ABC streaming LOST episodes in HD on Air?

[Adokimus]

Every Friday, I like to watch LOST on ABC's HD (High-Def, 720p) full-episode streamer. I was hoping that someone who already has an Air could try to watch an HD show there, or if someone already does that, please tell me if it works well. I'm just wondering if it is jutter/lag free and what your general impressions are.

Link: http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing

Please and thank you VERY much!

-Ado

 

[somecows]

I watched an episode last night and it worked fine in terms of the picture, but my fans were going nuts at 6500rpm the whole time. I would be curious to know if people think this is normal? I dont think the fans on my macbook pro used to kick in in this manner...

 

[Adokimus]

I watched an episode last night and it worked fine in terms of the picture, but my fans were going nuts at 6500rpm the whole time. I would be curious to know if people think this is normal? I dont think the fans on my macbook pro used to kick in in this manner...

Does it get hot, or just loud with the fans? Also, is was there any lagging at all (especially transitioning back and forth from the commercials)?

Thanks, I hope someone else can say whether the fan thing is normal...

 

[somecows]

It didn't FEEL hot, mostly it was just annoying cuz the fans are so loud and really, im just stressed cuz im trying to figure out if my air is working properly or not. the fans kick in WAY more often than on my macbook pro and i dont know enough about the technology of these things to know if that's normal. if anyone can chime in, that would be great.

ok to be honest i cant help you too much with the lost issue because something weird happened - it loaded up fine and i watched the first segment fine, and went through at least one commercial fine, and then at one of the commercial breaks something weird happened. its like the screen went black and i could not see the commercial or the controls or anything. so i just closed the window and watched the rest of it in normal non-hd. but, i really think that was just a bug on the site or with my internet connection or something, because it worked fine up to that point with no lagging etc.

sorry i guess this info doenst help you too much! but i think it was ok...

 

[Adokimus]

It didn't FEEL hot, mostly it was just annoying cuz the fans are so loud and really, im just stressed cuz im trying to figure out if my air is working properly or not. the fans kick in WAY more often than on my macbook pro and i dont know enough about the technology of these things to know if that's normal. if anyone can chime in, that would be great.

ok to be honest i cant help you too much with the lost issue because something weird happened - it loaded up fine and i watched the first segment fine, and went through at least one commercial fine, and then at one of the commercial breaks something weird happened. its like the screen went black and i could not see the commercial or the controls or anything. so i just closed the window and watched the rest of it in normal non-hd. but, i really think that was just a bug on the site or with my internet connection or something, because it worked fine up to that point with no lagging etc.

sorry i guess this info doenst help you too much! but i think it was ok...

I forgot to ask, what are the specs on your MBA? Especially curious if you have the HDD or SDD.

 

[rroback]

I don't like lost, but I tested the video, watched a couple minutes, and it seemed to play fine.

 

[Peace]

You can't judge jitter on the Air because you're streaming it. Broadband bottlenecks pop up and your connection slows down. Next thing ya know it stops or stutters.

 

[somecows]

I forgot to ask, what are the specs on your MBA? Especially curious if you have the HDD or SDD.

I have the 1799 one - thats hdd right?

 

[prominence]

That's normal for your MBA.

I watch Big Brother episodes online via CBS and my fans go insane at 6500RPM (and MBA gets very hot in front left corner) by a minute into the video, and don't stop till the video is over and shut off.

 

[burdendds]

I'm unable to play the HD versions without getting significant graininess in the picture. The "HD meter" in the LR doesn't light up the HD letters like on my MBP. Is the air not capable of rendering it in HD? Anyone else seeing the same?

(1.6, hdd)

 

[isdereks]

I actually planned on catching up with Lost episodes over ABC.com but actually noticed some poor playback quality about 35 minutes into the episode - actual episode + commercials. This is the Low end model MBA I'm on.

 

[rom]

My fans top at 6200rpm. How can yours reach 6500rpm? Hmmm...

 

[jlbrown23]

Mine had a rough time handling the streaming HD from ABC - it didn't LOOK HD, and the fans went nuts. However the HD torrent I downloaded worked just fine - watched two whole episodes on a plane & had 40% battery left afterwards.

Makes you wonder what sort of **** ABC is doing to your computer with their streaming applet...

 

[melissafaye84]

ABC full episode player

I have a new macbook. I've been able to watch full episodes of Lost with minimal problems. For the past day though, I've been able to select the desired episode and watch the commerical but then it just says: "LOADING." I have a great connection and have tried this on my work PC with the exact same problem. The HD status bar says: "Undefined kbps" which I have never seen before. Any help or suggestions is appreciated.
Thank you!

 

[burdendds]

FYI It still doesn't stream in HD on the new 2.0 Air either. Works fine on my older Pro, but on the Air it never reaches HD on the meter and the video image quality is nowhere near as good as on the Pro.

I wonder what the bottle neck is now?

 

[Adokimus]

FYI It still doesn't stream in HD on the new 2.0 Air either. Works fine on my older Pro, but on the Air it never reaches HD on the meter and the video image quality is nowhere near as good as on the Pro.

I wonder what the bottle neck is now?

