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Powerbook G4 won't play youtube videos smoothly

zhivago1955

zhivago1955

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 11, 2012
33
1
Oregon
I'm newbie here, my powerbook G4 12" 1.33 GHz is in excellent condition (cosmetically) but won't play youtube video's smoothly. It appears the video's are choppy and delayed. Adobe's web site-via youtube suggests i need to update or use current Adobe's version and, or, add plugins. Yes,I have tried to update but... only get old versions of Adobe that are no loner available, I feel like I'm going around in circles. Any suggestions?
 
Playing Flash on an older G4 is almost impossible because it's no longer supported by Adobe. Websites require the latest version of Flash, so it leaves PPC users in the cold.

The easiest work around for Youtube is to use an app like Mactubes.

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/28608/mactubes

Install Mactubes, open the preferences, and change the player to either Quicktime or Video Player, not Flash. Then search Youtube right in Mactubes, you can even download videos by right clicking. If someone sends you a link to a Youtube video, just do a search for the video's title in Mactubes to watch it.
 
zhivago1955 said:
I'm newbie here, my powerbook G4 12" 1.33 GHz is in excellent condition (cosmetically) but won't play youtube video's smoothly. It appears the video's are choppy and delayed. Adobe's web site-via youtube suggests i need to update or use current Adobe's version and, or, add plugins. Yes,I have tried to update but... only get old versions of Adobe that are no loner available, I feel like I'm going around in circles. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

How much RAM do you have installed?

There's a thread here where a guy made a better Flash plugin for Mac PowerPC. I use it and youtube performs better. (320p)

Also, you can use Youview for Powerpc or mactubes.

The choice is yours,
 
Beating this dead horse

There are about a bajillion posts on this, but since I like typing and being helpful, I will hook you up.

One program will solve this "issue": Mactubes. It is a standalone app (make sure you get the latest version) that allows you, once you have set the player to quicktime, to play youtube videos outside of a browser, and without flash. Make sure you have Perian installed as well. As an added bonus, you can easily download the youtube videos with mactubes as well.

If you don't like mactubes for some reason, there is also Youview, its another standalone player that does the same thing, using ffmpeg instead of quicktime. Its free, but you have to pay the developer to be able to download though

If you must watch your youtube INSIDE the browser, well, I can help there too. Tenfourfox or Auroafox are you friends. You must have one of those. Download the Firefox Greasemonkey extension, then head over to userscripts.org. There you will search for, then install a greasemonkey script called "viewtube". This will replace flash with quicktime and you should be able to handle 360p video fine within the browser.

If you have Safari and Safariwebkit, then you can install the great click to plugin safari extension, which essentially does the same thing, replacing flash with quicktime. Apple optimized quicktime for h.264, so it does a better job than most at playing it back. Make sure you have the very latest quicktime available for PPC.

Sadly you are too late for the Coreplayer experience. Coreplayer was by far the best at playing back HD files on PPC macs, I could STREAM 720p from youtube on my 1.2 Ghz G4 ibook. Developers went under and Coreplayer is locked up forever, and you'll never get a copy, sorry.
 
zhivago1955 said:
I'm newbie here, my powerbook G4 12" 1.33 GHz is in excellent condition (cosmetically) but won't play youtube video's smoothly. It appears the video's are choppy and delayed. Adobe's web site-via youtube suggests i need to update or use current Adobe's version and, or, add plugins. Yes,I have tried to update but... only get old versions of Adobe that are no loner available, I feel like I'm going around in circles. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Forget what I said. Do what the other guy say about grease monkey add on
 
Your responses

THX to the following for your suggestions:
cocaolkid
rjcalifornia
imixmuan
starfighter
and
wobegong.

I will try all your suggestions...Will any Linux/Ubuntu apps work with mac?
 
Yeah, coreplayer is gone.. but..

Hi, you wrote:

"Sadly you are too late for the Coreplayer experience. Coreplayer was by far the best at playing back HD files on PPC macs, I could STREAM 720p from youtube on my 1.2 Ghz G4 ibook. Developers went under and Coreplayer is locked up forever, and you'll never get a copy, sorry."

What about movist, niceplayer, or even XBMC? Wouldn't mplayer x be just as good as Coreplayer? I always wanted coreplayer, but missed out on it. I can still view 720p and some 1080p on my PowerBook G4, but it requires me to watch them through XBMC or even mplayer x.

----------
Starfighter said:
The plugin rjcalifornia is talking about is here: http://www.steelbin.com/FPforFBPPC.zip
Click to expand...

I wonder if that guy will update flash for PowerPC as there is now version 11.6 I think. It shouldn't be too hard to do though with PowerPC anything is possible and with the right guy doing it. I believe his name on youtube is "1fatbastard" - sorry, but thats his name on youtube at least FPFPPC.ZIP points to the author as being 1fatbastard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCrAKhv3R_c
 
zhivago1955 said:
Grease monkey or mactubes?
Click to expand...

