QuickTime stutters with .mpg playback

[kolax]

Never used to before the latest update, but now when I play .mpg footage (whether downloaded from the net or off my digital camera) it'll play smoothly for a few seconds then stutter, then play smoothly then stutter.

I've tried reinstalling QuickTime but no luck.

Anyone else experiencing this?

 

[MisterMe]

Never used to before the latest update, but now when I play .mpg footage (whether downloaded from the net or off my digital camera) it'll play smoothly for a few seconds then stutter, then play smoothly then stutter.

...

You have given zero (0) specific information about your problematic files or the computer that you are playing them on. The QuickTime Player handles .mpg files out-of-the-box in most cases. Most .mpg files that I encounter [on porn sites] are multiplexed (muxed) MPEG-1 files. These have worked since like QuickTime 3.0. Video from your digital camera may be in a proprietary format, but you don't say one way or the other. The fact that your files play even if only for a few seconds indicates that yours is not a compatibility issue. It is more likely that your computer does not have the physical resources--RAM, free HD space, processor speed, etc.--to handle the video.

If you want additional help, then you should give the following information:

1. Your computer model, with total RAM installed, and available free hard drive space.
2. Your processor and its clock speed.
3. The version of your OS.
4. The version of your installation of QuickTime.
5. The formats of your problematic video and audio tracks.
6. The third-party QuickTime codecs installed on your system.

 

[kolax]

If you want additional help, then you should give the following information:

1. Your computer model, with total RAM installed, and available free hard drive space.
2. Your processor and its clock speed.
3. The version of your OS.
4. The version of your installation of QuickTime.
5. The formats of your problematic video and audio tracks.
6. The third-party QuickTime codecs installed on your system.

Maybe my font size is too small in my signature....sigh.

Thought it would be obvious what version of QuickTime I'm using considering I said I reinstalled QuickTime and my signature says I'm running 10.5.2.

Codecs installed are Perian and Flip4Mac.

Any other information regarding my setup is irrelevant though, it is just .mpg files I have problems with.

 

[kolax]

Still happening.

Anyone any ideas how to fix this?

 

[Idgit]

I'm having the same problem since the 10.5.2 update. MPEG1-muxed files stutter in Quicktime. I've deleted the prefs and removed all plugins, but nothing has worked.

 

[Idgit]

Still happening.

Anyone any ideas how to fix this?

I tried playing my MPEGs in NicePlayer which is an alternative Quicktime player. It still uses the Quicktime codecs, but has a different interface. The result? No stutter.

So it appears to be a Quicktime Player problem, not a codec problem.

Also, if I'm playing an MPEG-1 in Quicktime Player and I click on one of Quicktime's menus, so that the menu partially obscures the video window, the stuttering vanishes. When I release the menu, the stuttering resumes.

Very weird.

 

[Sogo]

Do you guys have a link to an mpeg file that stutters?

 

[Idgit]

Do you guys have a link to an mpeg file that stutters?

Just google "MPEG-1 sample" and you'll find lots.

I've also noticed that the stuttering only occurs when Time Machine is backing up files. Something about what Time Machine is doing interferes with the playback of MPEG-1 files in Quicktime.

 

[kolax]

I haven't got Time Machine running, so I don't think it is related to that.

Think it is a bug in QuickTime.

 

[TripleCore]

No, definitely not related to Time Machine. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next Quicktime update.

 

[kolax]

In the recent update to QuickTime, it seemed to improve slightly - sometimes it is fine sometimes it is just unplayable.

QuickLook handles it perfectly fine.

 

[jzahr]

Hi all:
I have also experienced this problem and right now I'm convinced that it is a bug, affecting only the mac version of quicktime (windows version is ok).

In my case, the problem occurs only when playng .mpg (mpeg-1) files, created with my Sony foto camera (Cybershot DSC S-60). Other types of video files works great. The same problem also happens when viewing .mpg files from within iTunes (last version). I'm not using Time Machine, so the problem is not related to it.

I made the following experiment and found something interesting (similar to Idgit's previous comments):

-open an mpg file in quicktime.
-then, with the file open, open the quicktime/preferences panel
-place the two windows (the player window and the preferences window) side by side , ie non overlapping each other

In this scenario, if I click on the player window to make it the active window, the playback of the .mpg movie is faulty, as previously described in this thread...

but...

if --after the start of the movie-- I click on the preferences window to make it the active window (instead of the player's window), then the playback is ABSOLUTELY normal.

This means that .mpg playback works fine only when the quicktime player's window IS NOT the active window.

This only happen on my macbook (received april 2008, leopard). Same files on Windows version of quicktime works flawlessly (using bootcamp and win XP, or using a standard windows PC)

Bye

 

[haravikk]

I get this too with almost every .mpg (not .mp4) I try to play, which is annoying as it's a very common format for small to medium sized video. I've tried un-installing all 3rd-party codecs to no avail.

As you can see in my signature it's very unlikely to be the machine at fault

[edit]
Or you would if the damned thing showed up. Here's my specs:
"Early 2008" MacPro, 2 x 3.2ghz Quad-Core Xeons, 10gb DDR2 800mhz ECC RAM, 4 x 750gb hard-drives (striped), NVidia GeForce 8800GT (512mb).