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  • Optimising for Smooth Playback in Quicktime

    Posted by Alex Meddick on November 12, 2009 at 5:52 am

    Hi All,

    Most of the time I have the luxury of playing my 1920×1080 footage out of final cut through HD-SDI. The results are obvious great.

    There are occasions where I need to play these same files using quicktime player. Although the results are ok, they are not great. I know I can probably never as good as HD-SDI but it is hard to know what, if anything can make quicktime play better.

    I am NOT referring to colour at all. I am talking about smoothness of playback, especially in those long slow pans or dolly ins. Looks like frames are held or playback goes smooth and then rough and then smooth.

    I assume it has to do something with the refresh rate of my screen compared to the frame rate of the clip. Though I have been able to match, but still not lost all of the jerkiness.

    Another luxury of Final Cut is that it plays back at the correct rate, and if it doesn’t it complains. Quicktime does not have this feature and although files can play for infinity in FInal Cut without dropping a frame. In quicktime you’ll get jerks every now and again.

    Basically what I am wondering is what factors can I hope to improve to make quicktime playback better, for those occasion what I cannot avoid it?

    Will a better graphics card help with occasional jerkiness?
    Are certain screen types better for movie playback?

    Cos, other than changing my screen refresh rate, I have no ideas.

    Thanks in advance.

    Jim Mcnally replied 16 years, 9 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
  • 1 Reply
  • Jim Mcnally

    November 15, 2009 at 1:57 am

    Just went throught this myself and narrowed problem down to the graphics card. I would start there and see if you can upgrade. I had stuttering on playback when running dual monitors. With only one connected problem cleared up.

    Jim McNally
    The Commercial Factory
    http://www.commercialfactory.com

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