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YouTube HD choppy/laggy

andkoreandkore Registered User regular
edited April 2010 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
When I try to watch videos in HD on YouTube, they're choppy and laggy, and my CPU utilization is around 90%. However, HD videos on Vimeo run perfectly (at 70% CPU) and if I download a HD YouTube video and watch it with Media Player Classic, it works fine and the CPU util. is around 50%. Any clue as to what could be wrong?

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
-Groucho Marx
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Posts

  • Macro9Macro9 Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    I have the same problem. I find that if I pause it and let the video buffer completely it goes away.

    Macro9 on
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  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    You can try adding "&fmt=22" to the end of the URL of HD videos - I've had HD youtubes play choppily, i think someone told me it was because of youtube strangling the bandwidth allowance or something. Adding "&fmt=22" to the URL forces youtube to play it at 22fps, and it should be smoother (assuming the buffer isn't what's causing you trouble - when it was doing it to me the video had buffed completely and was still choppy).

    KalTorak on
  • contrabandcontraband Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    try resuming the video in HD from the very beginning. if i'm watching something and switch to HD, it almost always glitches somehow. if i put the slider at the front and let it start from the beginning, it's usually fine.

    contraband on
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  • andkoreandkore Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    Thanks... I tried all of your suggestions but none of them helped... This must be a pretty isolated case. I couldn't find anything on the Internet besides what you guys said. Oh well.

    andkore on
    Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
    -Groucho Marx
  • RandomEngyRandomEngy Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    Your problem is that Flash video is garbage. Your CPU will spend some time decoding the H.264 video stream, and that should be constant across sites. However since Flash is crap on a plate, it uses the CPU to render to the screen rather than the GPU. This means the more space a video takes up on the screen, the higher the CPU requirements, on top of the H.264 decoding requirements. By default, Youtube has a bigger display area than Vimeo, therefore you're going to hit your CPU bottleneck and start dropping frames. On top of looking like pixellated ass.

    It plays fine when you download it because your media player uses the GPU to render video like a sane program, meaning it incurs no CPU penalty, so no dropped frames.

    This post has been brought to you by the RandomEngy Hates Flash Video Foundation.

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  • andkoreandkore Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    That would explain perfectly why Vimeo's CPU util. is between the CPU util. of my media player and YouTube. Thanks a ton RandomEngy, that was really informative. So hopefully when I build my new computer soon the processor will be able to handle the HD vids. The only question I still have is why I seem to be the only one having this problem. I mean I know that my processor is old, but it shouldn't be so old that nobody else bothers trying to figure this out...

    andkore on
    Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
    -Groucho Marx
  • RandomEngyRandomEngy Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    This happens to everyone. I myself have spent much time pondering why so few people care that the defacto standard for video on the internet is so awful.

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  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator, Administrator admin
    edited March 2009
    RandomEngy wrote: »
    This happens to everyone. I myself have spent much time pondering why so few people care that the defacto standard for video on the internet is so awful.

    Mac people care a lot about it, because Flash is even more poop on OS X. Really, why does a shitty low-res Flash movie chew more CPU than watching a 1080p movie?

    Echo on
  • RandomEngyRandomEngy Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    Yeah when I saw the benchmarks on that I could hardly believe it.

    Someone needs to make a real silverlight video sharing site.

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  • LordOfMeepLordOfMeep Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    RandomEngy wrote: »
    Yeah when I saw the benchmarks on that I could hardly believe it.

    Someone needs to make a real silverlight video sharing site.

    Stage6 was pretty good (It was DivX based), but they didn't have Google $$$ like YouTube and their videos were ALL high-quality and 640x480 at the least so they crashed and burned. Still, while it was around it made a great host for video Let's Plays.

    LordOfMeep on
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  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator, Administrator admin
    edited March 2009
    Yeah, Stage6 was great. Vimeo is good too, but they were all "fuck no, no video game movies!" and deleted all that stuff.

    Echo on
  • SatsumomoSatsumomo Rated PG! Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    A friend of mine switched his P4 2.2Ghz for a 3.0 Ghz P4 with Hyper-threading and the choppiness of 720p videos in Youtube disappeared.

    Satsumomo on
  • CronusCronus Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    Satsumomo wrote: »
    A friend of mine switched his P4 2.2Ghz for a 3.0 Ghz P4 with Hyper-threading and the choppiness of 720p videos in Youtube disappeared.

    It's just sad that it takes that kind of change to make Youtube. "I got a CPU! I can now play Crysis on high or watch 720p Youtube videos!"

    Cronus on
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    "Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
  • Sean9895Sean9895 Registered User new member
    edited April 2010
    I need help . i have put toogeather an old pc for a friend. Amd 2500+ Ati Redeon 9600gt 128mb. the youtube videos are laggy in 1080p and 720p. At times in 720p it is unlaggy. It is unwatchable. my brother has a old laptop that is about 6 years old, Latitude D500 which has can play 720p and 1080p youtube and bbciplayer hd with no lagg at all. Plz Help me!

    Sean9895 on
  • ben0207ben0207 Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Cool font bro.

    ben0207 on
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