A question about video streaming optimisation on a MacBook Air to reduce power consumption?

H.264 is a video codec; most everything you watch online or record in a videocam these days is encoded in H.264. It's fast & small & high quality. You cannot change the codec in a streaming video. That said, H264ify instructs YouTube to stream in H.264 instead of VP8/VP9; you are better off letting YouTube determine the codec it uses to stream any particular video; VP8/VP9 is lower bitrate video than most H.264.

AV3 hardware support, if it's built into the MBAir, is already in use; there is no way that I know of to turn it off or on.

Google Chrome is a known resource hog; if you are trying to squeeze every last bit of battery power out of your MBAir, get rid of Chrome & all its components. Use Firefox, Safari or other browser.

mrmagnetoman88 wrote:

So most videos are encoded by H.264 by default these days? Is it a more efficient form of encoding compared to VP8/VP9?

H.264 (actually H.264/MPEG4 AVC) is for all intents & purposes the "standard" video codec in use worldwide today. It is used by nearly all video producers & video cameras, is the codec used for BluRay & most streaming video services and it supports up to 8K video.

VP8/VP9 is an open source codec from Google, owner of YouTube. You can understand why YouTube uses it.

YouTube streams VP8/VP9 by default. But that can cause problems viewing because it is not hardware accelerated on the receiving end, whereas H.264 is because it is built into most GPUs, so it uses less CPU cycles and yields smoother video. That's why H264ify is useful.

As mentioned can not Compare Google Chrome to Safari for obvious reasons

It will not get near any of the 3 Machines I use and operate

To get a more realistic assessment of Google Chrome versus Safari by Apple

Open Activity Monitor >> View >> View ALL processes

Tab to Energy Tab

Run both Google Chrome and Apple Safari side by side on the Exact Same Website in both

If Google Chrome can do better than 0.6 Energy Impact

I will concede your point

mrmagnetoman88 wrote:

Thanks for your response, MartinR. So most videos are encoded by H.264 by default these days? Is it a more efficient form of encoding compared to VP8/VP9?

While Google Chrome has been notorious for being a resource hog, it's actually come a long way since early 2023 and is actually as energy efficient, or possible a little more energy efficient than Safari with Energy Saver mode turned on for Google Chrome.

Perhaps it is as you have mentioned by can not verify this

Reason, Google Chrome is not only a CPU / Memory Hog

It is also well know to Harvest ALL the Users Data which in turn is sold to the Highest Bidders

So in effect, those would use Google Chrome are giving up their Data, for Free, to Google

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/02/1248152695/google-doj-monopoly-trial-antitrust-closing-arguments#:~:text=Platt%2FGetty%20Images-,The%20Department%20of%20Justice%20and%20a%20group%20of%2035%20states,closing%20arguments%20are%20under%20way.&text=The%20landmark%20monopoly%20trial%20between,to%20a%20finale%20this%20week.

mrmagnetoman88 wrote:

If I may clarify a few more things, is H.264 hardware accelerated? Should I enable the h264ify extension?

You would have to dig into the specs for your MBAir.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about YouTube or h264ify. The M3 MBAir is rated for up to up to 15 hours wireless web & 18 hours Apple TV app movie playback. I understand your interest in maximizing battery runtime, but you can take things to extreme.

ALL things appear to not to be equal