Video Playing Problem- Technology Question

[Erts]

I'm having an unusual problem with my Quicktime files. See, I just bought Breaking Bad from iTunes (my first video player from the program), but when I play it, after a minute or so, the video's audio is around a second ahead of the visuals. It gets worse and worse. I fix it by pausing and unpausing, but it is really annoying.
I tried to download VLC off of the recommendation of a friend, but it won't play them either. I press open file, go to Breaking Bad, but it won't play either.
I just want to enjoy these shows I've bought... Does anyone have any advice?

[Jimorian]

Are you on a Mac or in Windows? My first guess is it's possibly a corrupted file, so if they have an option to re-download stuff you've bought, try that first. It might not be playing in VLC because of copyright protection, which only quicktime has the codes for coming from the iTunes store. You might also try real-player just to see if that works.

An advanced option assuming copy protection isn't involved would be to put it through some kind of video converter to see if a different format might work better for sync. The advanced advanced advanced option would be to put it through video editing software and re-syncing it all in there and then spitting out a new file.

[Phishfood]

I've seen this before.

Jimor covered all the file angles, but it could be graphics drivers.

try updating the graphics drivers and making sure nothing is running in the background. Especially if this is an old PC the load of decrypting and playing a HD video on the fly may be too much.

<edit>
Another thought - have you downloaded any of those awful awful codec packs? they tend to make a right hash of everything.