iTunes Movie Playback Micro Stutter - PLEASE HELP

Question

Echo_12 Author

Level 1

8 points

iTunes Movie Playback Micro Stutter - PLEASE HELP

PC Specs:

Windows 10 Revision 1803 (64-bit)

Ryzen 7 1800x (3.6 GHz)

NVidia GTX 1060 6GB

16GB RAM

500GB SSD

iTunes ver12.9.2.6

When I play a movie that I purchased from the iTunes store, there is this "micro stutter" (Best way I can describe it) that happens a couple times a second randomly. Here is a YouTube link of a video someone else has made of it. It is EXACTLY what I'm experiencing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReZPcxZNN8g

It is very visible in panning shots. Irritating to the eyes at times. If I play a movie with any other player or service, this stutter doesn't exist. Unfortunately, since I bought this movie from iTunes, I am forced to use iTunes to play it. I am unable to play this in any other player or even Quicktime. My guess is this is because of DRM protection. So, I'm forced to resolve this in iTunes. I have tried the following things with no success. The micro stutter is always there. None of these steps have helped:

Rebooted computer multiple times

Rebooted into "Safe Mode"

Rebooted into "Safe Mode with networking"

Ensured I have the latest drivers for all hardware (Especially Video Card Drivers)

Set NVidia Control Panel "Performance" to "High Performance"

Closed all running applications and services (Except for system services) iTunes only thing running

Uninstalled NVidia Drivers, Downloaded fresh NVidia Driver installer and reinstalled

Raised Processor priority for iTunes to highest level

Raised processor priority for all "Apple" apps and services to highest level

Changed Preferences in iTunes "Preferences>Playback" Video Playback Quality (All settings tested each one)

Changed Preferences in iTunes "Preferences>Playback" Maximum Resolution (All settings tested each one)

Deleted Movie from iTunes and re-downloaded "Standard" resolution from iTunes

Deleted Movie from iTunes and re-downloaded "HD" resolution from iTunes

iTunes Preferences>Store - Unchecked "Sync playback information across devices"

Uninstalled iTunes, Downloaded fresh iTunes installer and reinstalled

Uninstalled iTunes, Downloaded "iTunes for old graphics cards" installer and reinstalled

Uninstalled iTunes, Downloaded iTunes 32-bit installer (This wouldn't allow me to install) so this was an irrelevant test

Re-Downloaded iTunes 64-bit and reinstalled

Reimaged PC new fresh Windows 10 1803 install - installed iTunes, downloaded video, played with micro stutter still there. . . .

I'm out of ideas. Please help.

Posted on Jan 10, 2019 8:34 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

turingtest2

Level 10

272,783 points

Jan 10, 2019 11:00 AM in response to Echo_12

The best quality iTunes downloads is 1080p HD but you can potentially be streaming a 4K version, depending on exactly what it is that you've purchased. Assuming we're talking a recent purchase you can use the https://reportaproblem.apple.com/ to let Apple know the download quality isn't good enough.

tt2

Reply

Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

272,783 points

Jan 10, 2019 9:45 AM in response to Echo_12

If you've already upped processing priority then you might be seeing a compression artefact. Is it better or worse if you stream the same video, which might stream at a higher resolution than your downloaded copy?

tt2

Reply

Answer 3

Echo_12 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 10, 2019 10:52 AM in response to turingtest2

Disregard my last. I was able to figure it out. I just told iTunes to remove the download and then I played it through stream.

Result: This is SIGNIFICANTLY better! I would consider this smooth!

Why is this? I want to be able to download it so that I can view it while offline. I've downloaded SD and HD and had the same "Micro Jitter" on both. However, streaming comes through smooth? Why? How do I fix this so that I can have it offline?

Reply