2010 Mini stuttering/pausing with iTunes HD content.

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2010 Mini stuttering/pausing with iTunes HD content.

Base configuration with dual core 2.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM.

Tried watching a BBC nature documentary Life, Fish episode and there was frequent stuttering/ freezing.

I'm sure this has streamed flawlessly to an AppleTV 2 in the past.

Activity Monitor didn't suggest any processes maxing Cpu and there's 1GB of RAM free.

Media stored on a WD passport drive which despite being portable, when copying files seems to outperform many powered external drives.

Disabled Spotlight on the external drive too.

I don't think the 2010 Mini should struggle on low bitrate iTunes HD content like this.

Any ideas?

Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Feb 10, 2011 5:09 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 10, 2011 8:54 AM in response to Alley_Cat

Wireless connection? How full is the hard drive?

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Answer 2

Feb 10, 2011 10:08 AM in response to Alley_Cat

This is a very common problem on various computers with iTunes HD content.
There are several threads in the iTunes forum and various other forums on the
net. As there seems to be no solution, most posts just eventually fade away.
Seems tome, Apple just isn't doing something right when decoding their HD
stuff that has DRM.

I experience similar problems. During an iTunes HD movie, video will pause for
a moment or to then "catch up" and start again. During this time, the audio is
unaffected. It also does not matter whether the movie is on an internal, external, or
network drive. This can happen one, sometimes four times during a movie. It
always seems to happen at least twice when I watch Warehouse13 HD.

Yet, I have perfect playback of 1080p content at bit rates from 8 to 33 megabit/second.
This is using Plex or VLC as a player. I can even play Bluray disks without issues
when running Win7 in Bootcamp, and in a roundabout on OSX. So, yes, you are
correct that the Mini should not struggle with the iTunes HD bitrates, which are
usually at most around 4.5 megabit.

So, it indicates to me that there is some bug or just poorly written code for the
iTunes codecs.

It seemed, to me anyway, that it started to happen somewhere with either the
update to iTunes 10.1 or OSX 10.6.5 update, as both occurred around the same time.
It was some time after that I noticed the pausing issue.

As a note, all iTunes SD content play fine.

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Answer 3

Alley_Cat Author

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Feb 11, 2011 1:20 PM in response to DaddyPaycheck

DaddyPaycheck wrote:
Wireless connection? How full is the hard drive?

Media on 2.5" portable connected direct via USB.

Drive maybe 70% full.

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Answer 4

Alley_Cat Author

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20,548 points

Feb 11, 2011 1:21 PM in response to Alley_Cat

320GB internal drive with 280GB free in Finder.

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Answer 5

Alley_Cat Author

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20,548 points

Feb 11, 2011 1:28 PM in response to woodmeister50

woodmeister50 wrote:
This is a very common problem on various computers with iTunes HD content.
There are several threads in the iTunes forum and various other forums on the
net.

I've a funny feeling I'd seen a few of these

As there seems to be no solution, most posts just eventually fade away.
Seems tome, Apple just isn't doing something right when decoding their HD
stuff that has DRM.

I experience similar problems. During an iTunes HD movie, video will pause for
a moment or to then "catch up" and start again. During this time, the audio is
unaffected. It also does not matter whether the movie is on an internal, external, or
network drive. This can happen one, sometimes four times during a movie. It
always seems to happen at least twice when I watch Warehouse13 HD.

Presumably it happens at different points each time too - if it was a specific encoding problem you'd expect the problem to reoccur at the same point each time.

Yet, I have perfect playback of 1080p content at bit rates from 8 to 33 megabit/second.
This is using Plex or VLC as a player. I can even play Bluray disks without issues
when running Win7 in Bootcamp, and in a roundabout on OSX. So, yes, you are
correct that the Mini should not struggle with the iTunes HD bitrates, which are
usually at most around 4.5 megabit.

Precisely.

So, it indicates to me that there is some bug or just poorly written code for the
iTunes codecs.

Yes, or some other process interfering.

It seemed, to me anyway, that it started to happen somewhere with either the
update to iTunes 10.1 or OSX 10.6.5 update, as both occurred around the same time.
It was some time after that I noticed the pausing issue.

Trouble is I mainly playback these fine on AppleTvs - this problem reared it's head whilst on holiday - I could not authorise for AppleTV playback due to being stuck in a forest without an internet connection but the files would play on the Mini I took as a compact computer.

As a note, all iTunes SD content play fine.

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Answer 6

Feb 12, 2011 3:20 AM in response to Alley_Cat

Alley_Cat wrote:
Presumably it happens at different points each time too - if it was a specific encoding problem you'd expect the problem to reoccur at the same point each time.

It does happen at different points, and different frequencies for each playback. Sometimes it it
will hiccup only once, sometimes multiple times, and never at the same points. Once again, this only
happens on iTunes HD, DRM'ed material.

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Answer 7

Feb 12, 2011 5:14 AM in response to Alley_Cat

Any time a drive approaches 75-80% full it can cause these kinds of stuttering issues.

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Answer 8

Alley_Cat Author

Level 7

20,548 points

Feb 12, 2011 6:26 AM in response to DaddyPaycheck

Appreciate the comments, but not sure I'd entirely agree with that though I'm ready to be convinced 🙂 - do you mean on the basis of fragmentation or something else here?

The bitrate of iTunes HD material will be less than 5Mbps on average otherwise they wouldn't work for AppleTV 1.

iTunes should also be buffering ahead a little, and I can't see full drives really impacting when we're talking bitrates that low.

I re-checked my energy saving preferences and for some reason 'put disks to sleep' had become re-checked - I normally disable this. Could be this but can't currently test as kids are hogging the TV with the Mini connceted!

Message was edited by: Alley_Cat

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Answer 9

Feb 13, 2011 3:17 AM in response to DaddyPaycheck

Hard drive space NOT the issue.

Only 16Gig of 250Gig on internal OSX partition and 700 Gig used
on on a 2TB drive where iTunes is stored.

If hard drive space an issue it would effect more that just iTunes HD
material.

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Answer 10

Feb 13, 2011 3:21 AM in response to Alley_Cat

Energy saving preferences make no difference as I have all
sleep options for everything turned off from day one.

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Answer 11

Alley_Cat Author

Level 7

20,548 points

Feb 13, 2011 4:12 AM in response to woodmeister50

I don't really think it's drive related either, more likely some spurious iTunes/OS X software issue affecting playback.

A few months ago I was even seeing standard DVDs stuttering played back via DVD Player or Front Row but they were fine played in XBMC or Plex.

AC

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Answer 12

Feb 23, 2011 7:49 AM in response to Alley_Cat

Still haven't come up with any solution. Got my self
another Firewire back up drive and try and get around
to loading the original OSX10.6.4 and iTunes 10.0 and
see what happens.

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Answer 13

Mar 4, 2011 4:18 AM in response to Alley_Cat

Well, iTunes 10.2 did absolutely nothing to fix the issue.

Also, attempted to try to check with iTunes 10.0 and didn't
work because I got message that the library was created with
newer version. Apparently, at some point in the iTunes upgrade
process it changes the library flags.

Back to square one.

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