MacBook Air :: High Definition Video Capabilities?
Feb 14, 2008
I'm looking at buying a MacBook Air. I'm interested to know how the MacBook Air handles high definition video. I realise there has already been a thread on this, but the existing thread is rather as confusing there appeared to be issues with the Transformers clip tested by many people, the configurations of MacBook Air were not listed with the results and since then, we have also had Mac OS X 10.5.2 released so I thought it might be nice to condense everyones results in an easy to read format:
Operating System Mac OS X 10.5.1 or 10.5.2
Storage: HDD or SSD
Processor: 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz
Trailer: Preferably something with fast motion.
Resolution: I mainly want to know about 1080p, but 1080i would also be interesting (I was told that 1080i does work, but further confirmation with the above details would be great).
Format H.264 or something else.
If any MacBook Air owners have the time to try a trailer or two off Apple's website Basically, the only reason I will buy the 1.8GHz processor is if it ensures successful playback of 1080p because the 1.6GHz drops too many frames.
This must get asked an awful lot, so I'm sorry if I'm continuing the trend. I would be grateful for some advice on connecting a MacBook Pro (the type I think is often described as 'aluminum unibody') to a high-definition monitor. After reading the various guides on MacRumors and elsewhere, I have been led to believe I need a Apple Mini DisplayPort and and HDMI to HDMI cable. To be consistent I have found them both on Amazon - I'd be grateful if someone could check these for compatibility and what-not. Apple Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter cable: [URL] HDMI to HDMI cable: [URL] if you think I'm being too cheap (they're both in pound sterling); I'm trying to get the cables cheaply, but obviously I want the two to work when they arrive. I don't know how easy it is to give advice on things like this, but let me know if more information is needed.
Can my Aluminum macbook play High definition DVDs? Will it play them to their highest definition? I just wanted to make sure before I blow my money on some HD DVDS.
We had a new addition to the family (baby) so I decided to get a videocamera. Wanted something future proof, so got a high definition memory card based camera: Sony CX11 Needed a new computer, had an old PC, but for some reason went to the other side and purchased a Macbook- I heard they were very good at editing video (and it is). Within 2 weeks I had completely filled my 250GB hard drive with all this movie footage! I need to get it off my Macbook and free up my hard drive!
Editing in iMovie... no probs. Burning in i DVD... few glitches, but got there in the end. Cool, no probs you think right... NO I have a 1080p TV screen, and a PS3. So i'm recording in 1080i HD footage, but I'm losing all the HD quality!!! The DVD image quality is so poor in comparison with the quality I get when I plug my camcorder into my TV. Its frustrating...................
1) Is it theoretically correct the 13'' can't display 1080p hd movies because there aren't enough pixels available?
2) Are 720p movies more suited for the 13''?
3) I'm currently using XBMC and AVS Video Converter, does XBMC perform better on certain video format? I still don't know which video format should i play HD movies on my mac
4) Can the current mbp 15'' play full HD movies (1080p)?
My current convert output setting: HD Video 720p H.264/AVC.
I've just been trying to play Dark Knight in HD through iTunes and there is some lag, like the playback stutters (sound is fine, video stutters). How can I remedy this? Surely the Macbook is capable of playing HD without this lag? I've got a 2.4ghz Aluminum Macbook with 4GB RAM and I'm watching the movie on an LED Cinema Display. I was playing the movie through iTunes with no other programs on, and I'd just logged in to my account (although had not restarted the Notebook for several hours).
When I am watching shows in high definition, I am not getting high definition sound out of my Mac mini. I have my Mac mini connected using an HDMI cable. I would think that I should at least be able to get Dolby 5.1, but right now, I'm not getting any high definition sound at all.
Are there any iMacs that have High Definition screens? I've seen people selling High Defintion iMacs on eBay but is it true? Are the external Apple monitors High Definition, too?
I've installed Windows 7 (64bit) on my iMac (late 2010) and I don't have sound. I am running Boot Camp 3.3 and have already tried downloading the Realtek drivers (high definition audio codec).
