Poor iTunes video quality on Vista PC

I have a new Windows Vista laptop, 1 g ram, 1.7 ghz processor and i realize the iTunes requirements for playing video says 2 ghz, but is there any way i can get my laptop to play smooth iTunes video such as memory or program upgraded?

I bet its iTunes and not your computer. iTunes seems to be junkware on Windows.

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Poor iTunes video quality

Hi,
I just purchased an episode of Lost through iTunes because I missed the original airing on TV. When I try to play back the video on my iMac, the quality is garbage. The video is jerky, stops, and when it does run, it runs at about 10 frames per second.
It does this while in full screen mode, and also when running in windowed-mode.
There are no other applications running in the background, not even Dashboard is loaded up. I've tried repairing permissions and re-starting the computer. iTunes videos play back fine on my Mac Mini, but for the purpose of this Lost video, it needs to play back on the iMac.
I downloaded the 7.0.2 iTunes update (it was on 7.0.1), hoping it would eliminate this issue, but if anything it's worse since the update.
Any suggestions to make the video play back smooth? This computer has plenty of free hard drive space, and a gig of RAM. It's annoying that this computer cost what it did new, and now four years later can't play back a Quicktime video that I paid $1.99 for.
Thanks,
A
600 MHZ iBook, iMac 800MHz, 1.42 GHz Mac Mini,1 GB RAM in both Mini and iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8) Aiport Extreme, and express. iPod2G, Nano, and shuflle.iSight. Mac LC580.

Macmenno,
Thanks for the reply.
To be honest I didn't really look at the requirements for iTunes, I just assumed it would work haha. Thanks for pointing that out. I wouldn't think 200 MHz difference would cause it to run this poorly, but oh well.
A

Itunes video quality, my impressions...

When I heard Apple announce that the itunes site would offer selected tv shows for download, I was pretty excited. So today I downloaded the "Desparate Housewives" pilot for $1.99. I was impressed with the ~30min download and the slick looking itunes interface.
I was not impressed by the proprietary *.M4V file format. The media player format is clunky, without obvious controls available when in full screen mode. itunes crashed twice when I was trying to toggle between the preview screen and full screen. I actually had to ctrlaltdel the application.
My biggest problem, though, was video quality. The file was 1/3 smaller than most bittorent tv, and it shows in the quality. When I played the file on my HDTV, the quality was not acceptable. Edges were blocky and the audio was sub-par.
Apple, you are on the edge of something great. People will download TV for a fee, if your servers are fast, the price is right, the format is convenient and the quality is good. In my opinion you are halfway there, and no one else is even close.
If you were to release your shows in HD format and have a reasonable media playback option (read as: make a deal with DIVX), I would accept DRM limitations and would get all my shows on itunes. $1.99 seems a bit high for a low definition file that can only be played on a proprietary and clunky player. Especially when there are free sources on the net offering the same shows in full HD with 5.1surround for free.

Agreed.
I just purchased my first legal download (as well as QT Pro), only to be sorely disapointed with the file I downloaded. As my laptop runs at 1280x800 (and I grabbed BSGalactica), I was horrified of the video I saw.
How the heck am I supposed to put that up on a 40' plasma screen?
I'd pay a little more (not much), for HD video. Until then, I won't purchase another video.
Windows XP

Itunes video quality

Have just recently downloaded a video clip from itunes music store, except the video is jumpy thru out (as in it stops and starts again with a second). Does not happen to any of my other itunes videos. Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with this?? What should I do to get the issue fixed? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Dell Inspiron 630m Windows XP

Ok, to clarify, by quality I meant resolution. I actually wasn't aware that there were even other measures of quality. That's nice to know that they have an updated codec, but I would really like to see higher resolution videos if I'm going to spend my money on this... it's cool to be able to see it on an iPod on the go but I don't think that that replaces a real screen, and if iTunes wants to get a lot of purchases I think they'll have to fix that. I already looked at the previews and it was definitely pixilated when I enlarged it.

