Frame Skipping Mac

April 28, 2009 9:43 AM

Why is the video skipping on my Mac when hooked up to seconday display?

I have a Mac with 2 gigs ram and 2ghz intel processor. When I play a video on it it works fine. But when I plug my tv to it through, hdmi -> minidvi, and audio cable to the tv. It runs fine for like 10 minutes then starts skipping really bad. If i unplug and plug the hdmi, or even audio cable back in then it works again for another 10 minutes. I dont understand, anyone have any ideas? Oh and when it skips in VLC player it gives me this message.

ffmpeg: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)

posted by thefamousmoe to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

What kind of Mac do you have? More specifically, what kind of video chip/card do you have? If you're running a Mini, I think only the newest models can output 1080p. I don't think the Macbooks (non-Pro) can do it, either.

Does the audio skip? It's also possible you may have a bum HDMI cable.
posted by mkultra at 10:20 AM on April 28, 2009

Try mirroring the display if you're not already. You are splitting the video resources of the card in half when you add a second display, in my experience, mirroring helps.
posted by mzurer at 11:02 AM on April 28, 2009

Do you have any way to feed the minidvi directly into an A/V (VGA) jack? The conversion to HDMI may be part of the problem here...

Nthing the mirroring suggestion, too.
posted by hippybear at 11:24 AM on April 28, 2009