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Topic: Smooth playback of quicktime

Michael Barry
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 584
From: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 01-24-2001 07:50 AM

I just finished downloading the large version of the surprise video (I loved the small one so much I wanted a better version of it to show friends). I found that my computer cannot play it back without stuttering and skipping frames and audio.

Can anyone give me any pointers? Perhaps my system is too slow for accurate playback - Pentium 233 with 32M/Ram. I'm using quicktime 4 - any ideas? Thanks!

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-24-2001 08:17 AM

I'd recommend adding more RAM. That will reduce the amount of "swapping" that the operating system needs to do and will generally improve overall performance. You want to make sure that the bottleneck isn't the disk (which it is whenever there's a lot of swapping activity going on); even the fastest SCSI and fiber channel disks are much slower than the slowest RAM.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 01-24-2001 08:56 AM

Yeah, what Scott said! Maybe try only running Quicktime and no other apps when you play the file. Or if you are blowing it up to full screen, then don't do that

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Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man

Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 01-24-2001 06:01 PM

Quicktime eats meadow muffins.

OOPS! Let me back off on that. seems as though the new version of Quick time runs fairly well...

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-24-2001 07:10 PM

Turn on virtual memory from the control panel, under that apple menu. Maybe only run one application at a time.

If you can, download the QT 5 Public Preview. They have done some work on the skipping problems but that's mostly for when you're streaming.

If you don't have Mac OS 9, just forget I said anything. ( There's nothing that can help you )

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 01-25-2001 01:15 AM

If you've got a slow computer in general you may HAVE to run the small version. However I agree on the tips above...close out all other programs that are running and don't blow it up to "full screen" and see if that doesn't clear up the problem.

It was either MPEG which would've resulted in some ludicrous sized download, Real video (which is the biggest joke ever to hit the internet), or QuickTime. In the end, the QuickTime was the best compromize while keeping quality up.

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Michael Barry
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 584
From: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 01-27-2001 08:15 AM

Thanks for all the tips! I tried running it on my other computer which has 64M Ram, and it skips too. I think it's time for an upgrade. It probably requires a Pentium II or something like that as a minimum.

The smaller version works well - I'll have to go with that for now. When running in 'double size' the size and framerate is reasonable.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 01-28-2001 05:53 PM

All of the Quicktimes we put on the site will be compressed with the Sorenson compression scheme. It may indeed require a Pentium 2 (or Power PC) to play it back properly at larger sizes.

If anyone else is using the Mac OS, be sure to download the 70 meg update to bring it up to 9.1. But 9.0.4 should work just fine as well. I personally believe that Virtual Memory is evil. It slows things down. It uses the hard drive to store RAM. Like Scott said, even the fastest hard drive is slower than the slowest RAM. There is no way to disable Virtual Memory in Windows.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-28-2001 07:10 PM

I just got 9.1 installed and it's doing well so far. I've had a few problems but I pretty much know what's causing them. (Scanner software. -- Damn those extensions!)

I don't know if 9.1 makes the computer any faster but I get the feeling that the system runs a little "snappier" if that makes any sense.

Also, get the Quicktime 5.0 "public preview". With it I have been able to watch TV streams reliably over my dial-up connection for the first time ever. They aren't exactly the greatest quality but it's good that I get anything AT ALL! Up till this time I just never even bothered using the "QTTV streamer".

As far as VM, I use it on some things and not others. If the thing I want to use doesn't run right with VM one way, I try it the other way. I'd rather just buy REAL memory but that's a whole other issue. (Mostly a $$ issue! )

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