Poor DVD Video Quality - Transcoding pain

Hello,
I am working on a video project with the NTSC DVD as the deliverable. The project is realtively simple. It contains one mpeg2 video file, an adio track and a few menues. It is all ok except for the horrible DVD quality I am getting from Encore SC4. The original mpeg2 video quality is very good. This mpeg2 video file was generated using the Proshow Producer program with NTSC DVD setting as output. Here is what mediainfo has to say about this file:
General
Complete name                            : C:\Local\Piotrek Local Documents on xps435\My Local Shows\2012\04 Pogrzeb Melanii Grobelnej\Pozegnanie Melanii Grobelnej_DVD.mpg
Format                                   : MPEG-PS
File size                                : 2.08 GiB
Duration                                 : 45mn 47s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 6 518 Kbps
Video
ID                                       : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP                    : No
Format settings, Matrix                  : Default
Format settings, GOP                     : M=1, N=12
Duration                                 : 45mn 47s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 6 164 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Standard                                 : NTSC
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Scan order                               : Bottom Field First
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.595
Stream size                              : 1.97 GiB (95%)
Audio
ID                                       : 192 (0xC0)
Format                                   : MPEG Audio
Format version                           : Version 1
Format profile                           : Layer 2
Duration                                 : 45mn 47s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 224 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 73.4 MiB (3%)
My first problem is why Encore insists on transcoding the video. I do not see any reason why not to use the video as is. The "Do not transcode" option is not available. Perhaps I have some settings in the project that may be incompatible with the DVD video but I realy do not know what they could be. Please help if you think you know what it could be.
With automatic transcoding the resulting video quality is plain horrible. I keep blinking my eyes because everything is so badly out of focus. I keep trying to specify the transcoding quality to as high as Encore allows me but the resulting video stays at very poor quality. I am not very expierence with the transcoding function of Encore but what I am getting "out of the box" is garbage so I hope you, more expierenced gentlemen, could help me squeese more from this S/W.
Thanks you in advance,
Peter

In Proshow Producer there are two ways (two different menue options) to generated an mpeg2 DVD quality file. One of them gave me a file described by mediainfo in my original email - encore insisted on transcoding it.
The other way of generaring a DVD mpeg2 file renders a file as below:
General
Complete name                            : C:\Local\Piotrek Local Documents on xps435\My Local Shows\2012\04 Pogrzeb Melanii Grobelnej\amanda_customDVD_2.mpg
Format                                   : MPEG-PS
File size                                : 34.4 MiB
Duration                                 : 30s 63ms
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 9 585 Kbps
Writing library                          : Photodex mpeg encoder
Video
ID                                       : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Default
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=18
Duration                                 : 30s 63ms
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 9 200 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Standard                                 : NTSC
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Scan order                               : Bottom Field First
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.888
Stream size                              : 32.9 MiB (96%)
Writing library                          : Photodex mpeg encoder
Color primaries                          : BT.601 NTSC
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.601
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.601
Audio
ID                                       : 192 (0xC0)
Format                                   : MPEG Audio
Format version                           : Version 1
Format profile                           : Layer 2
Duration                                 : 30s 24ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 224 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : -33ms
Stream size                              : 821 KiB (2%)
The problem is that Proshow Producer crashes (runs out of memory) while generating this file - this is why it is only 30 seconds long. Now this file does not require transcoding in Encore CS4 and, if it did not crash, would be of acceptable quality.
I do not know what the M/N settings describe but the M/N settings are different in the second file. Some other settings are different as well, e.g., Bit/(Pixel*Frame).
From what I know and from what Photodex support person told me they do not have a way to generate an .m2v file. I can generate an mpeg2 with no audio from Producer but the video encoding would be as it is now I would think so I am not sure what difference (if any) this would make.
Thanks,
Peter

Itunes Video Quality issues and crash in Windows vista

When using itunes listening to music works great, however when i play music videos purchased from the store they keep on skiping and after a while itunes will close and a message from windows will appear saying the software stopped working. when the video is playing the sound is fine and plays quite happily in the background however the video freezes and jumps.

Have you tried this article:
Troubleshooting iTunes for Windows Vista video playback performance issues
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305392

HT204370 poor music video quality

I have downloaded several itunes music videos, but so far I have been very disappointed. They have all been a poor quality on the computer monitor, ipad and ipod, the audio is too quiet to even hear properly in one!
Yesterday I downloaded PON PON PON by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and the quality of the video is terrible. It is hazy, unclear and the colour is faded. The sound is not great either.
I was wondering if there was a way for me to improve the quality or if this is just the regular quality of videos from itunes? If so, I would be better to watch it on youtube, it has a far better quality even if it does buffer.
Has anyone else experienced this issue?

