Video stutter issue in Big Sur

[Ubele]

I have an early 2015 MBP with Big Sur, and I was having the problem described above not only for videos played within Safari, but also for MP4 files played with Quicktime Player. I found another solution online that worked: Clear all cookies in Safari (Preferences > Privacy > Manage Website Data > Remove All) and then reboot. Why that fixed the problem for Quicktime Player as well as for Safari, I don't know. The other strange thing is that all the cookies I deleted are back, but videos are playing fine.

 

[jimghenderson]

In chrome, go to preferences > advanced > system and uncheck "use hardware acceleration when available"

 

[djscott36]

FWIW. was having stutter issues playing iTunes-purchased video on my Mac mini that was directly connected to an external display using HDMI. Would get a brief pause about every 10~15 seconds which was annoying and couldn't find help online. Switched from the on-board HDMI port to an original Apple USB C HDMI adapter and no more pauses! Hope this helps someone else.

 

[andyh2o]

Similar problem here. Mid 2014 MBP running Big Sur. Video in YouTube and Instagram behaves oddly, for example sound only in YouTube and what appears to be a super-accelerated version of the video in Instagram. This occurs in all browsers I've tried, Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Opera. Clearing the cache and cookies doesn't make any difference. Restarting the MBP temporarily makes the problem go away, clearing the PRAM/NVRAM doesn't make any difference other than a restart is involved. It appears to be 100% an operating system problem and it has got worse after the latest Big Sur update to 11.2.3 There was a time when I rarely had to restart the MBP now I do it a number of times a day to clear this problem.

 

[Jon_G]

I'm having a video stutter issue in Big Sur on my early 2015 Macbook Pro. Happens in Safari mostly, but also in Chrome. Basically, the audio plays, but the picture stutters.

In Safari, it happens with videos embedded in Twitter. Also in videos at YouTube.com. Also in movies on Netflix.

In Chrome, I am able to watch Netflix. YouTube videos also seem to play okay. But videos embedded in Twitter don't play.

For the life of me, I can't figure out the pattern here.

Tried Apple chat support, but they didn't have an obvious solution, and I didn't have the time to stay online with them to try everything they wanted. May have to circle back to that when I have hours to devote to this.

Anyway see this issue?

I had the same problem with Youtube videos freezing or stuttering on my Macbook Pro Retina early 2015 running Big Sur. I tried all the solutions that were suggested and eventually tried a solution that actually worked. Worth a try, especially as it's free. Download and install OnyX for Mac, from Titanium Software. Then run it. I don't know which of its various utilities did the trick but now my videos seem to run smoothly.

 

[TatianaRacheva]

I signed up just to say that I experienced this problem, too, but I was able to solve it by clearing PRAM/NVRAM.

Reset NVRAM on your Mac – Apple Support (UK)

If one or more settings stored in NVRAM aren't working as expected on an Intel-based Mac, resetting NVRAM may help.

support.apple.com

My system: MacBook Pro 13" Early 2015; Core i5 2.7 GHz, MacOS Big Sur 11.0.1

Problem: Stuttering gif and video playback on all websites. Issue present in Chrome (87.0.4280.67), Safari (14.0.1), Firefox (83.0 (64-bit))

Solution (for me at least): Clear PRAM/NVRAM

This also solved the problem for me. I want to say that not all videos had this issue. Not even all YouTube videos did, but the ones that did would not play properly in any browser. I also had the same issue playing an mp4 in QuickTime Player. Once I reset the PRAM/NVRAM, the issue went away everywhere.

Thank you for the suggestion! I don't know why I didn't think of it, it's something I've had to do in the past.

This is a 2017 13'' MacBook Air, by the way.

 

[DangerousPigeon]

I signed up to say that I experienced this problem, too, but I was able to solve it by clearing PRAM/NVRAM.

Reset NVRAM on your Mac – Apple Support (UK)

If one or more settings stored in NVRAM aren't working as expected on an Intel-based Mac, resetting NVRAM may help.

support.apple.com

My system: MacBook Pro 13" Early 2015; Core i5 2.7 GHz, MacOS Big Sur 11.0.1

Problem: Stuttering gif and video playback on all websites. Issue present in Chrome (87.0.4280.67), Safari (14.0.1), Firefox (83.0 (64-bit))

Solution (for me at least): Clear PRAM/NVRAM

That worked for me too!
I've got MacBook air 2017 and problem occurs on both MacOS BigSur and even after upgrading to Monterey. It happened only on Safari (not on Chrome) but with every single video, even with gifs. I tried method with experimental preferences but it didn't worked. After clearing PRAM/NVRAM videos everything works perfect.

 

[danqi]

I still have the problem with youtube videos stuttering in Safari (video only, audio is fine) every 10 seconds or so. None of the tips in this thread have helped.

I'm on a M1 Max Studio.

Any ideas?