Will the 11.6" Play YouTube 1080p HD Full Screen Smoothly?

fuzzielitlpanda said:
I actually do this test on any laptop I buy. If it can't run 1080P video, then it's not fast enough for my needs. Being able to play 1080P, especially youtube, pretty much guarantees that the machine will be able to do 95% of the tasks out there smoothly. I think it's really important for a machine like the 11" because people are wondering how much power this thing is capable of being as thin as it is. From the results I've seen so far, I am very surprised. I don't see the competition making anything that comes close to the 11" MBA in terms of size/power for awhile.
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IMHO that isn't a good test of a computer is fast/good enough for your needs, considering flash for Mac lags behind its Windows counterpart in performance. My Vaio TT, with the same cpu, but lower intel 4500hd gpu can run 1080p videos, even 1080p youtube on flash 10.0 with no problem at all. My cpu runs at under 35% when consistently viewing most HD content.
 
fuzzielitlpanda said:
I think it can be better. Can you ask him what version of flash he has?
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I did. Waiting for his response.

Leo Fischel said:
Looks like it can't play 1080 smoothly to me ...


Why does it seem impossible to find out whether the new MacBook Air can or Can't play 1080 flash videos???:eek:
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Haha.. I know, right? A simple question to those who ACTUALLY owns the machine. Can you play 1080p flash or not? :p

It doesn't matter why or what for. If you have the machine, and willing to give it a try, kindly please. If you don't, or don't care for it, just move on!
 
re2st said:
I did. Waiting for his response.



Haha.. I know, right? A simple question to those who ACTUALLY owns the machine. Can you play 1080p flash or not? :p

It doesn't matter why or what for. If you have the machine, and willing to give it a try, kindly please. If you don't, or don't care for it, just move on!
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I own the 11" 128SSD 2GB model and have confirmed it does with Chrome and also with Safari*

*After installation of Flash 10.1
 
Alright, I will take a video right now and post it. Give me a link to a youtube video that you want tested. You can decide for yourself.
I have a 11.6"/2GB/64GB
 
re2st said:
Haha.. I know, right? A simple question to those who ACTUALLY owns the machine. Can you play 1080p flash or not? :p

It doesn't matter why or what for. If you have the machine, and willing to give it a try, kindly please. If you don't, or don't care for it, just move on!
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The answer is some. Some play without any dropped frames and some have a few dropped frames. I think the people who say everything is 100% smooth just don't notice the frame drops. For example, there are definitely dropped frames in Big Buck Bunny even though it's very watchable.
 
bloodycape said:
IMHO that isn't a good test of a computer is fast/good enough for your needs, considering flash for Mac lags behind its Windows counterpart in performance. My Vaio TT, with the same cpu, but lower intel 4500hd gpu can run 1080p videos, even 1080p youtube on flash 10.0 with no problem at all. My cpu runs at under 35% when consistently viewing most HD content.
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i do the same test for windows machines too. i had a few laptops with the 4500HD GPU and don't remember being able to play 1080P smoothly. I know it isn't a perfect benchmark, but it's an easy way to measure a system's overall performance.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

I'm on my iPhone now and was just at the Apple store fooling around with the 13" Air in stock specs. Played the Transformers Trailer in 1080p and it was skipping frames quite a bit.
 
fuzzielitlpanda said:
i do the same test for windows machines too. i had a few laptops with the 4500HD GPU and don't remember being able to play 1080P smoothly. I know it isn't a perfect benchmark, but it's an easy way to measure a system's overall performance.
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Odd, I can play 1080p from youtube fine with and without 10.1 with Chrome(even when hooked up to our tv via HDMI). I think I also tried it with Opera 10. Same with HD(tried only one 1080p file rest were 720p) video files, I use VLC and Media Player classic with out a problem. I wish video playback, and flash HD playback was low cpu/gpu usage just as it is on Windows, because based what I am reading it seems like it could be better/more consistent.
 
OK guys, today I went to an Apple Store here in Toronto and played Avatar 1080p trailer from YouTube, on both MBA 11 and 13.

Before I played it, I restarted both MBA's. Then directly opened Safari and played it.

Result:

1. I couldn't watch the full screen trailer AT ALL on MBA 11...hiccups...

2. MBA 13 just dropped several frames at the beginning then it played smoothly.

This is the simple test I did today...so glad that I have ordered MBA 13 BTO 4g memory last night!!! Thank God!!!
 
rickhorn said:
Unfortunately i didn't check...i'd assume both same...no? :confused:
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everyone has reported that the display models use an older version of flash that is hampering the 1080P video playback. I can say with confidence that if the 11" had 10.1 flash installed, it should play 1080P full screen no problem. others have already checked
 
rickhorn said:
OK guys, today I went to an Apple Store here in Toronto and played Avatar 1080p trailer from YouTube, on both MBA 11 and 13.

