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Level 1

1 points

YouTube Fullscreen Choppy Playback with mid 2011 iMac

Hello,

I have a BTO 27" iMac with 3.4 GHz i7 and the 6970M 2GB graphics card. Everything else is stock. The problem I'm having is that with every YouTube video at any quality (240p, 360p, 480p, 720p, 1080p) played in fullscreen, the playback is choppy. It's not my internet connection because I've even let the video load completely. Also when I exit fullscreen, it's perfectly smooth. This is very surprising to me. However, with Vimeo and other flash videos at fullscreen the playback is nice and smooth. Has anyone else experienced this? What do you recommend? In the mean time I've been doing the scroll to zoom to fullscreen videos.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7), Mid 2011, 3.4 GHz i7, 6790m 2GB

Posted on May 26, 2011 1:15 PM

51 replies

EeZeEpEe Author

Level 1

1 points

Nov 27, 2011 10:34 PM in response to Knightslugger

Is this happening when you are trying to play the videos with the HTML5 player? You can tell if it's that player if you have the option to change the speed from normal to slower or faster. If so I noticed those videos stutter until you click on "Normal". You don't even have to change the speed. It just ends up playing smoother.

Well to be sure it's Flash or not, try creating a new account on your computer. It can even be a new guest account. Try playing a YouTube video in fullscreen with that account. If it's nice and smooth (Which is what happened for me and another person) than it is the Flash files associated with the account that doesn't play smoothly.

Nov 28, 2011 9:34 AM in response to David M Brewer

This is good advice, as is using the uninstaller. However these steps did not work for me. I found there were a few files left behind after using the uninstaller (probably from an older version of flash?). I found that I had no issues when I used a guest account. I think I used spotlight to find abode, flash and macromedia related files. Also a permissions repair might be required

Nov 28, 2011 5:55 PM in response to EeZeEpEe

Making a new account did solve the issue of choppy playback for one wake cycle.

I made the new account last night, was woking great, i put the computer to sleep, went to bed, did my 9-5 thing, came back, woke the computer up and BAM, right back to choppy playback.

so THAT doesn't work...

Nov 28, 2011 10:37 PM in response to Knightslugger

Do a SMU reset, see if that changes anything

Nov 28, 2011 11:30 PM in response to pondchadwick

You Mean SMC Reset... right? for iMac, that entails a shut down, unplug (30 sec), replug (15 sec), and restart. i will try in the AM.

Nov 28, 2011 11:52 PM in response to Knightslugger

Your right it's called SMC now, but same thing. I believe you unplug the power cord for 15 seconds, plug it back, wait 5 seconds, power on.

Dec 1, 2011 4:29 PM in response to pondchadwick

Did it, and once again, a sleep/wake cycle went right back to choppy playback.

I'm also noticing it is also effecting SilverLight videos, and i think it has something to do with the video card performance because if i adjust the volume, the icon that pops up fades choppy as well...

not showing excessive memory usage or processor load either...

Dec 1, 2011 11:54 PM in response to Knightslugger

If you have the Snow leopard disk 2, you might want to run the apple hardware test. Also you could install the istat dashboard widget, it may show if the fans/temps are different after waking from sleep.

Jan 2, 2012 3:25 AM in response to pondchadwick

I have experienced a similar issue, the temporary fix I have is to keep the 'About this Mac' window open and in full screen it runs like a dream....Without the 'About this Mac' window open i get a distorted choppy screen...

AB.

Jan 6, 2012 12:15 PM in response to EeZeEpEe

I have the same problem to. Youtube and flash videos are choppy and I don't know what should I do. It is really annoying. I tried several browser but nothing changed avery browser is choppy. :S I disabled the hardware acceleration on youtube, does anybody have any experience with this option? Work or not? I don't know what would be the best soultion and when???

VWOttawa

Level 1

0 points

Jan 8, 2012 8:00 PM in response to bence2005

I also have the same problem, and it's not just YouTube, I tried a live streaming video from a different website and it was also choppy at full screen. I also experience the temp fix for one cycle.

Aidar

Level 1

31 points

May 31, 2012 10:40 AM in response to VWOttawa

Adobe confirmed that latest Flash Player 11.2 for Mac OS X may indeed suffer from choppy video playback, bug #3200752: “We’ve been able to reproduce this internally, and while it might not make our next release (due out in just a few weeks) we will investigate this for a future build. I’d like to recommend letting other user’s know about this issue and have them vote and comment so that we can adjust and prioritize accordingly.” More details: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3992986.

HTH