Mac Mini, WD Mirror Edition USB drive and HD (720p) movies

Hello,
I edit my vacation movies and render these in 720p thinking I will watch these on my Mac Mini connected to my HD tv. This works superbly, however, these movies takes quite a lot of space, so I also have a Western Digital Mirror Edition external USB drive to store them on. This is where the issues start.
When playing back from this disk, using VLC, the sound is choppy, seems like the image is less choppy. When I put the files on the internal drive there are no such issues.
I have a fresh Leopard install, and the USB drive is pretty new. There are no strange messages in the console logs that indicate a problem, but I can't imagine the files I play are too much for USB to handle.
Anyone have any ideas I can try?

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
I suspect the main issue you have is with the relatively poor data streaming performance of USB. While in theory, USB2.0 is faster than Firewire 400, in reality, USB can only manage those faster speeds in bursts, making FW much faster and more reliable for sustained data. If the files are saved as HD video, then I would think you're getting close to, or have surpassed, the capabilities of the drive to stream that data fast enough for smooth playback.
The solution would either be to switch to a FW drive, or to export your movies to .mp4 file format which can be played back via quicktime or Front Row. Files of that sort are compressed and thus are smaller, meaning lower data streaming overhead.

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Mac Mini, WD Mirror Edition USB drive and HD (720p) movies

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