Before I played it, I restarted both MBA's. Then directly opened Safari and played it.

Result:

1. I couldn't watch the full screen trailer AT ALL on MBA 11...hiccups...

2. MBA 13 just dropped several frames at the beginning then it played smoothly.

This is the simple test I did today...so glad that I have ordered MBA 13 BTO 4g memory last night!!! Thank God!!!
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Um, I didn't have the same experience. I took a short footage of myself watching the Avatar trailer in 1080p HD on my MBA 11. I'll upload it in a second.

I just uploaded the Transformers in HD but for some reason YouTube was "processing" it and now it hasn't uploaded. Will try again :\

Edit: both videos are being processed. Will post as soon as they are ready.
 
Wow Apple is shooting themselves in the foot. I went today to check out the macbook airs and sure enough the 13 inch had some hiccups on 1080p and 11 inch could not play 1080p at all.

So I goto adobe flash version website and sure enough they're running 10.0. Big mistake by apple, I know it can run when it's GPU accelerated.

I'm thinking of getting the 13 inch just because I am going to be programming on it.
 
EnderTW said:
Wow Apple is shooting themselves in the foot. I went today to check out the macbook airs and sure enough the 13 inch had some hiccups on 1080p and 11 inch could not play 1080p at all.

So I goto adobe flash version website and sure enough they're running 10.0. Big mistake by apple, I know it can run when it's GPU accelerated.

I'm thinking of getting the 13 inch just because I am going to be programming on it.
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MBA doesn't even include Flash out of the box, so you need to download it yourself anyway :p
 
When you play the video, just check the CPU utilization with Apple's Activity Monitor application (in the Utilities directory). If the CPU is running at more than 80% as a steady average (or 160% if you count both cores) then you'll probably end up dropping frames. That's my general rule-of-thumb, if the CPU is working that hard (even with GPU hardware acceleration) then you can bet that it will drop frames here and there (even ones you may miss when trying to check the quality of the playback by just watching the video). The GPU in the MacBook Air is easily capable of handling 1080p, but if the video codec isn't optimized to make full use of the GPU then it will load up on the CPU until it reaches a point where you'll experience dropped frames or uneven playback.

In any case, you need to make certain that any irregularities in the playback aren't simple the result of your network connection being too slow or that there are problems with the YouTube service. Try to make certain that the video is fully cached before playback or just download the test video. If you don't do one of these then your problems could just be caused by a lack of streaming bandwidth.

Of course, if you can already see dropped frames then there is no reason to try this test.
 
Ok, the videos are finally available on YouTube. Sorry I don't have the best camera, I hope it works. To me these looked pretty good in 1080P on the 11.6" MBA, 2GB RAM. Both also using Google Chrome, but I did also install the latest flash in Safari.

Here is the first one, Transformers in HD, as requested by re2st

Here is a few seconds of Avatar in HD after a poster above complained about the Apple Store MBA not being able to play it on the 11.6".
(Note: I am shaking in this one a little due to me holding my iPhone 4).

Let me know what you think; I may not be noticing what others may because I am not that picky/observant.

The amazing thing about this all is that when I watch YouTube videos or Flash videos on my Alu uMB my fans go crazy, but on my MBA it is quiet and pretty smooth.
 
nidserz said:
Ok, the videos are finally available on YouTube. Sorry I don't have the best camera, I hope it works. To me these looked pretty good in 1080P on the 11.6" MBA, 2GB RAM. Both also using Google Chrome, but I did also install the latest flash in Safari.

Here is the first one, Transformers in HD, as requested by re2st

Here is a few seconds of Avatar in HD after a poster above complained about the Apple Store MBA not being able to play it on the 11.6".
(Note: I am shaking in this one a little due to me holding my iPhone 4).

Let me know what you think; I may not be noticing what others may because I am not that picky/observant.

The amazing thing about this all is that when I watch YouTube videos or Flash videos on my Alu uMB my fans go crazy, but on my MBA it is quiet and pretty smooth.
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All I have to say is THANK YOU for taking the time to record and post the videos. If you can, can you please open 3 or 4 tabs running 1080p HD at the same time. All I want to see if it still runs smoothly.

Thanks in Advance.
 
EnderTW said:
Wow Apple is shooting themselves in the foot. I went today to check out the macbook airs and sure enough the 13 inch had some hiccups on 1080p and 11 inch could not play 1080p at all.

So I goto adobe flash version website and sure enough they're running 10.0. Big mistake by apple, I know it can run when it's GPU accelerated.

I'm thinking of getting the 13 inch just because I am going to be programming on it.
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Maybe i'll stop by again and ask one of the sales associates if they could upgrade to the latest Flash. The YouTube 1080p playback was horrendous and completely unacceptable. I realize Flash is on its way out, but still, it is today and i would probably upgrade again when HTML5 becomes standard.
 
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