MAC Toast 9 Video Player, Tests .... Let's Compare Notes

[BobDiaz]

I'm currently running a 20" 2.4 GHz Dual Core iMAC with 2 GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM.

By right clicking on the HMC-150 .MTS files on my Hard Drive I can select the Toast Video Player and play back the .MTS file in real time.

720/24p PH Mode, No Problems
720/30p PH Mode, Plays the 30p at 2x speed and stops when it reaches the end of the video. The audio is playing back at normal speed.
720/60p PH Mode, No Problems

1080/24p PH Mode, No Problems
1080/30p PH Mode, No Problems
1080/60i PH Mode, Can play back at 29.97 up to a point, then it drops to 24 - 26 FPS (varies), but otherwise plays back OK.

1080/60i HA, HG, HE Modes, Plays back without any problems.

Clips used, Barry Green's rain clips.

Note: Pressing OPTION+COMMAND+I while the clip is displayed, will bring up or remove the information on the clip. Interesting to watch during playback to see the bit rate change.

So, for those with other MACs and Toast 9, I'd be interested in seeing how well your MAC does with real time playback of the clips. Please try it and post your results....

I'm going to try a few other tests and I'll post the results when I'm done...


Bob Diaz

[matt s.]

I've got a dual core 2GHz G5 / 10.4.11 / 2.5GB ram and toast video player chokes on a 720/24 clip. barely plays it. VLC on the other hand plays .mts files back pretty smoothly on my machine.

[BobDiaz]

I forgot to add, I'm running 10.5.6 on my MAC.

I surprised that 720/24p chokes on a a dual core 2GHz G5. I would have thought that the 720/24p would be the easiest to decode.

Bob Diaz

[matt s.]

yeah it could be my video card also its only a GeForce 6600 with 256MB and it is a few years old now.

With VLC i just watched another clip and it plays fine if the camera is stationary but once i pan with the tripod the video starts to choke again as i'm guessing the bit rate goes up with the motion.

I havent really taken my cam out of 720/24 so i cant test anything else at the moment but i'm sure it will be even worse :)

[pailes]

VLC is a pure software decoder, the GFX card does not matter much. It is still way faster than the Toast 9 video player though (at least on Intel).