I have the same problem, the colour and quality of the Pon Pon Pon video is absolutely horrendous. Did you find a resolution to this problem?

T530 poor hd video quality

i have just bought a new lenovo T530. it's graphics were supposed to be good but when i try to play a hd video, the quality is rather poor. what would the cause be? my video driver is Intel HD Graphics 4000.

Hi Sebyd,
Welcome to Lenovo Community Forums!
I’m sorry to hear that you are having trouble playing HD videos in your Lenovo T530.
Please try updating your video drivers to the latest version from Lenovo Support page. To download the drivers, Please click on "Select Product", then in "QUICK PATH" enter T530 and select the exact model depending on the MTM number of your device.
If you are trying to play videos from internet, try reinstalling adobe flash player and Disable "hardware acceleration" in video flash options.
Make sure that your power plan in Power manager is set to maximum performance.
Please try using any other players if you are trying to play videos from a Local media and see if it helps.
Hope this can help to resolve your concern!
Best regards,
Mithun.
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N900 poor photo/video quality

All photos and videos are very poor quality, somehow blurred, like always to be out of focus.
I tried in different light situations, different modes,..., but no improvement.
Maybe I expect too much, but the N900's photo engine is complimented a lot.
Here is a photo of better quality shooten with my n900:
http://picasaweb.google.com/saso.celarc/N900Photo?feat=directlink#5430450751711864050
Often they are much worse, without details.
Is this normal?
Regards,
Sašo

couple of things:
1. when you are taking a picture, do a soft touch on the button until you see the little square corners turn green then, without lifting your finger, press completely down again.
2. make sure there are not any finger prints or other filmy/greasy debrit on the lense. just because there is a cover, your fingers and other items in your pocket/etc. can still touch it.
my camera takes great pictures in both the 3 and 5mp. one is just widescreen and the other is square.

Poor iTunes Playback Quality (Stuttering/Scratching)

Hi everyone,
I've been using iTunes for a long time (a couple years I think), and I just started having this problem. Basically, sometimes (not always) the quality of the sound of the songs that I am listening to will suddenly become horrible. It'll stutter and have weird, static-like noises in the background, and although the song will be discernible, it's not really a lot of fun to listen to.
The songs I've been listening to lately that have had this problem all used to work properly (a couple days ago), but then all of a sudden yesterday this started happening. I think that all of the songs on my computer are susceptible, and I have had problems with listening to music in other, non-Apple products that I have tried briefly, too (e.g., WinAMP.) And of course, even if it was just iTunes, I prefer it over other music programs , so I would hate to have to switch either way.
I notice one thing that makes the problem much worse is if I open Windows Media player.
I also have one other idea about what could have caused it...I program in C++ somewhat often (I'm a computer science major in college), and I had one program that I was working on that had a lot of null pointer errors and other such problems relating to pointers...could it be that I have somehow messed up (or failed to deallocate) some of the memory of my computer and that it doesn't have the resources to run iTunes? (A lot of other things on my computer have seemed to be running more slowly...could it be a virus? I have anti-virus software....)
Oh, also, I did read through all the articles I could find on this subject in the help database. I upgraded to the latest version of iTunes and QuickTime, and changed the QuickTime settings to waveOut only. I also restarted my computer a few times since the problem started, ran SpyBot Search and Destroy, and tried to update my drivers (although I couldn't figure out how to do that, the instructions provided on the site didn't seem to work.)
Anyway, I'm stumped. Any help anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
--Phil
Toshiba Windows XP 3.33 GHz processor

Ok, thanks for the suggestion...I actually read what you wrote to another poster and started running an ewido scan about half an hour ago, haha. It's still running actually...about 2/3 of the way done.
And yes I've seen that article, and I tried everything there except for the drivers stuff.
So far it has found about 273 things on my computer, which is interesting because I had just run SpyBot. I guess ewido covers some territory that SpyBot does not eh? Thanks for the tip, I'll have to add ewido to my arsenal of virus-fighting software .
Thanks for all the help, I'll post again after the scan is finished if I have more problems.
--Phil

