iTunes 10.5 Video Choppiness

Option 1: I think I tried that a couple weeks ago and no such luck.

Option 2: Definitely doesn't make a difference at all. Still choppy as F!*#.

djsmmcp said:

The only 2 workarounds I have found are as follows. Pick your poison.

1) Use Quicktime to play the DRM'd TV progs. QT 7 will play those, with no choppiness

2) Keep the OSD on screen in iTunes. Normal behavior is that the playback controls disappear after a few seconds. If when they are there you simply click your mouse on a blank area of the OSD (e.g. - an area that's not going to fast forward, pause, etc) the video is smooth as silk, even when there are pans and zooms

Of course with option 2, you have an ugly OSD on your screen all the time during your video.

the real lesson here, of course, is that DRM sucks, and iTunes on Windows isn't much better.

asmarti08 said:

I have the same issue on my laptop. Windows 7 64-bit (Core i3 processor).

I'm getting ready to try an old version of iTunes (8.1 or so, when 64-bit iTunes was first introduced) to see if it solves the problem.

Edit:
K, apparently something in the old iTunes installation is pulling a newer file from the web and it cannot read the file because it was created for/in a newer version of iTunes. So.... I guess I can't run iTunes 8.1('ish). Maybe I'll try a bit of a newer version...

Edit 2:
Ahhh, all I had to do was trash the old ("newer") library file that was sitting in the iTunes music folder.

Running iTunes 10.2.1 (64-bit) and trying all DirectX options for QuickTime settings. Still choppy. ARGHHHH.

djsmmcp said:

Yeah, can't really seem to find anyone dealing with the exact same thing.

I realize I'm resurrecting an old thread, but I'm having the exact same problem. Brand new Dell, loaded iTunes, the exact same choppiness - sometimes just a frame or two, sometimes video freezes for several seconds. The same content plays just fine on iTunes on my older Macbook Pro. It also plays fine when going through Quicktime. It's only in iTunes that the problem occurs.

Plenty of memory, plenty of processor heft, good hard drives, etc. Like OP, I finally reloaded the computer, hoping it was some driver loaded wrong or something but no good, nothing has fixed the issue. I've checked all around and haven't found anything to point me in the right direction. Very aggravating.

I don't know how many people this will help, but I thought I would post about it anyway.

I'm running windows 7 (64 bit) and have been experiencing the choppy video playback of purchased movies and TV shows through iTunes as well.

After trying all the advice without resolve, I seemed to stumble upon a fix through sheer luck.

What I did was to run a complete error checking diagnostic of my main hard drive (C). Click on your main hard drive, then tools and and select 'Error-checking'. Tick both options under this test and reboot to let it run and fix errors.

It worked for me, so hopefully it will work for some others as well.

Good luck everyone.