mac os x video player hardware acceleration

JustPlay works with BDMV folders ripped from Blu-ray, but there’s currently no support for menu selection, navigation, or playing directly from disc.

I downloaded the full-resolution Ghost Towns in 8K from YouTube, a Google VP9-encoded MKV file which played with nary a stutter or hiccup while looking exceptionally crisp on a 27-inch iMac Retina 5K.

Hardware-accelerated decoding provides fluid playback of HD, 4K, and even 8K video, although less-common MXF files didn’t fare quite as well. Hardware acceleration, deinterlacing, and oh so much more-JustPlay is the media player we all wish Apple would have delivered. This glaring oversight paves the way for third-party Mac media player apps like JustPlay, a lightweight alternative capable of playing nearly any kind of video or audio you can throw at it, from Apple-friendly MP4 and MOV (including ProRes) to pesky AVI and MKV files, all without conversions or installing codecs. Worse yet, Apple has yet to bring feature parity to the updated QuickTime Player a decade after its introduction. After all, the media player lacked the simplistic elegance of successor QuickTime X, despite richer codec support and pro capabilities like the ability to add and remove audio tracks. For modern Mac users, the imminent demise of venerable QuickTime 7 is unlikely to ruffle too many feathers.

Mac os x video player hardware acceleration