Choppy audio music playback after Itunes 12.1 update on Windows 8.1

I made two changes to get rid of the glitchy audio playback problems for itunes 12 on a windows pc.

First, I cleared the itunes store cache, which ended freezing of itunes.

Edit --> Preferences --> Advanced --> Clear Itunes Store Cache.

Second, I matched up the sound playback setting of my PC to that of iTunes.

RE: Apple Guide Lines

Find Your itunes Settings: Edit --> Play back --> Bit Rate & Bits Per Same are the two to check.

On your PC, from the control panel, use the search 'audio' because all pc's have different speakers... You will see your speakers in the Playback menu, click on them (green check marked ones), the click on Advanced. You will see your present bit rate and Hz setting. Match up the PC setting from the drop down list of options with the bit rate & Hz in iTunes.

That should solve your playback problem.

All the discussion about Direct Playback Vs. WIndows Audio Session has nothing to do with the glitchy sound playback problem, The Direct Sound setting in iTunes simply allows sounds from your computer to be heard. The alternative setting, Windows Audio Session, will not interupt your itunes music playback with and pc sounds or cross with, say, an open youtube channel on your browser.

I almost forgot...

I also made quicktime my default audio / video player, & Microsoft Edge my default web browser. If you haven't downloaded Quicktime along with iTUnes, then do so.

Yes, I'm running Windows 10.

Last thing, a pop up window should advise you "Video playback is not supported on this computer" by iTunes by the latest version of iTunes... that would indicate you would need the older version of iTunes....

Final assessment: Matching bit rate & Hz between iTunes & your PC matters. Using the Chrome does seem to mess up iTunes... I'm not one to believe in conspiracies... I have an android phone & enjoy Chrome.... But Chrome & Apple are adversaries, obviously.

I am running Windows 10 latest insider build on the fast ring, build 10565. Installed the latest version of iTunes x64 installer off the iTunes download page. v 12.3.1.23 . My machine is the first generation Microsoft Surface Pro with an Intel i3 dual cores with hyper threading enabled (4 threads available total to the OS) and 4gb ram. Because it only has a 64gb SSD for storage I have only downloaded a few songs from my iTunes account; the rest I stream to avoid taking up space. The songs that are downloaded to my HD didn't seem to have this problem but I may have not had enough songs downloaded and played them enough to experience the problem as it seemed to happen randomly every few songs and then not at all then almost every song but as I mentioned almost all my songs are streamed and not downloaded to the HD. It appeared that the songs which were streamed from iTunes that randomly it would become very choppy and pause over and over making playback really SUCK. I searched google and found this thread. I haven't installed the alternate installer as suggested, but one of the comments in this thread made me think to try going the Playback settings and fiddle. So I actually INCREASED the bitrate from 44.1 to 48khz and the bit per sample from 16 to 24; restarted iTunes and since then the songs haven't skipped once and they sound better on my high end Samsung Soundbar w/subwoofer! Haven't tried reverting back to 44.1 and 16 but might give that a shot later after I'm done listening to my tunes as it took a while to get good quality, uninterrupted playback so I wanna enjoy it for a bit! 😉

PS Not sure if this makes any difference but I'm connected to my Samsung soundbar using Bluetooth. Made an edit on this post 20 mins later and its still playing smoothly so I suggest people try fiddling with these playback settings before going thru the hassle of uninstalling, downloading and loading up the alternate installer. Also wanted to note I'm using Windows Audio Session and NOT Direct Sound but both options are available to me.

Itunes 12.3

Playback problem solved!

After a few minutes of non-use, C drive would start grinding away and stop as soon as I moved the mouse. I associated the high disk activity with Itunes playback problems. Tracked down and disabled the "system restore" function (system properties/system restore) in my Win 10 system and problem solved. Still run system image backup weekly to cover restore option.