Similar to What video codec puts the CPU/GPU under the least possible load while decoding? I want to know what is the best option for a 2014 15 retina mac pro.
I tried MPEG 2 and it won't go as a S/S in quartz (and quicktime won't play it) and I don't know what things a mac pro possibly uses when it is in S/S mode. I know that for regular playback, it should have H.264 decode and everything is fine. But when I use a 720 p H.264 video (~8 minutes 100mb), it runs fine but the fans actually kick in when the s/s is played for some time!
I would love to encode a 1080p video to somehow allow it to play smoothly (~30 fps? 60 fps?) as my S/S. As it stands, any 1080p video set as the S/S will stutter and not play smooth at all. And kick in the fan almost asap.
I tried the baseline setting in handbreak and it produced a workable version, but it still stutters a bit, and the fans still spin up very fast in s/s mode.
Or somehow down sample a 4k video to 1800 and use the workaround to get that res on the screen. Which seems to be a tall task if standard 1080 won't work and 720 strain it after a while...
Maybe I need a stop playing s/s and just darken the screen setting (when it is not plugged in) or darken after x minutes type of dealie.