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SteveW25561 Author

Level 1

50 points

Choppy Youtube and flash video

I've been plagued by choppy flash video playback on my MacPro in all Mac browsers (Firefox 3, Safari). I have the latest released Flashplayer v 9, and its a MacPro, so its not underpowered.

Youtube videos but other flash videos consistently hiccup, a few frames freeze but the audio goes on. It makes watching action, sports or music videos unbearable.

I can rule out the cable provider, the router, the network or the specs of the MacPro with one solid piece of evidence: on my MacPro with the stuttering youtube video, playing the same video in a Parallels Windows XP virtual machine using Firefox 3 or IE is smooth and free of hiccups.

Clearly if an emulated/virtual machine can play smoothly, then the problem MUST be in a configuration within the host Mac Pro!

I've uninstalled flip4mac and Perian. Any other suggestions?

System: MacPro, 5 G RAM, 2x2.66 Xenons, Leopard 10.5.3, highspeed cable connection (speedtest.net 5815 kb/s download, 984 kb/s upload).

MacPro, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Aug 16, 2008 12:27 AM

107 replies

Feb 1, 2009 3:12 PM in response to Topher Kessler

P.S.

Also this problem is not limited to Safari. All browsers suffer this problem.

Feb 1, 2009 8:45 PM in response to Scott Robinson3

Yeah. Sometimes there's a loading skip if the connection is bad, but it will play smoothly for all video.

ren*

Level 1

8 points

Feb 2, 2009 10:45 PM in response to SteveW25561

Flash Player 10 solved this issue for me. Guess I was still on Flash 9!

padre999

Level 1

0 points

Feb 5, 2009 10:43 AM in response to SteveW25561

Same thing here with 10.5.6 on Intel MBP. It doesn't matter which browser I use.

Updated to the newest Flash Player from v9. Still the same problem. Uninstalled Flash Player using the official uninstaller (ridicuolus piece of software, searches the hole drive at 50% CPU, asks you twice for your password) and reinstalled. Nothing. Still choppy playback.

Every 2-3 seconds the picture and playhead freezes for up to 2 seconds while the sound keeps playing. It is no bandwith issue, happens also with fully downloaded videos. Extremely annoying, it is NO fun watching videos like that.

Alerus

Level 1

0 points

Feb 10, 2009 5:47 PM in response to SteveW25561

I have the same problem MBP Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33Ghz 3Gigs of RAM. Youtube actually runs pretty fine, but Hulu runs very choppy a good chunk of the time. Worse in full screen. My CPU utilization when playing Hulu is close to 100%. Doesn't matter what browser.

The irritating thing is my g/f less powerful Macbook seems to run it all just fine (even when on the same network). I've tried a number of things, and nothing seems to solve this issue.

padre999

Level 1

0 points

Feb 13, 2009 5:29 AM in response to padre999

I have the suspicion that it has to do with my external sound card, a Tascam US-122L. When I unplug it the videos do play smoother. Still they are choppy with the usual hickups, but not as severe.

Feb 17, 2009 8:52 AM in response to padre999

Second that. I use the Tascam, too. I just tried to play a video while the thing is unplugged and boom - flash works again! I need the Tascam but at least I now know the source of the problem.

Feb 17, 2009 5:15 PM in response to Alerus

Regarding the choppy video issue, I think I may have a potential solution for many experiencing the problem with Flash Player 10. As counter-intuitive as this may sound I disabled hardware acceleration within the flash player options. (right click on the player itself) and the problem completely went away. I'm a recent convert to Mac (greatest decision ever) so on occasion I still think like a Windows user in that I will try to adjust the available parameters in ways that would be exactly opposite to what reason and logic would dictate. In this case it would appear to have worked. Hopefully this suggest will solve the problem for some of you as well.

Feb 17, 2009 10:25 PM in response to SteveW25561

Using 10.5 and Firefox 3.0.6, I found disabling the DownloadHelper extension helped.

Feb 18, 2009 8:12 AM in response to Noise is My Life

Thanks for the tip. I tried it ..and it did help a little .. but I'm still experiencing extreme choppiness .. no matter if I use Safari or Firefox.

The search for truth continues ...

Noise is My Life wrote:
... As counter-intuitive as this may sound I disabled hardware acceleration within the flash player options. (right click on the player itself) and the problem completely went away...

jayhawk

Level 1

58 points

Feb 24, 2009 6:03 AM in response to SteveW25561

yeah, i have a Mac Pro Dual Quad Core with 4 GB of RAM and i cannot watch a YouTube video without it pausing for a second or 2 about every 15 seconds. the audio continues, but the video just freezes and then jumps to catch up. crummy stuff. about:plugins results --

Shockwave Flash

File name: Flash Player.plugin
Shockwave Flash 10.0 r12

MIME Type Description Suffixes Enabled
application/x-shockwave-flash Shockwave Flash swf Yes
application/futuresplash FutureSplash Player spl Yes
----

Alerus

Level 1

0 points

Feb 24, 2009 9:11 PM in response to Noise is My Life

Definitely a suggestion worth trying, but unfortunately it did not resolve my issues. Thanks though.

Feb 25, 2009 9:19 AM in response to jayhawk

The first post was Aug 16, 2008, anyone find a solution to this annoying problem yet? I tried the suggested, turn off, turn on hardware acceleration.. don't work for me... Updated to Flash 10 nope, same problem..

Feb 25, 2009 9:30 AM in response to 72chevelle454

The more I focus on this issue, the more I think it's an Adobe problem with the Flash plug-in specifically. It seems to chew up a TON of CPU activity - driving usage up to 99%+ just about every time I attempt to view a Flash-based video - and many sites with simple flash-based animations .. no matter if I use Safari or Firefox.

I tried making this case via various Adobe forums - always falls on deaf ears. Could be part of the Adobe/Apple wars - with us users as casualties.

Oh, BTW, it seems to be even worse with the Safari 4 beta.

72chevelle454 wrote:
The first post was Aug 16, 2008, anyone find a solution to this annoying problem yet? I tried the suggested, turn off, turn on hardware acceleration.. don't work for me... Updated to Flash 10 nope, same problem..

Feb 26, 2009 4:33 AM in response to SteveW25561

I just installed the Flash 10.0.22.87 update released yesterday .. and while it's is still a total CPU pig, I'm noticing much smoother playback ..

What I did was first use the Flash Uninstaller ...

http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/uninstallflash_playerosx.dmg

... to totally remove the old plug-in then ran the new installer - http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer .

Anyone else get similar results?

-fQ-

Choppy Youtube and flash video