Info-Mac

Hello,
I am having an issue when trying to sync 12 mac minis playing different videos that are all the same length. The issue is that the videos play a few seconds then stop then start playing again. I've tried a couple of different switches and tried moving the server to different machines but can't seem to overcome it. I also was able to create the issue with a desktop computer and a dell d12u. The video files are quite large at ~1gb each. 1920x1080 and a 3:55 length. I have turned off audio on each of the videos. They are .mov files but I am not really sure the specific codec or compression information other than the data rate is 33922kbps and the total bitrate is 34048. Is my issue with the file or is this something larger?

If your videos start playing for a few second and then start over, it might a router issue. Please make sure both UDP and TCP ports 9201 are open and not blocked by any sort of firewall. Sounds like the clients are making the initial connection to the server but not maintaining sync.

Also another problem might be that you don't have the server playing a video. It needs to as well (clients sync to this video).

The video does continuously play. I have tried different switches and made sure that the firewall is off. It plays, then slows, then slugs through a few frames, halts and slugs a few more frames and continues to do that.
I am not sure what you mean that the server is not playing a video- as I stated there are 12 computers playing videos 1 set to a server. They connect, start the video, then start stuttering.

Thank you for clarifying this for me. This now sounds like a codec issue. I have a hunch you might be using a delivery codec such as H.264. Try exporting a video to Apple Intermediate Codec (a production codec) and you should see better results. This will result in huge file sizes but much easier video for your computer to processes (especially when skipping frames to resync with the server). Let me know if this is the solution!

Ah bummer, I unfortunately cannot change the codec because of copyright licensing (I am not even allowed to test a different codec to confirm that it was the issue.) I suspect you are right however. Well thanks for your input!