Why can my pc not play some Quicktime movies at full frame..

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I'm using an Athlon 2800, a Geforce 3 with latest drivers, 768 megs of
ram, the latest version of Quicktime, nothing else going on on the
machine, and the video file is local (not networked). I also have
access to another pc with a similar configuration, but it is an
Athlon 2700.

On both of these machines, when I play a certain Quicktime movie with a
framerate of 30fps, I only get 15fps. During very brief moments when
there is very little going on, I get the full framerate. This makes it
sound like an issue of cpu power, but how can this be? These are not
slow machines. I have even gone so far as to load the entire video into
a ram disk, on the theory that perhaps the hard drive was too slow to
feed the video properly. That did not help.

A third pc with the same configuration, owned by my brother, plays the
video back at full framerate, no problem. Also, I can personally scan
through the video frame by frame and confirm the fact that it is skipping
half of the frames.

Is there something wrong with Quicktime? Is there any way I can get
the video (and others like it) to play at the full rate? Thanks.

 

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Marc Brown wrote:

> I'm using an Athlon 2800, a Geforce 3 with latest drivers, 768 megs of
> ram, the latest version of Quicktime, nothing else going on on the
> machine, and the video file is local (not networked). I also have
> access to another pc with a similar configuration, but it is an
> Athlon 2700.

There is never *nothing* else going on. Check your process list and see
whether anything is soaking up some of your cpu power in the background.
Things like network connections and virus protection software are
notorious for silently soaking cpus.

>
> On both of these machines, when I play a certain Quicktime movie with a
> framerate of 30fps, I only get 15fps. During very brief moments when
> there is very little going on, I get the full framerate. This makes it
> sound like an issue of cpu power, but how can this be? These are not
> slow machines. I have even gone so far as to load the entire video into
> a ram disk, on the theory that perhaps the hard drive was too slow to
> feed the video properly. That did not help.
>
> A third pc with the same configuration, owned by my brother, plays the
> video back at full framerate, no problem. Also, I can personally scan
> through the video frame by frame and confirm the fact that it is skipping
> half of the frames.

Check your configurations again. Also check for file fragmentation.
There must be something different between your system and your brother's
that makes the difference.

>
> Is there something wrong with Quicktime? Is there any way I can get
> the video (and others like it) to play at the full rate? Thanks.

One way would be to visit your brother a lot

 

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Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Marc Brown wrote:
> I'm using an Athlon 2800, a Geforce 3 with latest drivers, 768 megs of
> ram, the latest version of Quicktime, nothing else going on on the
> machine, and the video file is local (not networked). I also have
> access to another pc with a similar configuration, but it is an
> Athlon 2700.
>
> On both of these machines, when I play a certain Quicktime movie with a
> framerate of 30fps, I only get 15fps. During very brief moments when
> there is very little going on, I get the full framerate. This makes it
> sound like an issue of cpu power, but how can this be? These are not
> slow machines. I have even gone so far as to load the entire video into
> a ram disk, on the theory that perhaps the hard drive was too slow to
> feed the video properly. That did not help.
>
> A third pc with the same configuration, owned by my brother, plays the
> video back at full framerate, no problem. Also, I can personally scan
> through the video frame by frame and confirm the fact that it is skipping
> half of the frames.
>
> Is there something wrong with Quicktime? Is there any way I can get
> the video (and others like it) to play at the full rate? Thanks.

What's the CODEC in use with the QT file? And what's the frame size,
and bit rate of that video?

There are super high quality settings on Quicktime that play at over
20MB per second!! What this means is it simply becomes a matter of
throughput (like how fast your disk drive can transfer data), and less
of a matter of CPU power.

-Richard

 

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Richard Ragon <bsema04NOSPAM@hanaho.com> wrote in message news:<zoTfc.13196018$Id.2194547@news.easynews.com>...
> Marc Brown wrote:
>
> What's the CODEC in use with the QT file?

I don't know how to determine this. I did flip through the various
preferences and discovered the framerate meter.

> And what's the frame size,
> and bit rate of that video?

The size is 1024x768 and bitrate is 1.5mb/s. This would be megabytes.

> There are super high quality settings on Quicktime that play at over
> 20MB per second!! What this means is it simply becomes a matter of
> throughput (like how fast your disk drive can transfer data), and less
> of a matter of CPU power.

Right. I addressed this possibility when I stored the whole video in
ram, via a ram disk, and played that back. Made zero difference.

The frame size and bitrate I listed may seem high, but we are talking
about a reasonably fast pc, here. I have played back 1080p movies with
absolutely no problems.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Marc Brown wrote:
> Richard Ragon <bsema04NOSPAM@hanaho.com> wrote in message news:<zoTfc.13196018$Id.2194547@news.easynews.com>...
>
>>Marc Brown wrote:
>>
>>What's the CODEC in use with the QT file?
>
>
> I don't know how to determine this. I did flip through the various
> preferences and discovered the framerate meter.

For windows users, open QT, click on "windows", and click on Show Movie
Info. This will bring up a detail box and give you details on what is
loaded.


>>And what's the frame size,
>>and bit rate of that video?
>
>
> The size is 1024x768 and bitrate is 1.5mb/s. This would be megabytes.

That's a pretty large frame size. for HD right? Do you have Quicktime
Pro? Perhaps you can do some testing, and export it out as a second
file but use smaller sizes, and bit rate.

FYI: I have a G4 and 720x480 Motion-Jpeg chokes a little on my system
too. Super size bandwidth video really pusses the limits on today's
hardware.. one day we'll look back and laugh though.. I'm sure.

>>There are super high quality settings on Quicktime that play at over
>>20MB per second!! What this means is it simply becomes a matter of
>>throughput (like how fast your disk drive can transfer data), and less
>>of a matter of CPU power.
>
>
> Right. I addressed this possibility when I stored the whole video in
> ram, via a ram disk, and played that back. Made zero difference.

Not sure how you go about setting it in RAM. Never tried that. The
only other thing that I can think of is simply the transfer bus on the
motherboard. Just to high to process it maybe.

> The frame size and bitrate I listed may seem high, but we are talking
> about a reasonably fast pc, here. I have played back 1080p movies with
> absolutely no problems.

Sorry, I can't be of more help, sounds like you defiantly know what your
doing.

-Richard

 

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On 16 Apr 2004 15:58:01 -0700, retsa2@hotmail.com (Marc Brown) wrote:

>we are talking
>about a reasonably fast pc, here.

But QT is such a piece of bloat... Try QuickTime Alternative.

 

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Bariloche <bariloche@bariloche.com> wrote in message news:<ncr1805ssv7shjcuucg69buj9v6a2vchh6@4ax.com>...
>
> But QT is such a piece of bloat... Try QuickTime Alternative.

Thanks for the recommendation. I hadn't heard of this software before.
Perhaps someday down the road there will be a version that fixes its
various bugs, but for the time being, it was unable to play audio without
pops and skips, and the 1024x768 video I've been having trouble with
didn't even play back at a rate consistent with the audio; it played too
slowly. Though, to its credit, it wasn't skipping frames.

 

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On 19 Apr 2004 14:10:30 -0700, retsa2@hotmail.com (Marc Brown) wrote:

>Bariloche <bariloche@bariloche.com> wrote in message news:<ncr1805ssv7shjcuucg69buj9v6a2vchh6@4ax.com>...
>>
>> But QT is such a piece of bloat... Try QuickTime Alternative.
>
>Thanks for the recommendation. I hadn't heard of this software before.

Try it. It's the same QuickTime, but lightweight, and thus plays
without overcoming your system.