Why can't I watch Hulu?

Few questions first:

1) What's the processor speed of your iBook?
2) How much RAM installed?
3) What size is the hard drive & how much space is free?
4) How old is the computer?

Unfortunately for the iBooks, video streaming sites are getting more resource-intensive--requiring faster CPUs, mainly.

For reference, I have an iBook G4, 1.07GHz processor, 768 MB RAM and a 4-year-old hard drive that's 30GB in size with about 7 GB free. I can watch YouTube videos (in standard definition) without issues. I've watched videos on Megavideo.com and veoh.com and both picture and video are just a little too slow to be completely smooth. It's tolerable, though. If you'd like, I could test Hulu on my computer.

Also, consider trying another web browser. I like to use Camino for watching videos because it's not quite as much of a resource hog as Firefox can be.

~Lyssa

Cocomotion, Welcome to the discussion area!

Perhaps it is the fault of the video you are trying to watch. If you post links to those videos maybe others can try them.

Duane wrote:
Cocomotion, Welcome to the discussion area!

Perhaps it is the fault of the video you are trying to watch. If you post links to those videos maybe others can try them.

I don't believe that any iBook vintage can adequately process much of the stuff on Hulu. I tried looking at the latest Mad Men full episode on my 14" iBook G4 1.43, and it got tremendously choppy. I'd guess that it was just showing one frame per second. I'm already maxed out for memory at 1.5 GB.

It's just not going to happen. These types of embedded video need a lot more processing power than an iBook is capable of. That was a primary reason for Apple going to Intel. They had a practical portable platform that was considerably more powerful than the PowerPC G4. I heard that the PowerPC G5 was also never going to be a viable portable processor because they just couldn't get the power consumption and heat down.

As the say, I think your mileage may vary...

I visited Hulu and played the Mad Men "Out of Town" episode full screen on my iBook G4 (1.5GB RAM) and my iMac Intel 2.4 GHz C2D (4GB RAM).

Both were connected via Ethernet to my FiOS connection.

Both playbacks were very good and exactly alike.

This one is simple:

Flash10 and PPC macs do not get along. I've been rattling the boards at hulu but they are unresponsive on the issue. If you're running 10.4, you can downgrade the flash player by uninstalling it (you'll need this: http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/ts/uninstallflash_player_osx10.2.dmg ), and then installing Flash9 ( http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html ) .

users running 10.5 or higher are force upgraded to Flash10, and if they're using a PPC chip, Hulu renders like a slideshow.

As I said above, I have no problem watching Hulu on my iBook G4 running OS 10.5.

So obviously your mileage may vary.

Has anyone with an Intel-based Mac been having this problem?

I too am having the same problem on a G4 1.5GHz Power PC. It definitely appears to be a hardware issue (connection is fine, I have tried all of the software troubleshooting suggestions). It's very frustrating, as I can watch the videos on a friend's PC (which happens to be a little older) with absolutely no difficulty, and for shorter YouTube clips I have even resorted to watching them on my iPhone.

I had recently been thinking about upgrading to a newer laptop, but since I have become quite fond of watching video online, I am hesitating. If I knew definitively that this was only a Power PC problem, then upgrading to an Intel Mac would solve it. If Intel Macs also have this problem, then maybe I should consider a different platform? I would hate to think that ...

Jennifer:

In the future, please start a new topic for your own questions 🙂

As far as I know, the Intel Macs do not have this problem. My late-2007 MacBook can playback the videos smoothly.

~Lyssa