No, it is not a heat issue, seems to be that every time I move around my apartment , the stuttering occurs in places where my WiFi reception is a little worse , when I move back to a good spot, stuttering is gone. So it seems to be a bandwidth /compression problem or a problem with wifi reception.
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iPhone XS Max Choppy video playback on iPhone XS and XS Max.
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No, it is not a heat issue, seems to be that every time I move around my apartment , the stuttering occurs in places where my WiFi reception is a little worse , when I move back to a good spot, stuttering is gone. So it seems to be a bandwidth /compression problem or a problem with wifi reception.
I doubt it’s that as folk are getting the issue with downloaded uhd content from iTunes
i downloaded the show from Netflix and the same stuttering issue still happen previously, but now when I try to play back all those shows, the stuttering gone! I even play them via streaming, no more stuttering. When stuttering issue happen just now, i did my internet speed test, when there is not more stuttering, i did the speed test again, the speed is the same.
in the iTunes store, previously when i played some of the movie trailers, the quality is way bad. but now, it is way better. so it is real weird, the problem just got away like that.
I bet I know what's going on.
For the first few days after a fresh install, update or restoration of an iPhone, iOS does a lot of background actives. A lot of indexing, A lot of sorting out contacts, emails, photos, music etc. Pretty much anything that spotlight can search through is scanned and indexed.
This activity is probably giving you phone a minor performance hit while these tasks are completed. Depending how much media is on your phone it can take a few hours to a few days. That's why the problem is intermittent and seems to resolve it self after a given amount of time.
For the first few days after a fresh install, update or restoration of an iPhone, iOS does a lot of background actives. A lot of indexing, A lot of sorting out contacts, emails, photos, music etc. Pretty much anything that spotlight can search through is scanned and indexed.
This activity is probably giving you phone a minor performance hit while these tasks are completed. Depending how much media is on your phone it can take a few hours to a few days. That's why the problem is intermittent and seems to resolve it self after a given amount of time.
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Yeah I know, this morning everything was all right , now I keep getting stutters. It is not the internet speed, still about 150MBs.
The more I think about it, the more I think it is some thermal throttling issue.
After a cold boot up , no problems but after 30 min of looking at content, stuttering occurs, and it doesn’t get any better if I keep trying from that point.
God, I do hope it is a software issue: I don't even want to think about the pain of returning it, going back to the 7 Plus I had, waiting for the problem to get fixed et cetera.
By the way, I'd like to contribute to the thread by adding a few data of my own:
- I experienced the same microstutter issue in "Lost in Space" S01E01 around 37-40 minutes mark: the forest shots are pretty low in framerate and the kid does move in a laggy way
- If I try and play x265 4K HDR .mkv videos on nPlayer (currently one of the best iOS players), there seems to be some stuttering also, and it's pretty noticeable. Funny thing is that this happens also on 1080p SDR .mkvs. Even funnier is that these 1080p SDR .mkvs play extremely smoothly if I change the decoder to software under the nPlayer options, so I'm guessing... we have to wait for some kind of hardware optimization update from Netflix developers as well as nPlayer developers... or is just wishful thinking?
If anyone knows anything, let me know: these performance issues on a brand new 1,500 Euros phone are a royal pain in the arse.
By the way, I'd like to contribute to the thread by adding a few data of my own:
- I experienced the same microstutter issue in "Lost in Space" S01E01 around 37-40 minutes mark: the forest shots are pretty low in framerate and the kid does move in a laggy way
- If I try and play x265 4K HDR .mkv videos on nPlayer (currently one of the best iOS players), there seems to be some stuttering also, and it's pretty noticeable. Funny thing is that this happens also on 1080p SDR .mkvs. Even funnier is that these 1080p SDR .mkvs play extremely smoothly if I change the decoder to software under the nPlayer options, so I'm guessing... we have to wait for some kind of hardware optimization update from Netflix developers as well as nPlayer developers... or is just wishful thinking?
If anyone knows anything, let me know: these performance issues on a brand new 1,500 Euros phone are a royal pain in the arse.
I’ve also seen the issue, in Netflix mainly. Haven’t downloaded any iTunes movies but I have tried streaming some 4K uhd movies from my NAS using the infuse app. These seem to play ok and they are quite high bitrate at around 20-30mbps. My Xs max gets quite hot playing these so it’s taxing the system but it’s much smoother than Netflix
Thinking about it, maybe the infuse is using software decoding and Netflix hardware, or maybe the other way round??
Thinking about it, maybe the infuse is using software decoding and Netflix hardware, or maybe the other way round??
For years, now, Infuse has been stuttering on any device I've ever tried it on. Even on my new Max, doesn't matter if it's local files, or streaming.
It skips a frame every some seconds, quite regularly.
Go figure...
