Stuttery HDV Playback

Hello,
I'm editing a 720p60 piece that consists of a continuous, very smooth motion dolly (on tracks) pan. However, on QuickTime playback the video exhibits occasional stutters. These stutters are not consistent temporally (i.e. stutters aren't always in same place). These stutters appear similar to dropped frames (i.e. the video jumps ahead a small amount). However, the system is keeping up as tested by FCP's dropped frames detection, and QuickTime's Playing FPS Info window reports a consistent frame rate.
On playback from tape to an HDTV there are no stutters. Also, tape printed from FCP (this footage which is sttutery in FCP and QT) also exhibits smooth playback on the HDTV. Clearly, this is some software playback issue. Thinking that the complex MPEG-2 data was being misinterpreted by QT, I downconverted to Apple Intermediate Codec, ProRes 4:2:2 and various low data rate SD files always with the same sttutery result. At this point, I am approaching being stumped. This work is intended for QuickTime SD downconverted playback (as well as HD ProRes 4:2:2 archiving) so I cannot avoid the issue. Help ...
Specs:
HDV 720p60
JVC GY-HD200U camera
QT 7.3.1 (and also tried QT 7.4)
Leopard 10.5.1
FCP 6.0.2
Easy Setup 720p60
iMac 2.4GHz Duo
chimpybits

- FCP 6.0.2
- HDV 720p60
I do think the capture is fine as printing back to tape and playing that onto HDTV is fine.
Studio X I do think you are onto something as the best looking playback I had was with a G5 and a 23" display set as the video playback. However, there were still some stutters. Note that there wasn't a 2nd display so this was an either/or setup (either windows including FCP or video playback). I don't know if this setup creates playback performance issue (~stutters). This same setup I can do with my 24" iMac and the result is similar.
Now, do I really need a Matrox MXO, Kona LHe, or Blackmagic HDLink? I know that they provide the advantage of pixel-by-pixel representation, but I expected an HD LCD via DVI (i.e. 23" Cinema Display hooked up to a Mac Pro or current iMac) to playback the video without stutters.
Also, why would the issue persist through transcodes to countless other QT codecs (some quite low data-rates).
Currently, my next testing steps involve using a 2 monitor setup with one being the video playback and a Mac Pro with an internal SATA RAID. My hard-drive setup is good (I would expect adequate), but not great and my monitor setup needs to be improved. Also, I may be able to test on a Mac Pro with a Kona 3. So, my weak points to be tested are hard-drive, 2nd display, and 2nd display with a Kona 3 card.

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Hi (Bonjour)!
Happy new year!.
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Please do not double post.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=820906&tstart=0
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x

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Message was edited by: MrMajesticMole

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So experiment at 'fooling' iMovie HD 5. I managed to do it ..but "your mileage may vary"..

Stuttery HDV Playback

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