New iMac. What gives with Youtube speed?

Hi all. So I am very satisfied with my brand new iMac in every way but one: streaming speeds. I notice my Safari browser is very fast for everything expect when it comes to watching videos online. I can click on a youtube video, but to watch it uninterrupted it must be at 320p. It will barely make it so that it buffers more of the video right when it's about to pause. If I want to watch something in 480 or 720, it can take quite a while. To watch a movie trailer in 1080p (I kid you not) is a 20 minute affair.
I've used Chrome on this Mac and I get the same results. I like to stream sports videos and news, so it's not just youtube. Why is it that this brand-spanking new iMac is slower at loading youtube videos than my old PC? Faster than my 11 year-old Dell desktop (I wish I was kidding). Faster than my girlfriend's 1.7 Dual Core HP envy ultra book? Granted, I am using the built-in Wi-Fi and haven't tried using a plug-in internet yet. But still! That HP Envy uses the same Wi-Fi and it streams those same 1080p videos without interruption. I don't get what's going on here. Any advice helps.
Thanks

Can you post a link to a YouTube video that you're attempting to watch so I can test it with my iMac? I suspect it may have something to do with Flash but am not sure. I'd like to have a look before I can try to give you an answer.

Sure. One movie trailer I wanted to see in full HD is this one:
Man of Steel - Official Trailer #2 [HD] - YouTube

My iMac is a 2.7 GHz i5, 8GB RAM. Nothing is adding up to me. My streaming should not be this slow.

2.9, not 2.7

I just loaded it and watched it. No slowdown here, everything ran at normal speed. My iMac is the Mid 2011 model 21.5", 8 GB.

As I stated in my first reply, it may be a Flash problem. Go to the Adobe site and download the latest version of Flash. LINK You want version 11.6. Let us know if that helps.

chscag said:

Can you post a link to a YouTube video that you're attempting to watch so I can test it with my iMac? I suspect it may have something to do with Flash but am not sure. I'd like to have a look before I can try to give you an answer.

Click to expand...

That's so weird. Are you using a Wi-Fi connection? And I already have the latest one installed, but am downloading the one that says "11.6 Content Debugger" just in case thats a NEWER version. Thank, and I'll post my update as soon as it's done downloading =

Well I'm done with that and it's the same result. It's quite frustrating that everything is super fast minus the streaming.
I'm going to uninstall and reinstall to see if that does anything.

I'm on a fast WiFi FIOS (Verizon) connection. It may be your connection that's causing the streaming slow downs.

I've just been on You Tube and watched that video through at 1080p HD and no problems with an ethernet connection or Wi-Fi connection.

I just watched the video as well...no problems here either. I just have an average cable modem internet connection...with a WiFi router.

- Nick

Plays perfectly at all resolutions on my 15Mbps Wi-Fi connection. I am, however, getting a bit tired of Superman "reboot" movies.

Hmm I just checked the website and I guess there was a problem with the flash installation. I re-did everything and now I do not get that error message on the flash website. Installation successful. Reboot.

HOWEVER it is still doing that! This is stupid and annoying....

By "website" I mean the Flash website. On the website there are two small flash-tests and mine wasn't running the second one; now it is running them both.

Just a thought... is it possible you are somehow opted into the HTML5 version of YouTube?

Check settings here:

YouTube

Just a note, only time I have had your issue with any system is when my internet speed is below a certain level.

At my other house I had 6Mbps DSL and even with 1080p HD I never had to pause to watch a video. But here at a friends where I am staying due to my heath issues, we are 2x farther from the CO and ony can get 3Mbps. 1080p will pause but 720 is usually ok. At Starbucks for an example where the speed is usually more like 1Mbps I have to go down to 480 or under to watch a video without pauses. This is the same on a Linux, Windows or Mac notebook.

Check your WiFi connection and see if you are connected at full speed to your router. Open Applications/Utilities/Network Utilities and it will tell you what you are connected at to the router. Maybe you have having an issue and say connecting at some low rate instead of say 54mbps or 150 mbps. If it's too low that might be your issue. How close are you to your router?

Just waltzing: visit speedtest.net and report back with your graphic:

cwa107 said:

Just a thought... is it possible you are somehow opted into the HTML5 version of YouTube?

Check settings here:

YouTube

Click to expand...

Hi there. I was not on the HTML5 version. I checked that out earlier and was all good!

HAH! Check this out guys. I took this speed test 3 minutes ago:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2579509483.png

Can someone explain to me why my girlfriends HP ENVY 14 TouchSmart laptop with a dual-core 1.7 GHz processor got a 16.4 Mb/s and an identical upload Mb/s on the SAME CONNECTION. We are both connected to the same router

Did you read my post and check the WiFi connect speed on Network Utilities on your mac?

HAH! Check this out guys. I took this speed test 3 minutes ago:

Click to expand...

Those speeds are likely the reason your YouTube viewing is so slow. Have you tried connecting your iMac by ethernet to the router and run the test again? I'd be interested in seeing what speeds you're getting that way.

dtravis7 said:

Did you read my post and check the WiFi connect speed on Network Utilities on your mac?

Click to expand...

Yes, sorry. So I checked this and got a 54 Mbit/s

Got into contact with apple care and they tried to resolve the problem with no luck. The guy suggested I take it to the store and have them check my video card(?). He said, so they can run some tests on the hardware to see why it's not clocking as fast as it should.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but I did just spend about $2,000 on this machine. A return sounds very tempting

It's your internet speed that's causing the issue most likely. You're Mac is fine I think. 3.6 mbps on the download is pushing it for 1080p streaming. For uninterrupted performance (on youtube anyway) you really need something closer to 10 or more mbps.

This is my speed and sometimes even I have to pause the video and let it buffer for a few seconds @ 1080p (depending on the video).