MBA stutter a little.

 

[bossxii]

Clearly there is a wide variety of what is loaded on Youtube as "1080p", I can run plenty of it in flash version on my 13" MBA but this particular one which on the video info shows it as a true 1080.mkv file drops a ton of frames. I think over the course of the video it dropped nearly 2000 frames, avg's about 20 fps, if I didn't have the info running I would have never known it dropped so many frames but clearly not perfect playback.

The MBA more than serves my needs, Youtube is not something I regularly goto for video's where 1080p is going to matter. Tech reviews etc...I am able to stream Hulu HD which looks pretty damn good by comparison of last years 360p video's. I've also streamed some Netflix "HD" and the MBA handles it fine. When I am really in the mood for some Blu ray quality, it's on my big screen with a real BD movie, the MBA + streaming are a long, long ways off from ever replacing my home theatre setup for movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrKZssGFQnc

 

[aberrero]

The point is, I suspect, when using an external monitor. It has that mini DisplayPort for a reason.

Also, youtube lies. Their 1080p isn't really 1080p. You actually do notice a difference between 720p and 1080p even on displays that are lower resolution.

 

[iKennett]

I can't play 1080p trailers on youtube with my 11" without it missing a frame or two, the video just is not smooth enough.... but only just.

That said... I just played Avatar on youtube at 1080p and it played fine?!

 

[kriskay]

Firstly 1080p on a 13.3 inch screen. Ok i understand you amy want to plug in a monitor or TV.

My experience.

720p - Fine no fan noise
1080p - Fine no fan noise

After a while, fans kick in but you would really have to be picky to notice.

This is on 1.83 4Gb ram