[jitter] advice on hidef playback

I'm looking for a little advice.  I have some exhibits that need to do some simple high definition video playback, including keeping track of timecode, switching movies and seeking within them.  Until now, they've been spec'd as using harddisk MPEG-2 video players.  Unfortunately, we've tested the major ones (Mantis, Adtec, Alcorn-McBride) and they can output high definition without a hitch, but they all suck at seeking within movies. So I'm thinking about trying with Jitter and a mac mini.

I know I can bang out the playing and seeking easily enough in Jitter.  I'm curious about the playback quality, though.

I'm guessing the video will be 720 x 1280 but I'm curious about 1080 x 1920 as well.  I probably have a little leeway about resolution, but it will not be standard def.  The playback is very vanilla.  Not even fades between the clips.

What encoding type/quality is best?  PhotoJPEG 50%?  Is there a way to take advantage of OpenGL?  Can I even do that on the 64MB Intel GMA950 vdieo card that is in the mac mini?  

I know this question has been addressed in various ways before, but things change quickly enough that I thought I'd ask again.

Thanks!

sasha.
--
--- sasha harris-cronin ----
-- sasha at mortalspaces.com --
--- www.mortalspaces.com ---