Info: iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
Setup:iTunes 10.6 on a MacMini3,1iPhone 4S 64GB VZW1st Gen iPad 64GB WiFi only..In iTunes, on the summary screen for both my iPhone and iPad the checkbox for "Prefer standard definition video" is selected (enabled). Under Movies I have Sync Movies and manually select which movies to copy to my iOS device.Under TV Shows I have "Automaticly include [the 3 oldest] episodes of [selected shows]" enabled.With any version of iTunes prior to 10.6 this presented no problems.If I had only a SD version of a movie of TV Show, that was copied. If I had both a SD and HD video of the same movie or TV show, iTunes would select the SD version and copy it to the device.If I had only a HD verion of the TV Show iTunes would happily copy the HD content to the device.After upgrading to iTunes 10.6 I noticed that a lot of my TV shows went missing from my devices.After a lot of poking around what I found is that with the "Prefer standard definition video" option enabled, iTunes will no longer sync any HD content to either device. It would only select SD material to copy.It would appear that Apple changed the way that iTunes handles the "prefer standard definition videos" to mean "only include standard definition videos".
I just installed windows 7 onto my mac with bootcamp. And I noticed that I have high CPU usage everytime when I watch a video from youtube or nba. My cpu usage would jump from 30% to 98% momentarily. What is the cause of this?
I've searched all over the internet but have yet to come across an answer. I love my Mac, but why is it that when I play a video in a web browser on my MacBook, (be it Flash, QuickTime, etc.) my CPU usage is anywhere from 60-80%, yet when I play the same video on a laptop running Windows, the CPU usage is always in the single digits?
I realize that video takes a toll on the CPU with integrated video cards, but it doesn't seem to have the same effect on Windows based laptops with integrated video cards. Is the CPU usage possibly just calculated differently, or is the Mac architecture somehow just really inefficient at this?
Does anyone with a Mac Pro '08 and up run it with 2 high end cards? ATI 4870, 5870 and/or GTX 285 are the ones I'm thinking of.On my MP '09, I currently run a 20" off the GT 120 and the GTX 285 on a 24". I have another 24" coming in (the Apple LED), so it requires me to use the GT 120. For gaming purposes, I'm considering getting a 2nd high end card for the new 24" instead of letting the old 20" act as a slave on the GTX 285 (trying to minimize load on the gtx285, again for gaming).
After a frustrating 2 years of video editing on a PC (crash/freeze/loss of work etc), I'm looking to switch to Mac and Final Cut. Even editing high quality SD video (720p/720i), would it be insane to buy a Mac Mini? Would it not be powerful enough? My other option is waiting for the next iMac refresh.
I am having problems with video and high content webpages freezing.I am also getting pixel lines across my webpages. Maybe two or three lines. I was running os 10.4 but I just up graded to 10.6 the other day. I have 2GB of RAM.
So the time has come that I bought a 5D Mark II and have begun editing a lot of HD footage, and my Mac Pro's current hard drive setup will not suffice. My current setup: Bay 1 = WD Raptor X 150GB 10,000RPM (OS, Final Cut Studio 2, Adobe CS3, etc) Bay 2 = Apple-supplied WD 320GB 7200RPM (Music/iPhoto libraries, small Windows partition) Bay 3 = Samsung Spinpoint 500GB 7200RPM (Media dump/scratch disk for editing, as well as my spillover Applications folder, etc) Bay 4 = Empty I'm looking to revamp this setup, as I'm struggling in many ways. First off, my main boot drive being the Raptor 10,000RPM was a dumb idea. Yes, it is faster, but I can't install the full OS X, FCS2, CS3 packages and my regular cornucopia of apps without leaving ~1-5GB free. I feel that this kills any speed gain because the drive is full to the brim, and for such a minimal speed increase I'm working with a very very low ceiling of free space. I'm considering ditching this and going with a bigger 7200rpm drive so I don't have to worry about running with a filled up drive again. Here's my idea. I was thinking of getting a 1 or 1.5TB 7200RPM drive to run the OS on and also store my footage, keep all my applications, downloads, etc. Then I could move my 150GB Raptor X out to bay 4 and make that my project scratch disk for video editing(not sure it'd be big enough for larger projects). And then if I had any money left, I would axe the 320 and put another 1TB in its place. Or I could save money and get that new nVidia card for the Mac Pro (I still have the stock HD2600).