Poor Rendered Video Quality PE7

Hi All,
I've been running the trial of PE7 for a few weeks comparing against my existing copy of Pinnacle 10 and trial of Power Director. I love the interface and edit abilities, however when I generate DVD files and view them the result from PE7 is of a much lower quality than from Pinnacle or Power Director.
I'm using the default quality settings in each of the programs and viewing all with the same DVD viewing software (AVS Player). The originating AVI that was edited was captured using Pinnacle, but I imported it into PE7 and rendered a PE7 DV AVI for editing to make sure I was working with PE defaults. The picture seems to be more grainy and less vibrant in color with PE7. Of course having the big black "PE7 Trial" directly across the middle of the screen doesn't help with comparison (what possessed them to put the watermark directly across the focal point of the viewfinder?), but I'm pretty certain the PE7 files are not as good.
Is there some setting that I'm missing that would make the video from PE7 that much worse than the other two products? I can't believe that the Adobe product would be that much worse without someting I'm doing wrong or missing.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Dale

Dale,
The test of each program would be to author a DVD (use RW, so you don't spend a bunch of $ on test DVD's) and then watch that through a DVD software player on the computer, or on a set-top player to TV.
As for the display in the programs, there are a couple of things to look at. In PE, if your DV AVI Clip shows a green line, above the Timeline, it does not require Rendering. If it's red, just hit Enter, to Render it. If you Rt-click on the Display Monitor, you can choose Fit, or one of several resolutions - choose 100% and see if your display improves. Fit is basically a "draft preview," sized to fill the Display Monitor, where 100% should show the actual detail.
It's been a long time, and several versions ago, since I last used Pinnacle, but I was less than impressed by its "monitor" back then. However, I am going both from memory and also this was on a previous laptop. Though it also had a 17" monitor, the rez was way down (totally different GPU), than what I am now using.
I have Power Director on my workstation (dual 21" CRT Hitachi 915's), and I see no difference between it's display, and that in P-Pro2, when I switch it to 100%. They both look the same to me. Do not have PE on the workstation, and do not have Power Director on the laptop, so I cannot compare those in an A-B situation.
Going back a couple of versions of P-Pro, Adobe went from DirectShow display to a common display engine for all of their programs. It has been my experience, when setup to 100%, that their displays are equal to, or better than, any program using DirectShow. This is for footage that does not need to be Rendered, or that has been Rendered, and is for 100%, and not Fit. I do not know if Pinnacel and Cyberlink still use DirectShow.
One last item to consider is the display settings on your monitor. Because Adobe does not use DirectShow any more, you could have differences there. I'd spend just a bit of time with the settings on your monitor, both in the Windows' Display, and in your GPU's utilities, to see if you can "calibrate" your monitor for best viewing of the Adobe display engine. In my nVidia Quadro 4500FX control panel, I have one setting for "Print Work," and one for "Video," and my needs fluctuate between the two. I also use Adobe Photoshop's Adobe Gamma utility to set things up for my print work. It is no longer included in the latest CS3-CS4 Photoshop.
Hunt

Poor music video quality, example new Beyoncé album

Has Apple any plans to change the poor SD quality?
It makes no sense for me to purchase such a bad quality.

Has Apple any plans to change the poor SD quality?
Nothing that has been announced.
It makes no sense for me to purchase such a bad quality.
In that case, do not purchase.

Are you having iTunes video playback problems?

Do you have iTunes Store-bought videos whose playback is terrible, all choppy and full of freezes while playing back in iTunes?
Have you copied one of those iTunes videos to a thumb drive and had it play back perfectly?
This problem is not fixed by any of the Quicktime adjustments that Apple suggests on their "how to fix video playback issues" page, and, aside from this video playback issue, iTunes is working fine on my machine. As I said, the videos work fine, too, if played from a thumb drive instead of the hard drive.
This has been going on for weeks, and people have been posting about it here on the forum, but, to my knowledge, there's no fix. Just silence.
It might be useful if people who are seeing this problem post some information about their systems. For all I know, all of us who are seeing this problem have one particular vendor's computer.
The computer I am having this problem with is a new HP laptop that came with Vista. This one:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?docname=c00846935&cc=us&dlc=e n&lc=en&jumpid=regR1002USEN
1.6 GHz AMD Turion ™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-52
2 X 512KB L2 Cache
2048MB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 (UMA)
120GB 5400RPM (SATA)
I think the problem has to do with SATA, but I don't really know, except that my computer has it and I am able to play these videos perfectly from a thumb drive but not the SATA hard drive.
If you are having this problem, please consider posting your computer's info. Thanks.
HP Pavilion Entertainment PC Other OS Vista

