Using MAX MSP to create a multiple video track proejct.

Hello folks!

First and foremost I'd like apologize if there is a similar question to the one/s I'm going to ask, but I'm quite new to MAX and most of things posted here is like a foreign language to me.

I'm working in a project group that are going to create a video that will have multiple video tracks to choose from at any given time. The goal is 4-5 different videos, that will work kind of like the DVD-disc's multi angle feature. I'm the one in the group who is responsible for the video footage, and some other people are working with the programming part. We have recently tried out some test footage on various computers. The problem is that the playback is quite laggy on old computers, and it even "stutters" a bit on newer laptops, and while I suspect it's because of 4 HD footage files playing simultaneously, I'm wondering if there's anything I can do on my part to make the footage more optimized for playback in MAX? E.g. what codec to use, and so on.

I am also wondering if it is possible to program the player to only play one video file at a time, and have the others paused in the background, while following the active video's timecode? Alternatively, if there's is any other option to make the playback more smooth.

I would very much appreciate some suggestions on this, and I would also be very grateful if you could try to keep it as simple as possible.

Thank you very much in advance!