iTunes Music Videos Skipping in Windows 8.1

About three iTunes updates ago, I began to have chronic problems with my iTunes music videos crashing on both of my Windows XP computers. I stopped purchasing altogether. I just bought a new computer with Windows 8.1. The iTunes videos play, but the quality is not great. I can hear little skips in almost every video, like an old vinyl LP with a few scratches. The same videos play beautifully on my iPod, and I've played music DVDs on my new computer with good results. I am so disappointed that this new computer didn't completely resolve this problem with iTunes videos. Any ideas without a lot of hoop jumping?