QuickTime: Unusably Slow Scrolling/Scrubbing on Certain Videos

[usagora]

Someone else posted this EXACT problem I'm having on the Apple Discussion Forum, but there isn't any input except a pat answer about trying it in Safe Mode which I'm sure has nothing to do with this. His description is spot on:

QuickTime TrackPad scrolling extremely sl… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

I honestly don't remember when I first noticed this myself, but it's been a good while. Most MP4 videos will scroll just fine forwards and backwards nice and briskly through the video, very responsive to your finger movement. However, a sizable minority of MP4 videos don't. You can swipe your finger fast and furious over and over again, and the playhead will barely move (I mean where it's almost as slow as playing back at real speed when you're swiping right multiple times per second). This is not a system "lag" issue, as all other operations are running smoothly and as expected and I can literally click back and forth between two videos and one will scroll normally and the other won't.

Using Inspector in Quicktime for two randomly selected MP4 videos (one that scrolls normally and one that doesn't), I see no obvious differences between the two files. Both are encoded at 30fps and are in the format H.264 HD (1-1-1).

Anyone else experience this?

 

[ferrarr]

What size are the files, and what dimensions are they? GB, MB and 740p, 1080i, etc?

 

[usagora]

What size are the files, and what dimensions are they? GB, MB and 740p, 1080i, etc?

Of the two random files I chose, both are 1920x1080 and similar in size (207MB and 214MB)

 

[ferrarr]

I have nothing against QuickTime, but have you tried vlc?

Official download of VLC media player, the best Open Source player - VideoLAN

www.videolan.org

When I use my Magic Mouse, it will swipe forward backward, like you explained with QuickTime.

 

[usagora]

I have nothing against QuickTime, but have you tried vlc?

Official download of VLC media player, the best Open Source player - VideoLAN

www.videolan.org

When I use my Magic Mouse, it will swipe forward backward, like you explained with QuickTime.

I use VLC for video formats that QuickTime can't open, but it doesn't have the same fluid, fast, frame-by-frame scrubbing that QuickTime does. It jumps 3 seconds at a time in a choppy manner.

 

[ferrarr]

I see what you mean. Have you looked in vlc Preferences? There are a lot of options under Show All. Or contact them, as they may not know people want that feature?

 

[usagora]

I see what you mean. Have you looked in vlc Preferences? There are a lot of options under Show All. Or contact them, as they may not know people want that feature?

I'm sure it can be improved somewhat by tinkering with some advanced settings, but honestly I prefer QuickTime for videos (it's my default player) and just want it to do what it's supposed to do. Oh well, I guess it will remain a mystery why certain videos behave like this. It must have something to do with their encoding beyond the general details you see in Inspector.