Quicktime Player priority

[Gnodab]

I have a 2.8GHz P4 and 2 gigs of ram, but when I watch HD quicktime movies (720P), Every few seconds there is a big of video lag. This has got me wondering if there is any way to give quicktime (or more specifically the decoding process) a higher priority within windows (much like with TMPGEnc when one encodes a file, there is the option to make the priority "highest" which makes everything else near impossible to do, but gets the job done the fastest) Thanks.

[Krispy Kritter]

Are you playing them from your HD or streaming from the net? If they are on your HD, then you most likely just need to defrag. If you are streaming, then your internet connection and/or the server supplying the files is not fast enough.

[JohnnyMalaria]

if there is any way to give quicktime (or more specifically the decoding process) a higher priority within windows

You can change the priority of any task in Windows via Task Manager. But, giving something the "highest" priority doesn't mean it will finish quicker.

If you really must try to out-smart Windows' scheduler, you should find those other tasks that are getting in the way and make them a lower priority - not raise the priority of the task you'd like to boost. But...

...changing priorities can bring the OS to its knees - most often due to the creation of "race conditions" (caused by changing the priorities in the first place).

It's a bit like this: you can put your foot to the floor, rev the crap out your car's engine and get from A to B in more-or-less the same time as taking a more steadfast approach. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

And, given how the latest versions of Quicktime stomp all over the OS in ways that are just unforgivable, I wouldn't trust it to behave itself in the dizzier heights of the "high priority process" world....

[celtic_druid]

Have you actually checked the CPU usage during playback?

Fact is that QuickTime isn't very good, especially under windows. The AVC decoder is slow. The files would probably playback fine via coreavc or even libavcodec.