OK, I figured it out... I too have a dv6000 with Vista and I have been trying to fix this terrible itunes video playback thing and this is what I found. For whatever reason the NVidia driver in the dv series doesn't play nice with Vista. They say that they are looking into it but have no response other than that. Somehow the data from the hard drive isn't fast enough. So, reading this I figured that if that REALLY is the problem that I could use a external drive and have the videos come from there, and Voila!! It works like a charm, no skipping, no stalling, no more blue screens. I hope this is helpful, I know what a pain this can be.
ALSO, apparently some think that you can't watch itunes video while using Vista's "ReadyBoost". I haven't had that issue personally, but I have seen a lot that have who disabled it and had it work fine.
Let me know if this works for everyone else.
Later
S

Poor Audio and Video Quality

Using IDVD to burn iMovie containing pictures and music and am getting very poor quality audio and video. The video is very low resolution, lacking clarity and definition, and the audio comes out really flat with over-saturated vocals that is unpleasant to listen to.
The content was made from iMovie 11, importing photos from iPhoto and iTunes music.
I exported the movie via Share->Export Movie-> HD 1080P
In iDVD 7.1.2 I imported the movie (actually several) into a slideshow menu item.
I used the iDVD encoding preferences set at 'Best Performance' and 'Professional Quality' with no difference between the two
Then to ensure it wasn't the DVD disk causing the problem, I used the 'Save as Disc Image', and validated the file image saved to disk had the same quality issues as the burned DVD.
Then to eliminate the iMovie as the problem, ran a test and used an iPhoto slideshow in place of the iMovie, and it also has the same low quality issues.
I have observed that using the iDVD viewing capabilities, the A/V quality is fine. Its after the burn to disk the problem occurs.
At this point I'm not sure what to try. I'm viewing the DVD on my 50" widescreen TV using Sony DVD player.
A year or so back I did similar steps and the DVD came out fine... the sound quality was excellent and the video quality while not outstanding, was reasonable.
Any ideas -- I'm really stumped.

Hi
In iMovie'11 - I do (not use Share to iDVD)
• Share to Media Browser - AND AS Large - NOT HD ! (result will not be better but rather WORSE)
• In iDVD I import from Media button and Movie tab.
Yours Bengt W

How to improve poor video quality in iMovie?

I have a movie in iTunes (version 10.6.3). When I play the video, the quality is good on my Mac, on my iPad 3 and on my Apple TV. The Apple TV is hooked to a 42-inch LCD TV.
Next, I open the video file (MP4) using QuickTime Player. I use the Edit and Trim commands to create a 1-minute segment from the video. I save the segment from Quick Time Player. The saved segment is a MOV file. I drag and drop the MOV file back into iTunes. When I play it from iTunes, the quality still is good on all my Apple devices - no noticeable difference from the original.
Now, I import the MOV segment into iMovie 11 (version 9.0.8). At import, I tick the Optimize Video check box and I select the Full - Original Size setting. Once imported, I select Share > Publish To iTunes. I do not make any changes to the video clip in iMovie. I publish to iTunes using all five size settings: Mobile, Medium, Large, HD 720p and HD 1080p. Once in iTunes, I play the video again. Now the quality is poor, lots of pixelation in all five size settings.
iMovie appears to be doing something to the video to degrade its quality. Maybe I have a setting wrong somewhere. Anyone have any suggestions on how to prevent the degradation in video quality? Thx

Hey Brad, the MP4 movie in iTunes is 806 MB. The segment I trimmed in QuickTime Player and saved as an MOV file is 18 MB.
When I export the MOV segment from QuickTime Player to my desktop, the export format options that appear are: Movie; 480p; 720p; and iPad, iPhone 4 & Apple TV. Which do you recommend?
When I do Share > Export Using Quicktime in iMovie, there are a bunch of Export and Use options. Which do you recomend?
Thx

Poor iTunes video quality on Vista PC

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