1080p HD .MKV Movies In OS X
Playing high resolution, 1080p movies on a Mac can be a painful experience. Jerky motion and popping audio really spoils the amazing quality we see from Blu-Ray. The problem doesn't lie with the hardware, it's in the software. I have some solutions to a problem that took many hours to diagnose and cure.
The most common format for watching 1080p movies on your PC is Matroska or .mkv. These files use multiple threads running at the same time, it's essentially a package file that loads more than one thing upon playback. OS X software doesn't use the other available core processors to play these files hence you get some dodgy playback. Problems include dropping frames, choppy playback, stuttering or just plain unplayability.
The strange thing is some people seem to have more success with these programs than others. I suspect this is more due to the different files, encoding and quality standard floating around rather than differences in software or PC setups.
There are so many guides on the web that ended up being useless, it's easiest for me just to recommend the one that works - Plex. Here is my rundown of Plex and other available programs.
Plex - http://www.plexapp.com/
This player works flawlessly, silky smooth playback of any resolution file. It has a great looking interface but also includes the worst control system and UI design ever put together for keyboard/mouse use. For this reason you will need some time to get used to moving around and setting it up each time you run the program. The menus are unintuitive and there's no real sense to what's going on. That said, it's well worth the hair loss due to how great it plays every HD file format.
CorePlayer Professional - http://www.coreplayer.com/content/view/31/69/
I paid for this on a whim hoping to get some success as there was no demo. It's a simple player unlike Plex which is a media center type program and it plays the video fantastically. The only problem is it doesn't support AC3 audio codecs and hence makes pretty much every HD mkv file out there useless. It's coming in future versions but how could they miss that?!
Niceplayer - http://code.google.com/p/niceplayer/
Heard good things but it didn't even open any of the mkv files I had.
VLC - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
The go-to program for all of my other video formats. VLC played the videos but it dropped frames consistently. The OS X version lacks development unlike the Windows port but I'm sure some time down the track they will have this sorted.
Mplayer - http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
A lot of people recommend Mplayer but it requires a lot of research to get happening. Needs command lines to make it work properly, was too complex for me and I couldn't find the correct commands to succeed.
Perian for Quicktime - http://www.perian.org/
Loads the entire movie before playing which is promising but ultimately played the movie in slow motion, dropping too many frames. Another program which gets a big positive wrap but it was of no use to me.
The most common format for watching 1080p movies on your PC is Matroska or .mkv. These files use multiple threads running at the same time, it's essentially a package file that loads more than one thing upon playback. OS X software doesn't use the other available core processors to play these files hence you get some dodgy playback. Problems include dropping frames, choppy playback, stuttering or just plain unplayability.
The strange thing is some people seem to have more success with these programs than others. I suspect this is more due to the different files, encoding and quality standard floating around rather than differences in software or PC setups.
There are so many guides on the web that ended up being useless, it's easiest for me just to recommend the one that works - Plex. Here is my rundown of Plex and other available programs.
Plex - http://www.plexapp.com/
This player works flawlessly, silky smooth playback of any resolution file. It has a great looking interface but also includes the worst control system and UI design ever put together for keyboard/mouse use. For this reason you will need some time to get used to moving around and setting it up each time you run the program. The menus are unintuitive and there's no real sense to what's going on. That said, it's well worth the hair loss due to how great it plays every HD file format.
CorePlayer Professional - http://www.coreplayer.com/content/view/31/69/
I paid for this on a whim hoping to get some success as there was no demo. It's a simple player unlike Plex which is a media center type program and it plays the video fantastically. The only problem is it doesn't support AC3 audio codecs and hence makes pretty much every HD mkv file out there useless. It's coming in future versions but how could they miss that?!
Niceplayer - http://code.google.com/p/niceplayer/
Heard good things but it didn't even open any of the mkv files I had.
VLC - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
The go-to program for all of my other video formats. VLC played the videos but it dropped frames consistently. The OS X version lacks development unlike the Windows port but I'm sure some time down the track they will have this sorted.
Mplayer - http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
A lot of people recommend Mplayer but it requires a lot of research to get happening. Needs command lines to make it work properly, was too complex for me and I couldn't find the correct commands to succeed.
Perian for Quicktime - http://www.perian.org/
Loads the entire movie before playing which is promising but ultimately played the movie in slow motion, dropping too many frames. Another program which gets a big positive wrap but it was of no use to me.