Neither, it's a plugin you place in a folder (instructions are in the downloadable file) to make your browser act as if you had a modern version of Flash and therefore get access to content that you usually would have trouble with. :)
 
PowerPCMacMan said:
Hi, you wrote:

"Sadly you are too late for the Coreplayer experience. Coreplayer was by far the best at playing back HD files on PPC macs, I could STREAM 720p from youtube on my 1.2 Ghz G4 ibook. Developers went under and Coreplayer is locked up forever, and you'll never get a copy, sorry."

What about movist, niceplayer, or even XBMC? Wouldn't mplayer x be just as good as Coreplayer? I always wanted coreplayer, but missed out on it. I can still view 720p and some 1080p on my PowerBook G4, but it requires me to watch them through XBMC or even mplayer x.

----------



I wonder if that guy will update flash for PowerPC as there is now version 11.6 I think. It shouldn't be too hard to do though with PowerPC anything is possible and with the right guy doing it. I believe his name on youtube is "1fatbastard" - sorry, but thats his name on youtube at least FPFPPC.ZIP points to the author as being 1fatbastard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCrAKhv3R_c
Click to expand...


I had to chuckle, that was funny...but i will search it out.
 
PowerPCMacMan said:
Hi, you wrote:

"Sadly you are too late for the Coreplayer experience. Coreplayer was by far the best at playing back HD files on PPC macs, I could STREAM 720p from youtube on my 1.2 Ghz G4 ibook. Developers went under and Coreplayer is locked up forever, and you'll never get a copy, sorry."

What about movist, niceplayer, or even XBMC? Wouldn't mplayer x be just as good as Coreplayer? I always wanted coreplayer, but missed out on it. I can still view 720p and some 1080p on my PowerBook G4, but it requires me to watch them through XBMC or even mplayer x.

----------



Nothing even remotely compares to Coreplayer on PPC. XBMC was a not so close second last time I tried it out, but on average Coreplayer is 40% more efficient than all others at playing the same file on PPC. So, a file that takes up 100% CPU cylces in say movist or mplayer X will only chew up 60%, and will thus play. On my ibook G4 that translated into 720p .mp4's taking 80-85% of CPU, and Mac OS X used up the rest. I can't have anything else open. Some claimed to be able to play 1080p with Coreplayer...maybe so on a fast G4 or G5, but not on a single processor.
Click to expand...
 
Imixmuan said:
PowerPCMacMan said:
Hi, you wrote:

"Sadly you are too late for the Coreplayer experience. Coreplayer was by far the best at playing back HD files on PPC macs, I could STREAM 720p from youtube on my 1.2 Ghz G4 ibook. Developers went under and Coreplayer is locked up forever, and you'll never get a copy, sorry."

What about movist, niceplayer, or even XBMC? Wouldn't mplayer x be just as good as Coreplayer? I always wanted coreplayer, but missed out on it. I can still view 720p and some 1080p on my PowerBook G4, but it requires me to watch them through XBMC or even mplayer x.

----------



Nothing even remotely compares to Coreplayer on PPC. XBMC was a not so close second last time I tried it out, but on average Coreplayer is 40% more efficient than all others at playing the same file on PPC. So, a file that takes up 100% CPU cylces in say movist or mplayer X will only chew up 60%, and will thus play. On my ibook G4 that translated into 720p .mp4's taking 80-85% of CPU, and Mac OS X used up the rest. I can't have anything else open. Some claimed to be able to play 1080p with Coreplayer...maybe so on a fast G4 or G5, but not on a single processor.
Click to expand...

Actually, Chroma for Mac OS was far better than Coreplayer. I used in my old ibook G3 and played avi 720x480 videos with no issues.
Click to expand...
 
Another App bytes the dust :(

Geez.. looks like I can never get anything good anymore. First Coreplayer, and now Chroma Player. Does anyone have this?? Yeah, XBMC plays 720/1080p on my PowerBook G4 1.67 really nicely, but I'd prefer a much more powerful player.

If not Chroma or Coreplayer, what then can I use??



rjcalifornia said:
Imixmuan said:
It was because the website doesn't exist anymore. Luckily I bought just before it was gone. The bad thing was that I did not make a backup of the codecs, so I was not able to find the codecs to play MKV files.

Trust me, Chroma Player is the best for handling MKV movies.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
PowerPCMacMan said:
Geez.. looks like I can never get anything good anymore. First Coreplayer, and now Chroma Player. Does anyone have this?? Yeah, XBMC plays 720/1080p on my PowerBook G4 1.67 really nicely, but I'd prefer a much more powerful player.

If not Chroma or Coreplayer, what then can I use??
Click to expand...


I still have a 'trial' version of Chroma ;) It is a little suspicious that the best players for Mac PPC are now gone... ;)
 
I found Chroma

on a forum somewhere...meh. I think the key to your past success was the file type, ie it was an .avi. Chroma chokes on h.264 on my ibook, I'd put it below Nice Player and Quicktime at handling h.264.
 
rjcalifornia said:
Imixmuan said:
It was because the website doesn't exist anymore. Luckily I bought just before it was gone. The bad thing was that I did not make a backup of the codecs, so I was not able to find the codecs to play MKV files.

Trust me, Chroma Player is the best for handling MKV movies.
Click to expand...

The Internet Archive states that to use MKV files, you will need Perian. It is still downloadable, too.
Click to expand...
 
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