Choppy Video Streaming

Hi there I have a powerbook G4 and for some reason every time i try to stream a video online it always comes out choppy. Audio is great but the video itself sucks. The internet connection is terrific as well (I tested the internet with other computers). I tried looking online for solutions to this problem but all it tells me to do is to empty all stored information in the web browser (ex. history, cookies, cache etc.) I did this already but the videos still come out choppy. What can I do? Please and thank you!

oh ya and the other reason why I know internet signal is terrific is because i can open other webpages in a few seconds

Where is this streaming coming from? You tube for example? If so, what version of OSX do you have on that Powerbook? The latest versions of Flash on a G4 take 100% CPU on sites like You Tube. If it's flash videos, then that is your issue.

Also like has been mentioned, if they are HD videos, the G4 will have issues keeping up also.

I sometimes hit the pause button for videos I'm trying to watch to allow the buffer to fill. Vimeo was especially bad. Once the video had fully loaded, playback was smooth. I blame the Flash player for this.

How fast is your G4? How much memory do you have? How update to date are all of the involved software pieces?

I always let the video completely load. Playback still sucks. My G4 runs on OSx 10.4.11 and is pretty fast for an old computer. there's about 23 GB of free space on the hard drive so I don't think that's the issue. I'm referring to video streaming with Youtube videos. I use a firefox web browser (3.6.3) and I've tried using other browsers, I still get the same annoying playback effect. Regarding flash, I know that I use a version 7.0.

Please let me know how else i can fix this. thanks!

I'm guessing that Flash isn't the main issue here simply because you have quite an old version and from experience, Flash's main performance issues have only become really bad with the last few releases. Do you have any performance issues when viewing other Flash content?

Just problems with videos. When it comes to other things like games, there doesn't seem to be any problem with loading. That's basically all i use flash for in the internet (videos and games).

slim91 said:

I always let the video completely load. Playback still sucks. My G4 runs on OSx 10.4.11 and is pretty fast for an old computer.

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But how fast? If you are trying to watch any HD steams, it may simply not be up to the task, even after allowing the whole video to transfer. ****, even what is considered low grade now might be too much.

Try this cool video in all the YouTube modes of 360p, 480p, and 720.

I loaded the video at 360p and it still plays frame by frame. I tried the higher resolution versions and they still came out the same way. Is there something I can upgrade with my computer software so that the video plays smoothly? I really want to fix this.

BUT HOW FAST IS YOUR COMPUTER? HOW MUCH RAM DO YOU HAVE? AM I SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGH FOR YOU?

The Powerbook G4 speed range is from 400Mhz up to 1.67 Ghz. That is a big range for us to guessing about. If you are very short on RAM, the system could be swapping out to the drive. Look at the Activity Monitor to get some clues about performance issues.

My dual 867Mhz tower, mentioned under my profile, has trouble with YouTube. Its packed up right now so I can't do any testing to be more specific.

1.33 GHz PowerPC G4, 768MB DDR SDRAM