I think you hit the nail on the head, here. ALWAYS wait to return your phone. The first week after a fresh install on a new phone will see degraded battery performance, picture and video choppiness, and other small performance issues. Then, as people are now noticing, the problems begin to resolve...
Still, always good to make Apple aware.
Maybe the power of the gpu on the max may solve this? Must admit even on my 7 plus I didn’t get the issue.....very strange. Of course on my 7 plus I wasn’t trying 4K uhd stuff but on the max I tried about 4 movies and all seemed pretty smooth. Got very hot though I think that’s due to the bitrate
Ok. I downloaded a movie from iTunes v. Streaming and it plays better (baby driver) in the scenes where it was stuttering while streaming. I note I have a 150 down connection so I am Confident I don’t have a bandwidth issue. I dropped off Wi-Fi and iTunes movies seems to be playing normal - which I expected since Verizon throttles video to. 720p.
I reset Network settings on the phone and tested Wonder Woman. It played ok. Still some stuttering on long Pans but motion looks ok. Netflix - Lost in Space was also improved.
This leads me believe I had two different issues. First being an issue with my Wi-Fi conection which a solved by the reset. The second issue is that the stutter I am now seeing, I have seen before. Specifically when playing 24hz content on a 60hz tv. It’s almost like the 3:2 pull down is turned off or Apple is having the OLED panel mimic 24hz (I assume it’s a 60hz panel since it’s not ‘promotion’ or otherwise advertised as faster than standard). These meathods can work quite well but do so maintain some stutter which some peole are sensitive too - I am one, my wife is not for example
I reset Network settings on the phone and tested Wonder Woman. It played ok. Still some stuttering on long Pans but motion looks ok. Netflix - Lost in Space was also improved.
This leads me believe I had two different issues. First being an issue with my Wi-Fi conection which a solved by the reset. The second issue is that the stutter I am now seeing, I have seen before. Specifically when playing 24hz content on a 60hz tv. It’s almost like the 3:2 pull down is turned off or Apple is having the OLED panel mimic 24hz (I assume it’s a 60hz panel since it’s not ‘promotion’ or otherwise advertised as faster than standard). These meathods can work quite well but do so maintain some stutter which some peole are sensitive too - I am one, my wife is not for example
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It definitely isn’t a judder that is caused by a 24hz pull down or frame rate conversion, some content run smooth, but after a while, things get very jerky and I can see a lot of judder.
Especially after a longer period.
My guess is that there are thermal throttling issues. When the phone feels warmer, the judder appears.
Could be fixed by software though.
See earlier post. i'm certain it is spotlight indexing and will resolve itself in a few days of use.
My experience since 2009 has been the exact opposite. Every new iPhone I have had (minus the Xs Max) has been able to stream and play downloaded videos without issue.
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After a lot of stuttering I spent about a half an hour on my iMac researching the issue. When I went back to the Xs Max it played fine for about half a minute and then started doing it again. There may very well be thermal issues going on.
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I did the network reset thing to no avail. That scene in lost in space on Netflix still stutters like crazy. And the phone wasn’t hot it did it straight away
It can’t be indexing either as one guy suggested because I’ve had my phone nearly 4 full days now
It can’t be indexing either as one guy suggested because I’ve had my phone nearly 4 full days now
I tried again this evening, and everything was fine, closed Netflix, did a Geekbench , finished geekbench, closed it and after 3 min of watching, there is the stutter again.
Thermal throttling , or false trigger for power saving or something wrong with the video player, framebuffer, or something like that.
Can’ t believe this is not covered by Mac rumors , AppleInsider or another apple news site.
Thermal throttling , or false trigger for power saving or something wrong with the video player, framebuffer, or something like that.
Can’ t believe this is not covered by Mac rumors , AppleInsider or another apple news site.
Someone exchanged their Max and still has the same problem. It could be defective manufacturing or something to do with how OS12 decodes HDR. I’m inclined to believe it’s hardware simply because I cannot imagine Apple not testing HDR prior to launch. the fact that it does it with fully downloaded iTunes movies is not a good sign.
But I am afraid that the people that insist they don’ t have the problem, just look a few minutes, think that don’ t have the problem. If I was to look for only a few minutes I wouldn’ t Have any problems either. It is after a while the problem occurs.
If people stream standard HD video, they probably won’t see any problem. For the first 24 hours of owning the phone I didn’t. It wasn’t until I tried watching The Post (after having used my phone for a while) that I saw the problem. But even after letting my phone rest overnight, I still had issues in the morning.
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That’s what I did. There are some folk who think it’s premature to return it. I just think the most expensive smartphone on the market should be able to play video out of the box. The two week return window closes pretty fast.
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That’s what I did. There are some folk who think it’s premature to return it. I just think the most expensive smartphone on the market should be able to play video out of the box. The two week return window closes pretty fast.
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