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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

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107 replies

Aug 16, 2008 1:01 AM in response to SteveW25561

A couple of things to try.


when the movie loads up pause the playback until the entire movie has buffered into your browser. If it then plays back ok then the issue is that the movie is downloading slower than the speed of the playback. This could be an issue with your isp or youtubes serves.

If the movie is still jerky once fully bufferred then the issue could be with flash plugin your browser is using.

An updated version of the flashplayer was released the other day so try installing that.

adobe flash player 10.0.2.26

Sep 16, 2008 3:06 PM in response to Tim Haigh

I have this same problem. I have paused the video until it fully loads, I have updated to the very latest Flash player (10,0,2,26). I still get the choppy video while the audio continues. The CPU is at < 50%, I have free RAM and no disk activity. This happens to me on any site that uses Flash Video (YouTube, Vimeo, CollegeHumor, etc.). It is extremely annoying. I have now updated to OS X 10.5.5 and the problem still occurs.

Sep 16, 2008 3:28 PM in response to SteveW25561

On Mac OS X there has (as far as I know) always been a small reoccurring hiccup (every 30 seconds or so) in Flash movies if played while the movie is loading (at least for the videos on YouTube).

Haven't tried with the just released Flash 10 player, though.

Anyway, I guess you're having other issues since it is choppy even after the movie has been fully loaded (I'm on a MacBook Pro and the videos usually run fine if I let them load before playing).

Sep 19, 2008 3:54 AM in response to mcamou

Just out of curiosity, what machine are you using?

I'm also having this problem on my Macbook Pro (model 4.1), both before and after updating to OS X 10.5.5. Usually about every 30 seconds or so the video gets stuck for just a second, while the audio continues to run. The picture then jumps ahead to catch up with the audio. Kind of annoying.

Happens even if the video is fully loaded. Occurs with YouTube and Veoh, using either Firefox or Safari. I updated Flash to the most recent version (as of Sept. 7th), and that didn't help much either.

I don't think I had this issue when I first bought the computer... I only really noticed it several weeks ago. Wish I could remember if I installed any new programs around that time. I don't seem to have this issue when running XP via Bootcamp, so I'm assuming it's not hardware-related.

How do I uninstall the Flash plugin? I'm thinking about trying to remove Flash completely before reinstalling to see if that makes a difference (I doubt it will, but I'll try anything...)

Oct 10, 2008 2:25 PM in response to Derek Cronk

Yep, I'm also having the same issues. I'm pretty sure it's only a recent thing too. Really annoying.

Macbook Pro 2.4 with 4GB RAM.

Also, when vertically scrolling in Safari, it keeps stuttering for a sec when it's scrolling into a part of the page it hasn't previously displayed. And also, even when I'm typing this, the display keeps freezing and then catching up again every few seconds. Really annoying. I think it's some sort of display problem with Safari. Maybe related to the video issue too...

Oct 28, 2008 1:18 PM in response to SteveW25561

I have been having the same problems as well, across both firefox and safari; all flash videos, not just limited to youtube (facebook video, streaming tv) seem to skip frames. I have tried updating to flash 10, but the problem still persists.

The last major software update I have made would be the Java update 2, and ever since I have been having this problem. Would that have anything to do with the cause of the problem?

Choppy Youtube and flash video

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