Re: x264 PC requirements
 

Well that's CoreAVC installed and running - close but no cigar. I'd guess it's probably twice as quick as with the original mplayer codec so overall probably running around 6 times faster than before I started this. By way of comparison, the Windows side of things just falls flat on it's face even with CoreAVC.

Many thanks to everyone for the direction there - it's very impressive but it looks pretty certain the CPU just isn't up to the job. The next time I rebuild the box it'll be getting an mplayer rebulid though - even when it's done on newer hardware.

Re: x264 PC requirements
 

That works for me to... Although the slowest machine thats used for video playback is a 3.2p4 HT with 1gb ram so i spose even that's just about quick enough for it.

The other single core machines are the "server" (which is really just an old p3 500mhz desktop but it was somewhere to put those spare hdds ;) ) and a mac mini g4 1.5ghz which hardly ever gets turned on infact its not even plugged into anything atm...

Re: x264 PC requirements
 

tsk how dare people slag off mkv!! :p is a life saver for us who want avc and ac3 and such, stupid mp4 spec....

the good thing is that at the mo, a 1.6/1.8 dual core cpu (dont need core 2 duo) is very cheap and should be able to handle most high def stuff you throw at it :)

just buy coreavc, its one of the smartest things you can do with your 7 quid or however much it costs :)

Re: x264 PC requirements
 

Err, I can get AVIs with avc and ac3, and they cause far fewer problems (for me) than MKV. On both PC and Mac.

Agree about coreavc though.

Re: x264 PC requirements
 

oh no, avi is god awful!! mkv is just a container, which can support h.264 without any weirdness like avi.

i dont know why folk think its complex, its truly the best thing to happen for a long time, open source, low over heads, can handle a lot of streams etc.

we should be praising it as what mp4 should have been :) no ac3 in mp4, sigh....