"Choppy" DVD Player playback can be caused by third-party utilities

Poor (broken, jittery, or otherwise unusual) performance of DVD video playback in Apple's DVD Player application can be caused by the presence of some active third-party utilities -- particularly Script Software's CopyPaste.

MacFixIt reader Gabriel Dorado, who discovered this issue, writes:

"DVD Player 4.6.1 produces choppy video. No problem with the previous version installed by Mac OS X Tiger. The problem arose after updating QuickTime Pro, iTunes and DVD Player from the versions created by Tiger 10.4.2.

"This problem does not arise on computers like the iMac G5/2GHz 20-inch 2 GB RAM booting from internal 400GB disk, but does arise on computers like the PowerMac G4/500 (AGP) with 1 GB RAM and 22-inch Apple Cinema Display booting from external 300GB FireWire disk.

"The chopped video (vibrating video) is most relevant playing on full screen.

"This was driving me nuts, but... after lots of testing, I have found the culprit: it is CopyPaste-X 2.6 (which is the latest version)."

"If you delete it from The Login Items section of the Accounts pane in System Preferences and then log out or reboot, the problem goes away for good. Adding it back, and then log out or reboot, brings the problem back again."

Gabriel later received a response from Julian MIller of Script Software (the creators of CopyPaste-X) acknowledging the issue, and noting that it is specific to slower Macs.

Julian wrote:

"We are aware of that problem. It is because of the type of window we use. It is only true on older macs. The newer ones are fast enough that it is not noticed."

No word on the release of an updated version was provided.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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