Hi James,
...since you've tried these things and they don't help, I'm inclined to believe there's something special about this clip: is it an edited clip from a longer sequence? I ask this because it could be that the last frame is somehow doubled/repeated, but there may be a loop point which quicktime player sees and obeys, but gem simply ignores...
It's not one clip, all clips [quicktime/photo-jpg codec] don't play properly. As I wrote before, Gem is able to play the 'loop' while in [auto $1 (lft inlet of pix_film] mode, but its playback stutters. Using the left inlet of pix_film gives me a smooth playback but a stuttering last frame.
...my experience with pdp_qt has been spotty on osx, mainly being a matter of finding a codec that actually gets recognized correctly...it's been awhile since I really played with it, but I seem to remember either cinepak or sorenson consistently doing pretty well...?
It has been a while for me too. But I believe that the codec quicktime/photojpg was recommended.
S
james