Quicktime Really SLOW

Question

Level 1

40 points

Quicktime Really SLOW

I am on a 400mhz iMac G3 with 384Megs of ram running 10.3.9. I have quicktime 7.0.3.

Just recently, when I try to watch media files like quicktime, the movies are out of sync. The video can't seem to keep up the audio. the video skips many frames and i am left hearing the audio and seeing only a small fraction of the video frames.

this happens when i view film trailers.

I have restarted in attempt to free up any memory, but even then i still have this problem.

Any idea?

Posted on Oct 23, 2005 5:07 PM

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Answer 1

F Shippey

Level 7

21,500 points

Oct 23, 2005 5:23 PM in response to MacPaint

Go To http://www.apple.com/quicktime/player/specs.html to see the system requirements for QuickTime 7.

A 400mhz G3 is the minimum requirement, but the purchased video playback requirements are a lot higher - 500mhz G4.

The trailers you are trying to view may be slightly more forgiving than purchased video clips, but I strongly suspect a 400mhz G3 just isn't quite up to being able to view the majority of today's video clips.

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Answer 2

Oct 23, 2005 5:23 PM in response to MacPaint

Welcome my friend, to the realm of an outdated mac! I run a G3 with 1 Gig of RAM and 500 mhz and have the same problem with running preview vids in iTunes and large quicktime movies. I think its just the processor :\

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Answer 3

MacPaint Author

Level 1

40 points

Oct 23, 2005 5:27 PM in response to Antoinette Tutterow

do you guys think it is the clips or the QT version?

Because i did not have this problem in the past. i mean it was always a little slow, but now it is basically unwatchable.

If it is the QT application, anyway to get/install earlier versions of QT? Any suggestions on which version is best suited for our G3s?

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Answer 4

MacPaint Author

Level 1

40 points

Oct 23, 2005 5:34 PM in response to MacPaint

acutally i will answer my own post...i think it is the clips. i find the "bigger" trailer clips are slow and unwatchable, but the "smaller" ones seem to be ok.

I always used to watch the bigger ones and never had a problem...i guess times are changing.

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Answer 5

Oct 23, 2005 9:45 PM in response to MacPaint

I have an iMac G3, 500 mhz, 500 meg RAM and DSL, 10.3.9, QT 7.0.3. Until Apple recently changed the Quicktime movie trailer site, I could watch any of the non-HD movies just fine, even the "large" ones. Since the changeover of the QT site, I also can no longer watch the large or most of the medium-sized trailers. Even the small ones aren't always so good. I can understand the HD trailers being too much for my old computer, but it makes no sense that in the space of two weeks, I can no longer watch the regular trailers. I don't see how my computer can be at fault. What changed was not it but the QT version and the QT movie trailer site

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Answer 6

Oct 25, 2005 6:57 AM in response to Russell Madden

what you guys are experiencing is the downside of H264 which Apple has recently changed all of it's trailers to... it can be a very beautiful codec but it is a hog when it comes to the DECOMPRESSION stage... which is what you are doing at home.

yea... your older iMacs just can't keep up.

I should clarify, I don't know that apple is REcompressing all the old files but they are compressing everything new in H264.

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Answer 7

Oct 25, 2005 9:59 AM in response to MacPaint

I think quicktime 7 is broken for older cpus, and needs to be fixed. I
have a 500MHz ibook G3 with 640MB and Quicktime 7.0.3, and all of a sudden quicktime and iMovie have become unusable for large movies.

I am no longer able to watch movies I created on this laptop in iMovie!
iMovie itself is no longer usable.

VLC has no problems.

Is it possible to go back to 6.5? I foolishly updated both my machines at once.

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Answer 8

Kev21

Level 1

0 points

Oct 25, 2005 4:13 PM in response to Will Leavitt

There must be a technical problem regardless processor power.
Here is another thread you may find it same.
http://discussions.info.apple.com/.68b9aeb1/7

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Answer 9

Oct 25, 2005 7:25 PM in response to MacPaint

MacPaint.

I have the same exact equipment but do have 640 mb of RAM. I have had the same problem. I may be wrong but I think the slow processor speed is just not enough anymore. Still have QT 6.5 which I still use instead, however more things require QT7. I've reached my limit and am waiting for the new iMac G5 w/iSight 20" to arrive.

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Answer 10

Oct 31, 2005 10:20 PM in response to Thomas Silver

Hi,

I'm having the same problem with QT 7.0.3 and I've got a Dual 1Ghz G4 w 1.2 Gig of RAM. Surely it's not my processor! iMovie is doing the exact same thing. Makes it impossible to do any editing.

This all started for me after I lost my QT Pro license when I updated from QT 6x to 7 (yep, didn't think about it till it was too late :() and then tried unsuccessfully to go back to version 6x. In the end I completely reinstalled QT 7 and paid for the PRO license.

It seems to play ok if I open a file and play it from the beginning, but the moment I skip ahead in the timeline it slows to a framerate of between 1-3 and grinds to a halt. I don't know if it's something I did when trying to go back to version 6x - maybe I corrupted a library file or something - or what.

I'm on OS X 10.3.9 so it SHOULD all work fine.

Anyone have any ideas?

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Answer 11

Nov 1, 2005 1:08 AM in response to Cliff Bradley

Me Again,

Well I've gotten to the bottom of my problem. I hope it helps. Apparently it's a bug between QT 7 and my Digi 002 (pro-tools) Audio Interface. At the moment there's no solution, and from what i've read, reinstalling back to QT 6.5 doesn't fix it!?! So any one running a Digi-Design audio interface with QT 7 is going to have problems it seems.

When I turned off my Digi 002 and used the crappy built-in mac audio card both QT and iMovie worked no problems.

Cheers

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Answer 12

Nov 23, 2005 2:19 PM in response to Kev21

True! VLC and MPlayer are using the same codecs and play movies sooth, quicktime 6 too. This situation is realy strange coz some of my old avi's seems to be more processor hungry on Quicktime 7 than HD 480 movies coded in H.264!!!

Is it possible that Quicktime 7 is worse optimised than its predecessor? How can it be that its working slower than open source players on the same codecs?

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