[kennedy]

I am having trouble with choppy playback of some QT films... at
times it looks more like a slide show than a movie!

I assumed it was my slow connection at first, even though it was
a tiny little picture size. So, instead of using the streaming
version, I downloaded to disk the larger version of the film...
and it is even MORE choppy... like a frame every 2-15 seconds...
and it varies dramatically from frame-to-frame.
So, now I am thinking it is QT playback that is the problem (the
bigger picture size resulted in more choppy playback).

Interestingly, if I play it at 1/2 speed, it plays fairly smooth...
way more than twice as many frames are getting displayed. So, I
am guessing its some sort of settings problem that leads it to
trying to go a little faster than it can, resulting in it having
to drop way more frames than necessary. Is that possible? How
does QT decide to drop frames?

Are there some QT settings that tell QT how fast it can draw so
that it knows how many frames to drop? Or settings that otherwise
would fix this problem?

If I download the "small" enhanced version with much grainier
picture, QT manages to keep up and it displays fairly smoothly,
though I still think rougher than the source its displaying,
and its definitely dropping some frames.


Details:
I am running on a ruby iMac DV purchased Oct 2000 with 128MB RAM
and a 10GB harddisk, with 3GB free on the 4.5GB OS9 partition.
I am running OS 9.1 and OS 10.0.3.
I am using QT 4.1.2 in IE 5.0 in OS 9.1.
I have also tried in IE 5.1 in OS X.
I have also tried it in Netscape 4.75 in OS 9.1.
I am also using QT under the BMW Player downloaded from bmwfilms.com.
The movies are from www.bmwfilms.com.

Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks.

P.S. If you haven't seen the films at www.bmwfilms.com, they are worth a look. I especially like the most recent film, #4, The Star.

[jxflyer]

Kennedy,

It seems that you've got more than enough computing power to run the quicktime movie. I've seen a similar problem with QT on certain videos. It seems related to the movie being loaded into memory on my machine.

I might look at these things:

1) How much memory is allocated to QT? If you increase it, does that help?
2) You're running QT 4... is it native OS X or is it through OS 9?
3) One suggestion I heard once was the number of colors and refresh rate of the screen. I set the monitor to 1000's of colors, instead of millions - I'm told that helps.
4) You can also try using the "present movie" playback method with the movie in "normal" size.
5) Finally, what about virtual memory? If it is on, I might try turning it off. The HD takes more time to access info than RAM, so try altering your current setting if it's on, turn it off and vise versa (though in OS X, I'm not sure if it works the same).

Good luck and let us know what happens.

- Chad

Originally posted by kennedy:
<STRONG>I am having trouble with choppy playback of some QT films... at
times it looks more like a slide show than a movie!

I assumed it was my slow connection at first, even though it was
a tiny little picture size. So, instead of using the streaming
version, I downloaded to disk the larger version of the film...
and it is even MORE choppy... like a frame every 2-15 seconds...
and it varies dramatically from frame-to-frame.
So, now I am thinking it is QT playback that is the problem (the
bigger picture size resulted in more choppy playback).

Interestingly, if I play it at 1/2 speed, it plays fairly smooth...
way more than twice as many frames are getting displayed. So, I
am guessing its some sort of settings problem that leads it to
trying to go a little faster than it can, resulting in it having
to drop way more frames than necessary. Is that possible? How
does QT decide to drop frames?

Are there some QT settings that tell QT how fast it can draw so
that it knows how many frames to drop? Or settings that otherwise
would fix this problem?

If I download the "small" enhanced version with much grainier
picture, QT manages to keep up and it displays fairly smoothly,
though I still think rougher than the source its displaying,
and its definitely dropping some frames.


Details:
I am running on a ruby iMac DV purchased Oct 2000 with 128MB RAM
and a 10GB harddisk, with 3GB free on the 4.5GB OS9 partition.
I am running OS 9.1 and OS 10.0.3.
I am using QT 4.1.2 in IE 5.0 in OS 9.1.
I have also tried in IE 5.1 in OS X.
I have also tried it in Netscape 4.75 in OS 9.1.
I am also using QT under the BMW Player downloaded from bmwfilms.com.
The movies are from www.bmwfilms.com.

Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks.

P.S. If you haven't seen the films at www.bmwfilms.com, they are worth a look. I especially like the most recent film, #4, The Star.</STRONG>