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Choppy HD video on 15" Unibody MBP

M

mbp-abby

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 16, 2009
15
0
Leeds, UK
Hi, I tried yesterday to run some HD videos off youtube. The SD versions of the videos run fine but the HD versions are slightly choppy. You can see it freeze for a moment after every 2-4 seconds. At first I thought it could be my internet connection that could be causing the problem (although unlikely on a 20 Mbps line.) So I waited for the full video to load before playing it. Same results. I then switched the power saving option to high performance, to select the 9600 graphics card, and the same thing happened. Only this time, my system ran a little hotter than previous, but the video was still choppy. Tried it on at least 5 different HD videos and got the same result.

Anybody know what could be going on here or facing the same problems? If anyone is interested, I tried running the HD trailers for movies like Transformers 2, Terminator 4, XMen 4 etc. (movie names abbreviated ....)

(MBP Details are in my signature)
 
yeah if my mac mini can run iTunes, Safari, iChat, iPhoto and play 1080p HD Movies on quicktime (regardless that it's at 130% processor usage or not)

your MBP should be able to handle it.

make sure you aren't running anything processor intensive, and that your computer hasn't been on sleep for more than a week.
 
I have no problem running HD videos off of youtube. and I'm just running with 9400m card.
 
Not sure if its a faulty graphics card. For one, it happens on both the 9400 and the 9600. Both chips faulty at once is a long shot. Plus, I downloaded 1080p HD videos from the apple site, and they play faultlessly in quicktime. The processor usage (for quicktime) hovers at about 35% when playing those. But with the one's in youtube, the processor usage (for firefox) jumps to 80-85% ... and i am sure its not pure 1080p video either.
 
It's YouTube and not your computer. Some might have success or whatever, but the way YouTube handles HD videos suck. Most of the time they run like s--- and I'm not sure if it's all YouTube or if you need to consider the source (but YouTube encodes it anyway before uploading?). Not really a problem, just let YouTube fix their HD playback.

If not YouTube, it's likely the drivers. Everything works fine on Intel GMA graphics because Intel provides excellent drivers for them. ATI does this as well. nVidia doesn't. Their drivers are ass. We're all waiting for new drivers for the 9400M/9600M GT.
 
A few days ago I was watching HD youtube and it was choppy as <swear word>, but earlier today it was working fine. CPU usage under 30%, and more then enough bandwidth. So it's youtube problems for sure.

And also... I've said this a few times before in other threads.. The better battery life vs. higher performance settings only switch graphics adapters. And therefore will make absolutely no performance difference (but will add 20 deg. C more heat), unless your software is GPU accelerated (e.g. Adobe CS4, games, etc...) And flash players aren't gpu accelerated of course...
 
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