I boot windows and play games, but rarely. Would this upgraded video card help with video editing or rendering effects significantly enough to justify the ~$400 pricetag? Or should I save my money and buy camera equipment? More importantly, any recommendations for the quickest/most reliable 1-1.5TB drive out there? or should I avoid them? I don't want to spend a ton of money so I'm not looking to do expensive RAID setups or anything, i'm not editing uncompressed.
Can I restore my mac to a previous set point (before I accidentally deleted application files and such) similar to safe mode restore in windows?
Related question: Can I use time-machine without having an external hard drive. As in I would like to use time-machine features on my notebook so i can restore when I accidentally delete files or freezes.
Can I use the time machine feature for just backing up data without the constant backup (just want to backup my computer once and maybe once a month).
Can I use a toshiba external hard drive hooked up to a cisco router and still use time machine wirelessly or do they all need to be apple products?
Some of the above questions are downright rudimentary I'm sure but please indulge me, as I am unsure of how to proceed.
I'm a hardware Engineer and realise that its a wireless comms thing. However I'm come out of the blue and not ever used it and my immediate Mac knowledge has been gained supporting my partner's iMac. Previous Mac experience was OS 6 ! (I have had the unfortunate experience of trying to use an Apple 3 ! And I touched an Apple 1 in its wooden case !)
Does it hurt the computer... If the computer is doing something (watching flash, playing a game) that turns on the fan full speed;Does this hurt the computer? There are a few games I like to play and they turn on the fan at full speed (computer gets hot too, on the bottom.)
How does the Antiglare screen look? Does it look cheap and flimsy like the matte screens on the pc laptops?This is my first Mac and i'm looking at going all out and getting the top of the line 15". I know I definitely want the HD screen, i'm just not sure which screen looks better. What about a 5400 vs 7200 rpm hdd? Is this upgrade worth it?
I have a Disk Image that I've password protected, but have come to find out that even though somebody might not be able to get into it, they can still put it in the trash and delete it.
I've read some forums and everybody keeps saying, "Do a Cmd+I and select 'Locked' and that will prevent it from being deleted."
When I do a Cmd+I on the (mounted) Disk Image, there is no "Locked" option, only "Shared".
There is a "Locked" option on the .sparseimage when I do a Cmd+I on that...however, after I "Locked" it, I tried deleting it and the computer was perfectly happy to let me delete it...which kind of goes against the purpose of locking it in the first place.
I have found a ibook g4 I am considering buying. It is a 1.07 mhz 768mb 80gb superdrive. I am getting it for a good deal and it has all the software I will need for school Microsoft office photoshop. I was just wondering what are the capabilities of this machine. Could I play warcraft 3 and starcraft on this and do normal everyday tasks with ease. Or are the stats not good enough to do much of anything
I am purchasing an iBook G3 in the next week as a notebook for school. I have a new iMac(intel) at home and I was wondering if I could use my iMac as a second monitor for my iBook and if so, how. I'm not sure what kind of cable to get or if it would work.
i've been using wallpapers from interfacelift.com for a long time. In my opinion they are some of the best out there but I noticed that they aren't scaled to the full 27" imac resolution. Does anyone know where you can get some cool looking HD background wallpapers for the BIG iMac?
i recently purchased an iMAC g4...i love its great esthetics, but have been having trouble streaming netflix movies, Now i know its kinda old, heck its ancient in the IT community, but its my budget mac...and i love it! Im running macos x 19.4.11 and was wondering if that my be the issue?? also when i stream youtube videos, the vid's sort of stutter/ delay a bit..
