Problems with iTunes movie playback

[boston04and07]

I'm having some big issues playing back iTunes-purchased movies on my Mac (2013 Macbook Pro) and was wondering if anyone else was having similar issues. I have a movie that I purchased through the iTunes Store, and whenever I try to play it, the video feed will briefly pause while the audio feed continues, and then the video feed will play super fast to catch up with the audio feed. This process repeats itself constantly and makes watching movies unbearable. I'm not having this issue watching a movie on my Apple TV or my iOS devices...it's just iTunes, apparently. This occurs when I stream movies from the cloud as well as when I download them and try to play them back locally. I'm about to lose my mind...if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them!

 

[boston04and07]

So I recently noticed that I constantly have a task running called kernel_task in my Activity Monitor. It uses between 700 and 900 MB constantly and can't be quit. Restarts and shutdowns haven't gotten rid of it, so I'm thinking that may somehow be affecting my system performance. I've also noticed that playing the same movie file in Quicktime doesn't cause any stuttering issues. Any help you guys might have with this would be greatly appreciated! Never had this issue before and not sure what to do...

 

[Alrescha]

So I recently noticed that I constantly have a task running called kernel_task in my Activity Monitor.

I do not have a solution to the stuttering problem, but kernel_task is essentially the operating system, and you are not going to make it go away

The fact that QuickTime can play the movies fine but iTunes cannot seems like a good clue - but I do not know how to interpret that just now.

As an experiment, have you tried downloading a 720p version instead of 1080p to see what happens?

A.

 

[boston04and07]

I do not have a solution to the stuttering problem, but kernel_task is essentially the operating system, and you are not going to make it go away

The fact that QuickTime can play the movies fine but iTunes cannot seems like a good clue - but I do not know how to interpret that just now.

As an experiment, have you tried downloading a 720p version instead of 1080p to see what happens?

A.

Ah, interesting! Thank you for your reply, @Alrescha. I had never noticed the kernel_task process before, and it wasn't running on a secondary guest account I have set up, so I got worried. Good to know though.

 

[Alrescha]

If that is the 15" Macbook Pro, have you tried turning off "Automatic Graphics Switching" in System Preferences/Energy Saver?

(I have never owned a Macbook Pro, but am guessing that the option is still there)

A.