Macbook Air (2011) Video Codec

[FirNaTine]

Any idea what would be the lowest power usage codec for playback?

It is a 13" 2011 Macbook Air so it has the Sandy Bridge CPU with Intel 3000 graphics. So I know the hardware supports some hardware decoding, but I am not sure what the best choice would be.

I am looking at re-encoding some videos for the wife/kid to watch while traveling. I have a new desktop, i5 3570k based Windows 7 machine to handle the encode duties.

So quicksync encode capable codecs would seem to be an ideal choice.

I am just not sure what OS X 10.7, and specifically the Air would work best at offloading to to the GPU and saving battery life.

I am still open to what software as well.

Thanks!

 

[mosco]

I would look into using Handbrake, probably the "regular" preset. Basically you are probably looking at a non high profile h.264 video with AAC audio and something that can be played in quicktime(so a container like mp4, not mkv).

Handbrake forums might be a good place to ask this also.

 

[runawayprisoner]

For encoding with QuickSync, your best bet is to get a Windows Bootcamp setup going from my experience.

For decoding with hardware acceleration, VLC has recently attempted to do some of that, but some codecs (like MPEG-2) still rely mostly on CPU decoding, so no matter what, you're still down to just about a bit over 1 full-length movie before the battery screams and shouts.

For best result watching videos (HD and SD) for some crazy lengthy time, I don't think anything on the market can beat the iPad 3. It's a hardware suggestion, but I think that's your best bet.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

H.264 should be hardware accelerated in Quicktime right?

 

[runawayprisoner]

H.264 should be hardware accelerated in Quicktime right?

Yep, but only h.264 AFAIK, and prior to the VLC update, I only know of Quicktime which can do it.

But even then, you won't get more than 4 hours or so out of the Macbook Air. That figure is down to about 3 hours with the 11" model, and it gets marginally less as brightness increases, so depending on the movie, you may only get about 1 full-length from start to end regardless.

It's the screen power consumption that comes into play here, not whether the CPU or GPU decodes the video.

The iPad 3 does a far better job at playing videos continuously for a long period of time, I think.

 

[ViRGE]

Thirding the motion for H.264. Put it in an MP4 container and that will be the most ideal setup for a MacBook.

 

[FirNaTine]

Thanks for all the replies!

I was looking to use the Air because it would be traveling anyway, so I might as well let them enjoy it on the way.

I doubt I would go with another device at this point.

I am looking at about 2-3 hours actual travel time, so it looks like we should be good to go.

I will look at h264 for playback in Quicktime and possibly VLC.

I have used handbrake and VLC under W7, but the Air was more of a gift to the wife to use and I am not particularly familiar with all the options out there in software.