Hitching/freezing/frame drops every few minutes in recent Giant Bomb videos

I've been noticing in the last few Quick Looks and other videos from Giant Bomb, that every few minutes the video will freeze for about 2 seconds and resume, while the audio remains smooth. The frames get dropped, so the video and audio stay in sync.

I've tried watching on YouTube and the videos freeze and hitch in exactly the same places, so I don't think it's on my end.

Is this happening for anyone else?

Edit: For example, the Need for Speed: Payback Quick Look has noticeable frame drops at 26:17 and 37:16

There were also numerous freezes in the Xbox One X Vapor Stream video.

I would chalk it up to the games themselves, but it's too much of a coincidence for a lot of the games to have this, and the GB staff would have commented on noticeable hitching.

I think the videos with this issue are all coming out of GB West, but to be honest I've been watching mostly GBW videos in the last 2 weeks.

Additional Edit:

I've found the frame drops occurring in a non-gameplay video. For the latest Bombcast video, there's the same hitching at 3:18, 12:27 and sporadically throughout the rest of the video:

@lincoln: I think my Chrome has been up-to-date for a while now. When there's an update, the three dots in the upper right for Chrome options turns into a green arrow indicating there's an update. And restarting Chrome applies the update.

I'm still noticing the occasional frame drops in some videos.

Frame drops in the same spot you posted in that video for me. I have noticed this recently too, I believe it happened in the latest live streams as well.

Edit: I am on firefox at the moment but it's happened on the android app and chrome as well.

Hmm, let me see what Jason knows about this.

I'd just like to confirm about 1-sec hitches at exactly these spots. Opera and Opera Neon.

Thanks for the heads-up. I think I tracked this down to a specific hardware encoder - one that we usually use for the podcast videos. Very rarely for studio stuff, EXCEPT for the NFS QL. I'll start wrangling that encoder to see what's up.

Have you guys noticed this type of hitching in any other QLs or in-studio content (anything besides podcast studio)? If so, drop me a timecode.

@unastrike: You're right that it only seems to be an issue in the NFS QL and Bombcast videos, and very rarely in other videos.

As of lately, I'm only noticing it in the archived videos of the Bombcast. The latest Bombcast has consistent hitching every few minutes similar to last week's:

Have been experiencing the same thing but wondered if was just me. On tonight's UPF, I saw two or three people complaining about the situation though. As far as I can tell, it was particularly bad this time around.

I noticed this as well in the Bombcast quoted above. Good to know it isn't just me.

Experienced this quite frequently in the live stream of the latest UPF, though rewatching the first 15 minutes of the uploaded archive and it doesn't seem to be present, thought it may just be me but I remember seeing someone else mention it in chat.

Same, see here at around 2:00. Present on both YouTube/site player on OSX Firefox, and also iPhone Safari.