Video Skipping

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
This has been going on for a while, and it seems to occur when the computer is being heavily taxed.



I will be watching a video (any kind, VLC, Quicktime, EyeTV from internet and external drive sources) and all of sudden it will skip (like a CD) and then the frame rate will be horrible (not even 0 fps) and audio will continue playing normally. Slowly, the frame rate returns to normal. This also makes everything else move slowly on the system, but the video is the most annoying.



The only thing I can notice are two things in the console: "IOAudioStream0x4539500::clipIfNecessary() - Error: attempting to clip to a position more than one buffer ahead of last clip position (a3,953)->(a9,184f)" and that is followed by "IOAudioStream0x4539500::clipIfNecessary() - adjusting clipped position to (a9,953)"



Another part I found interesting is that the skipping may happen with a DVD, but it recovers to full frame rate immediately.



Does anyone else have this problem, or can they help me? Thanks!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    What's your system / specs? Have activity monitor open and watch that to see if there's a spike in CPU useage that causes it and what it is.
  • Reply 2 of 14
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    I have the first run MacBook Pro 17" with max RAM.
  • Reply 3 of 14
    yamayama Posts: 427member
    Open up Activity Monitor.app and get some video content up and running. Check to see if there is anything suspicious that starts chugging up your CPU usage when the framerate drops.
  • Reply 4 of 14
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    So, everything seems fine, I was using Safari and EyeTV (playing some HD content from an external FW800 hard drive), and then all of sudden, the video skips, and Window Server went from using 7.7% CPU to something like 32% CPU (even 70%) . And the fans started spinning a little more. Also, Safari, for some reason, is using 104% CPU



    Now the video rate is back to normal. Window Server is at 5.3%
  • Reply 5 of 14
    yamayama Posts: 427member
    104% CPU for Safari huh?



    Does the video skip like crazy when you quit Safari? Do you have any 3rd party plug-ins for Safari?
  • Reply 6 of 14
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by yama View Post


    104% CPU for Safari huh?



    Does the video skip like crazy when you quit Safari? Do you have any 3rd party plug-ins for Safari?



    I have Inquisitor, that's it. This was happening before and after Leopard.



    It did not skip like crazy when I quit Safari. It just slowly moves from a horrible frame rate to a perfect frame rate, and then it will skip again, and slowly move back to a good frame rate.
  • Reply 7 of 14
    yamayama Posts: 427member
    Well, getting rid of Inquisitor won't hurt. Or at least re-install it as the developer recommends.



    It'd also be a good idea to dump any QuickTime plug-ins you might have installed. Of course, if you don't want to screw around with all of these things you could always try creating a new user account and see if the same problem occurs there.
  • Reply 8 of 14
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    So, I trashed my preferences for the Window Server from the main Library.



    And, I restarted.... and none of my USB or Firewire devices would show up.... so, a few more restarts, and everything now is back to normal



    SO, I start up an HD stream of Conan (w/beard), open many tabs in Safari, open up iMovie, and No Video Skipping



    There was a slow down in frame rate, but the HD stream immediately recovered.



    I think by trashing the Window Server preferences, that helped. Although, maybe it just means it hasn't happened yet.



    I want to thank all you guys for your help. This thing was going to drive me nuts before Lost came back on the air. Seriously, thank you so much.
  • Reply 9 of 14
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    And it just happened again.... so, that didn't fix it. I was in Keynote working this time.
  • Reply 10 of 14
    hrm, core duo can't multi task HDTV & keynote?
  • Reply 11 of 14
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kmac1036 View Post


    hrm, core duo can't multi task HDTV & keynote?



    But it used to be able to do this no problem. That is why I am so confused. I have had the machine for a couple years, and only in the past months has this been a problem



    I have gone back in Time and brought back my system from yesterday, and all of a sudden I have 10 GB more on my start up disk... hopefully nothing got broke... but , that didn't fix anything.
  • Reply 12 of 14
    yamayama Posts: 427member
    An extra 10 gig appeared out of nowhere? Are you running out of disk space at all?



    Did you try creating a new user account and playing around with that?



    Use Onxy to run the maintenance and clean up scripts for the system to clear out any dodgy files lingering in the system caches.



    Boot from the Restore DVD and run Disk Utility.app to check that the hard disk is okay.
  • Reply 13 of 14
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    I tried doing the Onyx thing, and I thought it worked, but then it happened again
  • Reply 14 of 14
    yamayama Posts: 427member
    I hate to say it, but the next thing I'd do is wipe the drive clean, run a disk check on it and re-install the OS.
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