Makoto Shinkai English Fan Forum and Site

zitch

Just creating this thread to continue the conversation going on here, as there are probably several people here that are trying to play anime on non-Windows systems. Especially troubles with playing MKV files using a H.264 codec and soft subtitles.

I personal have a Linux system (specifically, Ubuntu 8.10) I sometimes watch stuff on. Totem seems to handle just about anything I throw at it pretty well, though it has trouble with 1080p video (mainly because the CPU is only a Pentium 4 Mobile 1.8 GHz, new laptop I'm getting with a Core 2 Duo 2.53 GHz CPU should handle it fine). Other people have used MPlayer or VLC to good effect.

Unfortunately, soft subtitle support in any of these programs seem to not be as good as the support on the Windows platform. It works, but the subtitles are often not place right or use the font specified by the MKV files; this isn't always a problem, especially since I find that a few fansubbers use some obnoxious and hard-to-read fonts and effects. The plainer fonts often used as a result ends up being a plus for me.

As for the Mac OS X world, it seems the three most used programs are Quicktime, MPlayer, or VLC. I hear VLC is the easiest and gives the best quality of the three (mainly because it actually includes the codec support internally; no need to install them separately), but it also seems to require the most CPU power of the three.

Reading around, I'm also seeing some recommendations for Plex.

I don't have a Mac system, so hopefully the Mac users on here can point out some feed back...

Fiction · Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 3:42 pm Post subject:

On my mac mini, I had transferred the series Petopeto-san onto it, as it was in .avi format. I had to download Perian. It's an add-on for Quicktime. I didn't feel like downloading another player.[/url]

gleowine · Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:56 pm Post subject:

Here's some initial feedback from a Mac user:

I downloaded VLC for Mac OS 10.4. My Macmini is an original model, with a 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 processor and 512Mb SDRAM. Before play, with all other programs closed (except Activity Monitor), I was using about 5% processing power. I first tried playing some MKV files (anime). The video was choppy with a lot of pixelation. CPU usage was at 100% max. I then played some AVI files (anime). These played beautifully, with minimal CPU usage (about 40-60%). So, for AVI files, VLC for Mac seems the way to go.

The current version of Plex is for Mac OS 10.5 only, so I couldn't use it. Previous versions were also for 10.5.

Fiction is right about Quicktime. You need an add-on to play AVI, and no support for MKV. I haven't tried Perian yet.

gleowine · Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 8:02 pm Post subject:

Noticed that a new version of VLC (1.0.1) is available for download. It requires Mac OS 10.5. I downloaded it, but haven't tried it out yet. There appear to be some improvements, at least from the Readme file. We'll see.
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Fripod · Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:37 pm Post subject:

I use OSX, so for loading .mkv files I normally use MPlayer, which handles hardsubs very well and runs the most smoothly of all the players I've found.
However, I can't figure out how to get it to read soft subs, so I use VLC for this - only problem, it's quite unstable.

gleowine · Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 9:02 pm Post subject:

Forgive me for being a dunce, but what are "hard" subs and "soft" subs. . . Question

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zitch · Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 7:41 am Post subject:

"Hard subs" are subtitles that are part of the video feed. "Soft subs" refer to subtitles that are rendered on top of the video. You can turn off and edit soft subs from showing.

Hope that helps distinguish them.

gleowine · Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:45 pm Post subject:

OK, now I see. . . Exclamation

Thanks, zitch.
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Laz · Laz Joined: 09 Jan 2008 Posts: 1073

Zitch is the master of all knowledge Smile

ha ha

Laz

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