I have a series in MP4 format that I want to play on a PPC Mini (1.25GHz - Tiger) that's being used as a media centre. Each file is around 170MB (43 minutes long) at 960x544 resolution encoded using H.264 video and AAC audio. None of the files are watchable on the PPC Mini, with the video being laggy to the point where only one or two frames will show every second. They do play on this Intel Mini (2GHz Duo - Leopard) with no problems.

The weird thing is I have movies (ripped using Handbrake) using the same codecs, at higher resolutions, weighing in at over 1GB per file, which play with zero problems on the lower spec machine.

Any ideas what the issue might be and how to fix it?

P.S. I didn't encode the series I'm having trouble with, so don't know what program was used or what compression settings.

You couldn't burn it onto a DVD, then re-encode with Handbrake?

I could ... as much of a pain as that would be. I was hoping there might be a simple solution, like changing a setting, or using a different program (than Quicktime Player).

I might try re-encoding a file straight from Quicktime Pro, though I don't like the idea of further compressing an already heavily compressed file.

[edit] Quicktime export is taking for..ev...er. Not going to be able to do the entire series this way even if it works. Will try something in Windows, see if it's faster.

try VLC for playing. try re encoding with FFMPEG. or try saving from quicktime as a .mov and opening in vlc sometimes works

Will give VLC a try - had completely forgotten about it.

[edit] It works well. Cheers.