Is YouTube laggy for you?

[minisuds7]

Well, I've realized for some time now that every time I play a 1080p fullscreen video on YouTube (not on any other video site like Vimeo though) that it is extremely "laggy" and the frame rate is stupid low. If I exit fullscreen and switch to the small or large player though, it's fine. I even upgraded the RAM on my late 2009 iMac 2.66 i5 from 4 to 12GB mostly because it was getting maxed out as it was and there was a sale at OWC. Even though my heavy apps like AutoCAD, MATLAB, and Mathematica run smoother now, YouTube is still lagging in fullscreen. I know it's not my computer or internet because if I play a fullscreen HD video on any other site or in iTunes, the iMac plays them fine and smooth. So I feel like this is a problem that lies within YouTube. Is anyone else experiencing this? If so, are there any solutions or are we stuck with choppy videos? Thanks for the input in advance! Oh, and I've tried using YouTube in both the HTML5 and Flash versions...

 

[Renzatic]

You're not the only one. I remember a day when I could run Youtube at 1080p with nary a hitch. Not so much anymore. I experience the exact same thing you do, and usually have to knock it down to 720p before I'll get smooth playback.

What's causing it? I have no idea. I've tried it with Chrome's built in flash. The standalone executable. A browser specific executable. None of them net me better results.

 

[notjustjay]

I've recently found YouTube to be unreliable as well. I think it's just their servers are bogged down more than they used to be. Inevitable given that more and more content is being uploaded, and more of it is HD (exponentially larger files to process) and longer in duration as well.

Also, I notice that they no longer send you an actual mp4 or flv movie, but they stream it in 1.7 MB chunks -- presumably to prevent you from capturing and saving the movie files, but possibly also for other reasons. That's probably increasing the traffic too since your browser has to constantly ask for the next chunk.

 

[minisuds7]

Well at least I'm not the only one… I've been trying to find videos on other sites like Dailymotion or Vimeo (which I love), but none of them can match the sheer content that YouTube has. I wonder if its new interface has something to do with it

 

[RSL]

HTML5 is awful for video.

Use ClicktoFlash plugin for Safari and youtube plays great in quicktime on my early 2008 MPB.