Quicktime takes minutes to open a video

[jasfa131]

I have Quicktime 7 Pro and whenever I open a large file like ~700MB or so, I have to wait at least 5 minutes for it to actually open. Before it opens, Quicktime becomes unresponsive. This problem only happens with QT; VLC loads the movie instantly.

What's wrong with QT?

Thanks!

 

[Satcomer]

Sounds like QuickTime plugins conflicting. Experiment with removing a third party QuickTime plugin one at a time (/Library/QuickTime/ &/or /Users/YourUsername/Library/QuickTime/) and see if one is the culprit.

 

[chevy]

I saw that too for some types of movies. What is interesting is that as soon as QT starts playing the movie you can fast-forward as much as you like whereas if you open the same movie in VLC you cannot fast forward. Maybe QT does some kind of preprocessing that VLC doesn't.

 

[Mikuro]

What type of file is it? QuickTime's default AVI handler is verrrry slow. Perian will override QuickTime's AVI handler and make it perfectly fast. It also properly supports many more video and audio codecs in AVIs than QuickTime does on its own. If you don't have Perian installed, get it.

 

[MisterMe]

... What is interesting is that as soon as QT starts playing the movie you can fast-forward as much as you like ... Maybe QT does some kind of preprocessing that VLC doesn't.

This is how QuickTime works.

FWIW, .avi is an audio-visual container format. An .avi file may contain audio and video tracks created using any of a wide array of encoders. The QuickTime Player will tell you which encoders were used to create your file. With the file open, press [cmd]+[ i ] or [cmd]+[ j ]. Report back with what you find.