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Old computer problem with Youtube + Firefox + WinXp


phaolo

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Specs:

WinXP Sp3, old single-core AthlonXp 2800+, 1500Gb ram, geforceFx 5200, 8Mbit connection, Firefox 19.0.2 (newer versions seem bad for memory)

I've tested this even without other running programs, scanned for virus\malware, cleaned with CCleaner, checked running tasks\services and such.

When I had Flash Player 10.3 I could see 480p videos on Youtube without any problem (720p, instead, is difficult for the old card).

After 11.X in this year, the issues started: at early versions I got slowdowns\skips at 480p, then 360p, now with 11.8 even at 240p??? (but videos play fine in Vlc)

I fed up, downloaded and downgraded back to 10.3 and.. even that skips at 360p..

:realmad: WTF is happening, why can't I see the same content on the same computer with the same settings anymore?? :realmad:

Is Adobe messing badly with Flash Player?

Does anyone have this problem with an old pc and Youtube?

P.S: changing computer is an obvious solution, but I can't afford that right now.

Edited by phaolo
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Meanwhile, I've found that you can open Youtube links directly in VLC and select quality by adding a parameter at the end (example for 480p): &fmt=44

Does anyone know at least if there is a Firefox extension that somewhat speeds up this painful procedure? (ex: adding a menu, automatic plugin, etc)

Edited by phaolo
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When I had Flash Player 10.3 I could see 480p videos on Youtube without any problem (720p, instead, is difficult for the old card).

After 11.X in this year, the issues started: at early versions I got slowdowns\skips at 480p, then 360p, now with 11.8 even at 240p??? (but videos play fine in Vlc)

I fed up, downloaded and downgraded back to 10.3 and.. even that skips at 360p.

I have same problem with a Sempron 2800+, 1Gig RAM and a crappy onboard IGP. My connection is officially 4Mb. I stick with 11.2 and I'm half OK. Later versions are choppy indeed. Sometimes since a few months, (more and more in fact) I get pixellation for a few seconds but I guess after 4 years, it's time to reinstall. I suspect ISPs might slow down Youtube as well.

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Sigh, I hope that Adobe will fix its player someday or that Firefox will improve html5+memory soon.

About Vlc, anyway, I've found a cool plugin to import Youtube playlists:

http://addons.videolan.org/content/show.php/+Youtube+playlist?content=149909

I lose all YT site features, but at least videos now play seamlessly :D

(Alas, it doesn't seem to work with "watch later" playlist and maybe it's a bit memory\cpu intensive)

EDIT: check DevilinPixy comment to modify the script replacing "list=" to "?list="

Edited by phaolo
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I have had trouble playing 1280 pixel videos with higher framerate on a Pentium 4, comparable with the speed of the machine in the OP. There are two reasons: 1) the webpage is ridiculously fat with scripts that get executed if the user runs the mouse over any controls, 2) the Flash plugin is slow to decode and especially to render any video. I am still puzzled why people like sites like this. Which process in the task manager is causing increased CPU usage when the slowdowns occur?

If VLC can stream your videos without interruptions and consumption of disk space, watching them outside of the website will deal with both issues, and also improve color quality (Flash player doesn't upsample chroma correctly).

I use this extension for Opera, which presents all available video formats in a compact menu (usually 720p MP4 or 480p FLV are the best).

Add an item to the context menu (standard_menu.ini) to all links, enabling to pass them onto a media player.

--------------------GhostItem, M_INSPECT_ELEMENT = Inspect elementItem, Open in MPlayer=Execute program, "d:\apps\mplayer\mpui.exe","%l"
youtube-mplayer-s.jpg

The average CPU usage of this 720p@30fps video: in MPlayer – 44%, in browser – 90% (with large peaks while not interacting with the page), in browser with DXVA – 37%, in MPC-HC with DXVA – <5%. (single core Conroe CPU at 1.6 GHz).

Not quite what you asked; but this method works for me well to watch single videos. I suppose VLC and MPlayer are about equal. MPlayer can set variable cache for streamed content; the default of 1 MB works well for me.

Edited by j7n
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Well for HD ( super high resolution ) videos or compressed Y, V etc videos you need to have a 3.0 Gig proccessor

or an powerfulll OS ( like OSX high on PPC 2.0 Gigs ). The memory should be at least 2Gigs. That is what gets me thru to

youtube.

On Adobe side, if you are a programmer, or know a programmer. Then just edit the adobe files ( which is what I am looking

foward to ), so the Youtube flash program/game etc , is able to load your files correctly. The Macromedia Flash that Adobe has

control over has many changes since Flash 8 ( which was the last time flash video was upgraded ). They intergrate

3d graphics, Sgi graphics, and almost anything you can think of into Flash nowadays.

If you update your flalsh, and do not know the result, your bound to run into trouble. On my OSX machine I updated, and

now it gives me that error screen. Every other flash page seems to also update their player requirments.

Go to Channel101 and see if their flash player is working. The bottom line is that hollywood people ( candymen and

teather monkeys ) are stupid, and just updates their players ASAP, to bring the best picture quality. It is not their job to understand how the technnology works. Youtube being controlled by Google which collects information from people.

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Maybe this program would be helpful in watching Youtube videos and some others with proper links. You have to download the video but if you have a fairly fast connection, it shouldn't be much of a problem ... besides, I usually want to save the videos, so they would be downloaded anyway. You can then use any player that you want to watch the videos ... I happen to mostly use KMPlayer 3.0.0.1442 in my XP setup ... didn't like the newer KMPlayer versions and I have some other players also.

