A recent development that’s most curious to me is when I tried pre-rendering the project. The Pre-render appeared on my desktop (as expected) as well as in my library (also expected). The stuttering is still obvious when I play the file on my desktop through Quicktime – but completely smooth within After Effects when simply previewing that same file from my library.
VLC, iTunes, etc all play it with inconsistent stuttering, and iTunes and YouTube both keep the stuttering when converting it for its own purposes, but somehow After Effects is able to play it flawlessly when its inside the program. As soon as it leaves the doors it seems to go bonkers.
Very odd, and thanks for keeping it in your thoughts, by the way.