Quicktime playback is choppy/laggy

Hi any ideas on a fix for my problem.

The first step here would normally be to determine the nature of the problem—i.e., is the problem due to the file playback requirements of the files themselves or due to a problem within the system itself.

Check the files for bandwidth requirements and compare them with system capabilities. (QT automatically drops frames if/when it cannot keep up with playback requirements which can create choppy playback issues to complete "freeze" of playback.) Are you trying to play normal SD, HD, 2.5K, 4K, 5K or larger resolution formats? What video codecs are you using and at what data and/or frame rates? How are the files stored/being played back—e.g. stored on an internal/external USB/Firewire/Thunderbolt DAS/local network/internet drive, etc?What other applications and/or processes are simultaneously running? Check the "Activity Monitor" to see if any apps or processes are "not responding" and/or creating data bottlenecks and/or abnormal "hogging" of CPU, drive read/write, or network work cycle allocations. In short, choppy video playback is often just a symptom of other, more serious system problems.

On a personal note, my I7 iMac operating under El Capitan also seems more prone to "slowdown" issues than previous OS versions. I used to leave my system on 24/7 for iTunes-TV access but am finding that frequent re-boots of the el Capitan system seems to "clear" many of the slowdown issues I am experiencing. Not sure if your issues might be similarly connected or not.

I have repaired permissions using disk utility and it has rectified some minor issues. Unfortunately that hasn't sorted anything out. The videos are on an external USB hardrive. I have tried playing the videos when nothing else is running but that doesn't seem to rectify anything. I have downloaded videos on occasion and they have ran OK. Steaming video is OK too.

Unsure what you mean by "downloaded videos" here. If you're saying videos have a problem playing directly from the USB drive but play fine when "downloaded" to an internal drive, then the problem could be a disparity in the manner in which the videos are encoded as compared with the throughput capacity of your USB device and/or connection. (E.g., an older USB 1 thumb drive delivers data much slower than a full-feature, externally powered USB 3 drive,) Data in video files encoded to play directly from a computer hard drive are often encoded differently from videos targeted for playback from an optical DVD drive or those targeted for streaming over the internet. So, please confirm more specifically how the videos are being played, as well as encoding target specifics if known. (E.g., were files encoded for Download, CD/DVD-ROM, streaming, or device specific playback?)

Hope this gives you enough information for any more advise you may be able to give

Unfortunately, we are still trying to determine what factors may be contributing most to your problem. I.e., is this a UHD resolution file with exceptionally wide data rate excursions, a playback connectivity issue, or a platform system problem?

on further investigation, I installed QuickTime 7 and that plays the .mov files smoothly It's making me think I need to download some sort of codec or plugin tie QuickTime X to play them smoothly.

What do you think?

Doubt it would be a codec configuration issue per se. The QT X AVFoundation is programmed to only support a limited number of codecs and either plays the codec if supported or fails to play/tries to convert those it doesn't support. On the other hand, this may indicate a data handling issues. QT 7 would normally be better at handling legacy compression format program streams while QT X is designed of more modern formats in either program or transport streams. Since you have not mentioned what compression formats/settings were used to create the files, it is difficult to say more at this time. Would normally assume the files are probably H.264/AAC MOV files using Main or High Profile @ Level 3.0 to 4.1 depending on specific hardware/software used for encoding. These files are the most common and are usually very stable unless pushed to upper data throughput limits forcing the QT player to drop an excessive number of frames during playback which, in turn, can lead to choppy or frozen playback.

Providing specific codec information may or may not provide further insight into your issues. However, I did not see any indication that you checked the Activity Monitor to see if any apps or processes are "Not Responding" on the problem platform. Such issues can easily cause the system to slow down general processing and cause any/all apps to momentary stop/freeze on a continuous basis. This is what I would normally check once you determine this issue is not related to USB connectivity. (I.e., see previous response.)

Thanks again for your reply. I am a bit of a novice when it comes to checking what you initially asked. Looking at one of the files, this is the information I have got:

You are basically trying to play the equivalent of a Blu-ray movie in your QT player. This may or may not be more than your system can easily handle. To see how well your player is taking the load, open the same file in your QT 7 player and compare the playback frame rate of the file with its encoded frame frame rate. If the player is dropping a significant number of frames, this could be the main source of your problem and different players handle data overloads differently. I see in your case that you are viewing the 1920x1080 file at a resolution of only 774x435. Unfortunately, making the display smaller doesn't affect the amount of data processed per unit of time. In fact, it actually adds to the problem since the data has to be fractionally scaled for final player display. I would normally transcode the file to the target display dimensions I want to use for distribution using a much lower data rate. For example, I am currently testing 720p (1280x720p24) H.264/HE AAC 5.1 playback through the TV4 which have total data rates on the order of 1.5 to 2.0Mbps or roughly 1/10 to 1/15 the data rate of your example. I admit that my tests are not typical but you should be able to get by with full HD versions of your file running at 1/2 to 1/4 of the current data rate. Your file is what I would normally keep as the raw archival file used as the source for edited distribution content at lower data rates more compatible with older systems and devices in general use.

