Youtube slow on Mac, fast on Win 7, same comp, same room.

[elmancho]

why the hell is the loading of youtube videos really slow on my mac (3min for a 5min low-qual vid), whereas on bootcamp with win7 I can watch the HD's ones straight away ?
Is it a problem with a java update ?
Please help

P.S. I run on 10.6.1, and you can see my hardware on my sig.

 

[Drag'nGT]

why the hell is the loading of youtube videos really slow on my mac (3min for a 5min low-qual vid), whereas on bootcamp with win7 I can watch the HD's ones straight away ?
Is it a problem with a java update ?
Please help

P.S. I run on 10.6.1, and you can see my hardware on my sig.

Posting that mine works fine won't help much so I'll ask the obvious. Have you checked for all the updates? Any problems with firefox? You may need to reinstall safari if nothing seems to fix the issue. Also, what plugins are you using? Like 1Password, ad blockers etc...

 

[scienide09]

General consensus is that Flash-based videos play poorly or use more resources than necessary on Macs. Blame Adobe?

 

[Winni]

why the hell is the loading of youtube videos really slow on my mac (3min for a 5min low-qual vid), whereas on bootcamp with win7 I can watch the HD's ones straight away ?
Is it a problem with a java update ?
Please help

P.S. I run on 10.6.1, and you can see my hardware on my sig.

YouTube does not use Java, so Java will hardly be the problem. On the client side - read: in your browser - YouTube uses Flash. And their servers use Python, but that doesn't concern you, because it has nothing to do with your computer.

Anyway. The Windows NT-based family of operating systems (NT,2000,XP,2003,Vista,Server 2008,7) has had a faster and more reliable TCP/IP stack than Mac OS X since ever. It never surprises me that the Internet/network performance of Windows on my Mac Pro kills OS X. But it's not only Windows - the network stack of GNU/Linux also beats the one in OS X easily.

 

[djellison]

General consensus is that Flash-based videos play poorly or use more resources than necessary on Macs. Blame Adobe?

Blame Adobe AND Apple. Recent battery testing results of Safari on PC show it's DREADFUL when combined with Flash.

Both companies are to blame.

 

[borcanm]

Its flash player's fault. For some reason, maybe because of poor programming, flash runs slow on macs compared to windows.

 

[Amdahl]

If you are connected via wireless, then it could be an issue with the drivers in OSX. Check for any firmware updates to your wireless router.

 

[mac2x]

I've been having trouble with YT, just this week. Videos aren't just slow...sometimes they won't load period no matter what. And FWIW, I've never noticed flash to be slow on Mac. In fact, other flash content doesn't have any problems. I'm thinking it could be YouTube's problem.

 

[amin]

Is there no solution for this? I have an Intel iMac next to a similarly spec'd Windows desktop in our family room, and the kids and I all compete for the Windows machine so we don't have to wait forever for YouTube videos to load.

The performance problem on the Mac is the same in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. The hard drive has plenty of space, there's plenty of RAM, I repaired disk permissions, and the YouTube videos take forever to load.

Here's my internet connection speed from the Mac:



Any suggestions .

 

[MisterMe]

Is there no solution for this? ....

What is this? Your screenshot seems to indicate that your Mac has a butt-kicking fast Internet connection. Do you want it to be slower? faster? what?

You are complaining about the speed of YouTube. In what way is YouTube slow? I run YouTube on a 2004 dual 2 GHz Power Mac G5/MacOS X 10.4.11. I have no complaints. I run it on a 2009 17" 2.93 GHz MacBook Pro/MacOS X 10.6.4. No complaints there either.

I would kill to have an Internet connection as fast as yours. Despite my dramatically slower connections, I have no trouble with YouTube on any of my computers. What exactly is your trouble?

 

[amin]

My trouble is that despite adequate hardware, freshly installed browser software and Flash plugins, and a fast internet connection, YouTube performance is very slow on my iMac.

When I go to a YouTube video on my Mac, that bar that extends across the bottom as the video loads almost never stays ahead of the point to which the video has played, so the video frequently stops and restarts. The only way to watch an uninterrupted YouTube video is to pause it at the beginning, wait a long time until I see that the bar has gone all the way to the right, and then watch it.

Meanwhile, on the similarly spec'd PC sitting right next to the Mac with the same internet connection, the same YouTube videos load very quickly, and I can watch them without interruption. Here are my kids sharing that PC:

I assume it's not just a Mac vs PC thing, or there would be tons of Mac users complaining about it. I'm posting here to see whether anyone has any suggestions for settings I might check or something else that could be interfering with YouTube performance on my Mac.

 

[iPhysicist]

@ TS - update to 10.6.4 and your Problem should be solved

@ amin

- update your system and load a youtube video while you look up "download rates" in "network" in your "activity monitor".
Also try the HTML5 beta of youtube and repeat the procedure. If your problem is solved then it is weird, but if your problem still exists it definitly not flash or youtube causing the problems but your connectivity.

I load a 100MB 720p HD flash file in less than 40 seconds (WLAN @ 2,5MB/s downstream).

I have a 2009 MBP with WLAN only my connection is up to 16MBit downstream but via WLAN I only can use 1,3MBit at home (crappy router) and up to 2,5MBit in University (with plenty of headroom )

 

[amin]

iPhysicist, thank you for the suggestions. I should have mentioned that I am still running 10.5.8. Could that be the problem? If so, I will upgrade to 10.6.4 as you suggested to TS.

My connectivity doesn't seem to be a problem. I run a couple of photography forums and regularly view discussion threads with many large images which load very quickly.

 

[MisterMe]

... I should have mentioned that I am still running 10.5.8. Could that be the problem? ...

No, MacOS X 10.5.8 is not your problem. In my previous post, I stated that MacOS X 10.4.11 on a 2.0 GHz Power Mac G5 works fine with YouTube over a much slower broadband connection.