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late 2013 13" mbp video stream exessive battery usage

L

lopexo

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 18, 2009
37
0
Sacramento, CA
Been reading all these reviews of how awesome the battery life is on the new 13" mbp and how it has exceeded expectation when playing videos.

I just played a 1 hour show on hulu via Chrome and it drained the battery all the way to 51% from 100% (no other programs running)

Energy impact on Chrome was at 56.11

Has anyone else experience this type of battery usage?
 
"When playing videos" generally means a file you already have saved to your computer in either QuickTime or iTunes. Both of these apps have been optimized for battery life, and you aren't constantly using your internet connection while playing them back.

You're using Chrome (a well-documented battery hog), Flash (a well-documented battery hog), and using an active web connection the whole time to get the data. Your results, while they seem poor to you, actually sound fairly typical for what you should expect under those circumstances. For comparison, an hour of streaming Flash video on my old laptop (2008 MB) would kill the battery completely in about 45-60 minutes.
 
seinman said:
"When playing videos" generally means a file you already have saved to your computer in either QuickTime or iTunes. Both of these apps have been optimized for battery life, and you aren't constantly using your internet connection while playing them back.

You're using Chrome (a well-documented battery hog), Flash (a well-documented battery hog), and using an active web connection the whole time to get the data. Your results, while they seem poor to you, actually sound fairly typical for what you should expect under those circumstances. For comparison, an hour of streaming Flash video on my old laptop (2008 MB) would kill the battery completely in about 45-60 minutes.
Click to expand...

Amen. When people say you can get 10 hours watching video, they mean a locally stored HD file. Not Flash, which is known as being an extreme battery hogger. And certainly not in Chrome.
 
lopexo said:
I just played a 1 hour show on hulu via Chrome and it drained the battery all the way to 51% from 100%
Click to expand...

I saw the same kind of battery usage on my 2013 rMBP watching Netflix streams over WiFi for a couple of hours. Good to know this is not unusual.
 
tugger said:
I saw the same kind of battery usage on my 2013 rMBP watching Netflix streams over WiFi for a couple of hours. Good to know this is not unusual.
Click to expand...

Not unusual at all. Someone has to have the wildest of expectations to think they could get the estimated 9-11 hours of video watching over WiFi. That said, I do wonder how iTunes streaming compares to something like Netflix.
 
I was just in a meeting with my laptop and an hour later, the battery had drained to 80%. Was not playing any games, but had parallels running with MS Word, 2 Firefox windows with about 20 tabs open(combined), Mail, Automater, and Pages running. Activity monitor showed the average energy impact was highest with FF.

I feel I should not be concerned because this sounds like a case of I drive my porsche at 120mph and I run out of gas too quickly. Had this been my Dell, I would have maybe 30-60mins of battery life left. And that would have been with the screen on dim mode and the battery deciding to commit hari kari when it felt like. At least, I knew I had about 3-4 hours of battery life left.
 
Makes total sense. So in reality, the "real use" battery life is about 2 hours in my case. This is my first laptop, so given the claims, I was simply expecting a bit more duration.
 
lopexo said:
Makes total sense. So in reality, the "real use" battery life is about 2 hours in my case. This is my first laptop, so given the claims, I was simply expecting a bit more duration.
Click to expand...

Yup. But the tests on video playback aren't lying. You can get 9-11 hours by playing a locally stored HD file. This is how it has always been. They don't test using battery-hog resources (like Chrome and Flash) and an active web connection.
 
PDFierro said:
Yup. But the tests on video playback aren't lying. You can get 9-11 hours by playing a locally stored HD file. This is how it has always been. They don't test using battery-hog resources (like Chrome and Flash) and an active web connection.
Click to expand...

thats ridiculous, who downloads anything locally these days??
 
thatsmega.net said:
Err yes, most online video is flash based, apple need to face it
Click to expand...

Some is indeed flash based but the first thing I do is install clicktoplugin so I can get the battery life I expected. I watch some youtube videos in html5 and browse, email and my MBPr exceeds the battery claims.

I believe the reason for the battery claims regarding video is for travel. Can you get on a plane cross country and watch videos and will your laptop die? You aren't streaming in that situation. I keep movies on my HD all the time.
 
channelinspire said:
Some is indeed flash based but the first thing I do is install clicktoplugin so I can get the battery life I expected. I watch some youtube videos in html5 and browse, email and my MBPr exceeds the battery claims.

I believe the reason for the battery claims regarding video is for travel. Can you get on a plane cross country and watch videos and will your laptop die? You aren't streaming in that situation. I keep movies on my HD all the time.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Nobody expects it to last 9 hours streaming Flash or watching Netflix. That'd be ridiculous. I guess some people just don't understand this. When video playback battery tests are reported, it is always by watching a local file in iTunes or something.
 
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