Quicktime video playback degradation on OS X El Capitan

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Quicktime video playback degradation on OS X El Capitan

I'm having problems playing back h.264 video in Quicktime on El Capitan. The video becomes degraded when in full screen mode and no other overlay UI elements are present. Moving the cursor to bring up the playback overlay immediately corrects the video but when it fades away, it reverts back to a corrupted state. This only appears to happen when Quicktime is in full screen mode. Windowed playback remains uncorrupted. I have a suspicion that it has something to do with the Intel graphics drivers in El Capitan on my 13" MacBook Pro with Retina Display (Early 2013). On a friends 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display (Mid-2012) which features a discrete Nvidia GPU alongside the same Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics as my 13", there is no playback issues whatsoever. Yosemite did not present this issue, it seems to be isolated to El Capitan. Have tested this with several different files including 1080p and 4K captures from my iPhone 6s, and 1080p h.264 video captured from my Nikon D600 dSLR.

Exact specs:

OS X 10.11 build 15A284

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2013)

2.6 GHz Intel Core i5

8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Intel HD Graphics 4000

250 GB SSD

I've attached 2 photos of the issue. I've also submitted a bug report to Apple to see if I can resolve it directly. Has anyone else experienced this same problem?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11), null

Posted on Oct 11, 2015 8:42 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Roni Yaniv

Level 1

5 points

Oct 21, 2015 5:18 AM in response to macomrade

I have a similar issue on MBP 15" Mid 2014 (Intel Iris graphics only).

Any H.264 or x264 video I try to play stops playing shortly after starting. Happens on VLC, MplayerX.

On QT, it becomes distorted at the same time point and then continues but with lag/choppiness. This repeats itself even if I skip ahead.

This doesn't happen with AVI files.

I have never regretted upgrading the OS as I do now.

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Answer 2

macomrade Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 21, 2015 5:21 AM in response to Roni Yaniv

Yeah if I was take my best guess it would be the Intel graphics drivers are the cause of this issue. You should try installing the older QuickTime 7 and seeing if it does the same thing. QT7 plays it perfectly for me, which makes sense since it's not relying on any newer graphics APIs for playback. Even still, it's a bug Apple should rectify.

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Answer 3

Oct 21, 2015 6:40 AM in response to macomrade

BTW - when I turn off hardware acceleration in VLC, it sort of manages to play the file

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