This file is stored on an external seagate drive drive.

Seagate is a drive OEM. The drives can be used with interfaces ranging from USB 1 to Thunderbolt 3. Knowing which specific interface is being used would give us a better idea as to the data transfer capabilities of your drive and whether or not it might be a contributing factor to your issue.

When looking at Activity Monitor. This is what I have:

There isn't anything that isn't responding.

Was referring to the upper portion of the Activity Monito:

Look for any app or process names that appear in red any time an app seems to freeze up or seems to be having a problem during use. In some cases the issue is easily found—e.g., Time Machine, iDVD encoding, Internet down/uploading activities are in progress, etc.—while in other cases the system may be trapped in some operation than you may have to manually force to quit. This doesn't normally happen very often but is a good place to check when strange things happen but the Finder doesn't appear to be having any obvious problems.

Hope that information this the sort of thing you are asking me. This video in particular was recorded on my Nikon D7000 but I also have GoPro videos that do the same thing

Depending on the model and settings, your GoPro files could have even higher data rate issues—i.e., have data rates the equivalent of 2 to 3 BDs trying to play simultaneously in your QT player—plus the CineForm HD format is not natively playback compatible with QT X.

Hi guys,

I'm not very techy with sound & vid stuff, so having trouble following your conversation. But what I can contribute is this: up until a couple months ago, everything I downloaded with Download Helper on Firefox played fine. Then the choppy started.

Conditions:

2 different Firefox downloader tools: 'Download Helper' & 'Download Flash and Video'

2 different versions of Firefox

2 different computers: iMac and Macbook Air

2 different OS: 10.6.8 and 10.7.5 (yeah I know, I can't afford upgrades or new computer; will lose too much valuable licensed software that would have to be replaced at great cost. I'm stuck with this for a while longer)

2-3 different players: Quicktime (2 versions) and VLC.

NOT playing from a backup drive but directly on computer desktop.

All permissions fine, repaired. Plenty of GB of RAM available.

ALL combinations of all of them result in choppy playback of every video downloaded except from YouTube.

Never seen this choppy before and now it's all of them, without having changed any settings in anything.

I think this is a general problem of QT X.

I'm using a "new" Mac Pro with Sierra and QT 10 can not play any video fluid.

Even any video exported from FCP X.

Only QT 7 and VLC can.

Maybe it is because I'm running a Sony 4K TV under 25 Hz.

But in Germany, I have to use 25Hz.

Sometimes, videos can exhibit choppy playback when loaded into QuickTime. When this occurs, the problem is typically related to the media player's settings or the video's encoding.

Playback Settings

QuickTime's default playback settings may have been recently adjusted. The audio and video tracks may have been modified to stream at different rates. It is also possible that a timing offset was programmed between the two tracks. Users can investigate QuickTime playback settings by going to "Window" and "Show A/V Controls."

Codec

The video may have been compressed with a codec that is not supported by the computer. A codec is an algorithm that codes and decodes streams of media like audio and video. When a media player is not equipped to stream a particular video codec, playback may be choppy. Users can identify a video's codecs by running the media through an analyzer like GSpot, VideoInspector or MediaInfo. Once users have identified the video's codecs, they can install free plug-ins to enable playback for the media.

Streaming

QuickTime can also be used to stream embedded Web video. If online media appears choppy, it could be because the media player's streaming settings need to be tweaked. Users can stream QuickTime embedded video more smoothly by increasing buffering time. When media has more time to buffer, more of the content is downloaded before it is played. Users can increase buffering time in QuickTime by going to "Edit," "QuickTime," "Preferences" and "Streaming." Raise the marker on the "Play Streams" scale closer to "Short Delay."

Media

When video playback is choppy, the media may not have been encoded properly. If this is the case, then the video cannot be corrected unless it is modified in an editing application.

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/why-is-my-quicktime-video-choppy

Meanwhile I bought this:

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B017BQCUGW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF 8&psc=1

and all problems are gone.

With it, it is possible to use 50 (or 60) Hz in 4k which the new Mac Pro could not provide by its own.