The program is Youtube Downloader HD ... I find it a good way to watch videos on your own time.

http://www.youtubedownloaderhd.com/download.html

Note: There hasn't been an update for some time with this program, I guess because it was working so well ... when I first started using Youtube Downloader HD, it seemed they were updating the program a lot but this last version (2.9.6) lasted a very long time but today as I started this reply I see Youtube Downloader HD is now version 2.9.9 ... I haven't tried this version yet with XP so I hope nothing drastically has changed and the program works as good as before.

Add ... have tried the newer version and it seems to be OK and works just fine on XP.

I also download the portable version, so no installing !

---------------------------------------------------

Youtube Downloader HD

Youtube Downloader HD is a fast free video downloader. Download and convert videos into avi video format or into mp4 (compatible with iPad, iPhone).

You can download High Quality videos, High Definition and Full HD videos from YouTube. Youtube Downloader HD is a Freeware!

What's new in the latest version:

1. Significantly increased download speed!

2. VEVO videos can be downloaded again

Youtube Downloader HD for Windows is a completely FREE Software. It contains absolutely NO ADWARE, NO SPYWARE, NO REGISTRATION, NO POPUPS, NO MALWARE or other unwanted software.

Main Downloads:

Download Youtube Downloader HD

Version 2.9.9 Free. 4.5 MB. With installer.

For Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

FLV Converter

Version 1.2 Free. 3.6 MB. With installer.

Handy free tool to convert FLV files to AVI video

Youtube Downloader HD - Portable Version

Version 2.9.9 Free. 3.9 MB. Without installer. Standalone exe file.

For Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

...

Edited by duffy98
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Thanks for the suggestions guys.

j7n: Which process in the task manager is causing increased CPU usage when the slowdowns occur?

[...]Add an item to the context menu (standard_menu.ini) to all links, enabling to pass them onto a media player.

It's both Firefox and its plugincontainer, due to the Flash Player.

That menu option would be perfect, I'll check if it exists for Firefox+Vlc too!

duffy98: The program is Youtube Downloader HD ... I find it a good way to watch videos on your own time.

Well, waiting for temporary videos download is quite tedious (also, for <720p Youtube uses a slower transfer).

Anyway, for that I've always used the handy DownloadHelper Firefox extension, which I can suggest to you too! (also works with many sites)

Edited by phaolo
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phaolo ... that's OK, just thought I'd throw that suggestion out there for you or anyone interested in "saving" videos to watch later or to just keep. I like to save TV commercials ... that are well made, funny, sexy, banned ... something that would play in Europe or the rest of the world but probably not in the US.

As I mentioned in my first post as an addition ... have tried the new version and it seems to be working just fine. Downloaded six videos so far and all is well.

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VEVO uses a different transport protocol (RTMP), so their videos can't be played in generic players as easily. That is great if your program works, because VEVO has higher quality content, which seems to be further transcoded when uploaded to YT.

I think Flash video is so slow because it must overlay semi-transparent annotations and occasionally some controls on top of the picture, which can't be done if the video is hardware accelerated. The picture is probably always converted to RGB. I find that I can also always capture a video frame played in Flash video with Print Screen, but cannot do that from fast video players.

Still, FFdshow with conversion to RGB only uses about 80% of CPU on this sample. If I open a semitransparent OSD in the program, it uses more and cannot be played. But Flash operates in the slow mode all the time (the Play icon fades in and out, annotations, menus launched from the bottom bar).

If Adobe "fixes" the player, they will probably only accelerate it on new OS using some new window manager technology. XP is just "not supported".

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I've found new info :)

Youtube quality parameters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=YouTube&oldid=509196207#Quality_and_codecs

EDIT: not needed anymore, just some info

Open links in programs (Vlc) from Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-with

EDIT: I suggest adding the vlc commandline parameter --one-instance

Now I must understand how\if I can set the quality.

Edited by phaolo
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  • 1 month later...
I guess after 4 years, it's time to reinstall.

Well, fresh install, no clutter, no AV, no software firewall, latest Flash, Youtube is still crackling out of the box. :realmad:

-> I'm back to 11.2. :hello:

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I've an old HP Vectra 420VL, once a "small form factory" machine, but of which all except the CPU and CPU cooler is not replaced) with a P4 of 1.6 GHz, 1 GB RAM and a 64-bit RadeonHD 3650 (AGP). It works well - except for Flash, version 11.8. Sound is fine, but the video. Goes. So. Slow.

I see the Firefox/Palemoon executable and plugin-container.exe both hovering around 50%

I tried upgrading the 64-bit Radeon, but the two (non-64 bit) videoards that I have make the PC beep like there's not tomorrow (anyone knows why? BIOS too old?)

As I see it, Flash is rubbish. It is the only thing that goes slow on this old machine.

Edited by Boroka
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I'm seeing no increases in CPU usage between Flash 11.4.402 and 11.8.800, which I currently have at hand. Both hover at 40% on my sample video from above with DXVA. CPU is consumed only when the video window is visible, other times the usage is around 10%, which suggests that not the decoding but the composition is the slow part in Flash video. If enabling acceleration in Flash settings already decreases CPU usage by half on HD videos (allowing the card to handle most decoding but not composition), a video card upgrade will not give further improvement.

(But Flash 11.4 is 9 MB and Flash 11.8 is 16 MB, which almost double the size in memory in such a short time.)

Edited by j7n
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