DOS Compatibility Card: Bit-Depth Causes Slow AVI Movies (2/95)


I have a DOS Compatibility Card for the Power Macintosh 6100, and I am trying to use AVI files on it. However, when I try playing these files, they drop both frames and lose sound. The same files work fine on a IBM 486 DX2-50 computer. How can I improve performance? Would performance increase using QuickTime for Windows 2.0?

The probable cause of the problem is that the AVI movie was compressed as a 16-bit (32,000 colors) or 24-bit (16 million colors) movie and you are trying to play it back on an unaccelerated 8-bit display (256 colors), and the on-the-fly conversion taking place is slowing down the movie.

You can try converting the movie to 8-bit Video for Windows or converting it to QuickTime for Windows 2.0 with the╩AVI converter, for better frame rate and audio performance. One application that works well for this type of conversion is Adobe Premiere for Windows.

QuickTime for Windows 2.0 is a for-sale product available from APDA, Apple Software Licensing, and online through ZiffNet/Mac and ZiffNet. ZiffNet/Mac and ZiffNet are the online information services all about computing, from Ziff-Davis Interactive, hosted on the CompuServe Information Service. Ziffnet/Mac members can type GO MACSTORE and ZiffNet members can type GO STORE to download the new version of QuickTime for Windows.


Support Information Services
Published Date: Feb 19, 2012