Hey, you brought back my old thread! I still haven't sprung for an Air yet, but I played with a 1.86 model at the store the other day and it streamed the abc HD player flawlessly at the same time I was downloading and playing 1080P trailers from Apple. Watched about 5 minutes with both going and the fans didn't seem to kick in at all (but the store was loud, so not the best testing environment to hear fans). You should compare yours to a store model, but my guess is that your bottle-neck is wifi reception.

 

[EnderTW]

It didn't FEEL hot, mostly it was just annoying cuz the fans are so loud and really, im just stressed cuz im trying to figure out if my air is working properly or not. the fans kick in WAY more often than on my macbook pro and i dont know enough about the technology of these things to know if that's normal. if anyone can chime in, that would be great.

ok to be honest i cant help you too much with the lost issue because something weird happened - it loaded up fine and i watched the first segment fine, and went through at least one commercial fine, and then at one of the commercial breaks something weird happened. its like the screen went black and i could not see the commercial or the controls or anything. so i just closed the window and watched the rest of it in normal non-hd. but, i really think that was just a bug on the site or with my internet connection or something, because it worked fine up to that point with no lagging etc.

sorry i guess this info doenst help you too much! but i think it was ok...

That second problem you described is just a bug. I've been using the ABC player on my pc and every now and then it'll black out in full screen. All you have to do is click escape and/or alt tab and it should escape the full screen and just click full screen again. Happens to me once every 3-4 episodes.

I have the first revision mba, bought it at best buy for 1299. I pretty much understand that flash isn't going to be really useful on this machine. Besides the time I am using this machine it really isn't the time to be watching tv/youtube. My home pc is better for that.

 

[EnderTW]

Hey, you brought back my old thread! I still haven't sprung for an Air yet, but I played with a 1.86 model at the store the other day and it streamed the abc HD player flawlessly at the same time I was downloading and playing 1080P trailers from Apple. Watched about 5 minutes with both going and the fans didn't seem to kick in at all (but the store was loud, so not the best testing environment to hear fans). You should compare yours to a store model, but my guess is that your bottle-neck is wifi reception.

How did you manage to install the ABC HD Player on a store model, it usually requires a password no?

 

[burdendds]

... and it streamed the abc HD player flawlessly at the same time I was downloading and playing 1080P trailers from Apple.

It streams it just fine, but what I'm saying is that the video quality is different between it and my Pro by quite a magnitude. When you are streaming on their site there is a little gauge in the lower left by the Play button that shows the video quality while playing. My Air 2.0 doesn't come close to reaching "HD" on that gauge, whereas my Pro shows it maxed out.

I just thought it was strange as I know that the Air is more than capable of decoding that now...

 

[Cynicalone]

I just tried this…

The HD quality is determined by your internet connection. Not the Macbook Air. I had the HD guage 2 bars below full for 10 minutes while I watched a video. Looked great on the Macbook Air screen. The temp ran up to 79º Celsius real fast and the fan kicked on at 6200 rpm, but its so quite that without iStat I would never have noticed it.

This is of course on my MBA generation 2 (1.86ghz 128GB SSD).

 

[burdendds]

I just tried this…

The HD quality is determined by your internet connection. Not the Macbook Air. I had the HD guage 2 bars below full for 10 minutes while I watched a video. Looked great on the Macbook Air screen. The temp ran up to 79º Celsius real fast and the fan kicked on at 6200 rpm, but its so quite that without iStat I would never have noticed it.

This is of course on my MBA generation 2 (1.86ghz 128GB SSD).

I also just tried this. I had my Air running an Episode, then connected my Pro and started watching the same and it went to Full HD meter while the other was playing it! I tried them separately as well as different positions in the house. It's more than bandwidth, that's for sure. There's something in the Air, indeed ;-)

Anyone with a regular Macbook 2.4 care to try it for us? That would rule out the integrated graphics vs. dedicated.

This is totally a non-issue as far as I'm concerned, but I'd love to find out what the difference is that's causing the discrepancy between the 2 machines...

 

[NeoMayhem]

The problem is the crappy flash player for OS X. If you try to stream a fake HD episode of Lost in windows on a MBA, it works fine.

I have several episodes of lost in real 720p on my iMac, and they use much less cpu to play then the fake HD ones on abc.com that use the flash player.

 

[EnderTW]

The problem is the crappy flash player for OS X. If you try to stream a fake HD episode of Lost in windows on a MBA, it works fine.

I have several episodes of lost in real 720p on my iMac, and they use much less cpu to play then the fake HD ones on abc.com that use the flash player.

I think this is the culprit.

OSX and Flash has always had performance issues. In fact, on my 1.6ghz Atom Acer Aspire One ($320 netbook), I can watch full screen Hulu no problem what so ever. Trying that on the MBAir doesn't work that well.

Hopefully OSX can get it together and work with Adobe to optimize flash better. Flash 10 doesn't offer that much improvement on OS X.

 

[Adokimus]

How did you manage to install the ABC HD Player on a store model, it usually requires a password no?

No admin password needed to install it... I've done it on several machines.

It streams it just fine, but what I'm saying is that the video quality is different between it and my Pro by quite a magnitude. When you are streaming on their site there is a little gauge in the lower left by the Play button that shows the video quality while playing. My Air 2.0 doesn't come close to reaching "HD" on that gauge, whereas my Pro shows it maxed out.

I just thought it was strange as I know that the Air is more than capable of decoding that now...

I know what you're referring to, and the HD "meter" was floating around one bar below "full" and it looked really, really crisp.