Unsolvable Hulu stuttering

[decksnap]

Has anybody else had a stuttering/stopping issue with Hulu? My system runs it fine, but my friend's won't play anything without stutter.

Intel iMac, latest flash player, bandwidth tests say she's getting about 5000 kbps download speed. Stutters in all browsers.

Any ideas?

 

[FF_productions]

Is he running any background apps?

I was watching a movie in Hulu and it didn't play so smoothly cuz I was encoding like 3 videos in Handbrake...

 

[Dimwhit]

I find that often, despite having a good broadband connection, I still get stuttering. I pause the video for a couple minutes and start it again. Usually works fine.

Remember, you could have the best connection available, but if the Hulu servers are being hit hard, it may not be delivering the content and fast as it can be watched. So pausing it and giving it some time to catch up may do the trick. Always does for me, anyway.

 

[decksnap]

thanks. just weird that mine has never stuttered and theirs ALWAYS stutters/stops. I can't imagine it is just their servers. They definitely aren't running anything in the background at the time.

 

[ZigZagLens]

thanks. just weird that mine has never stuttered and theirs ALWAYS stutters/stops. I can't imagine it is just their servers. They definitely aren't running anything in the background at the time.

Sorry to necropost, but have been hunting around to solve my own video-stuttering issue and found this.

I have found that on both my Mac Pro and my Macbook Pro, basically any kind of Flash video (Youtube, Hulu, Break, Google Video to name a few) running on Flash Player 9 on OSX Leopard does this. I'd call it skip or stutter but basically it's about one second or so of dropped frames (while audio continues normally) and then the video "catches up" to the audio. This is irrespective of whether the entire video is loaded or not - it is not a streaming or bandwidth issue.

I am told Adobe has fixed this in Flash Player 10, which is not out yet, but a beta is here.

(Word to the wise: if you install this beta it may break a lot of Flash sites that will think you are using an outdated player.)

 

[rplichta]

Similar Problem

Greetings,

I have a similar problem. At various times (can't find a pattern), any Hulu programming stutters so badly that it is unwatchable. All other applications and user processes were shutdown (ignoring standard OS stuff).

This is using Safari or Firefox on OS X 10.5.

Interestingly, I have a VM of Windows Server 2008 running in VMware Fusion on the same box. I tried running the hulu content through at at the exact same time and it streamed without a problem.

It has to be something on the Mac side. I would guess something with Flash. However, I did try the 10 beta with no luck.

If anyone has any further suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

 

[jasonhedrick]

Interesting Datapoint

So, I was just reading this thread, and at the same time I opened a large ECAD drawing. I'm on a 8 Core Mac Pro w/ 6Gigs of RAM. I noticed that my 'windowserver' process peaked out one of the cores and took almost 2G of ram. When that happened, Hulu (which of course, I was watching at the same time) started doing this video hesitation thing constantly.

Then I realized that while I'm typing into Firefox, my text display lags at the same moment the video lags on Hulu. I killed the ECAD drawing, and everything gets better.

This looks like a problem with the OSX display drivers. It doesn't happen when I'm watching a DVD, but OSX may process the DVD stuff at a different level.

Jason

 

[decksnap]

I hate that I can not solve this for them. Now the videos just seem to load for a while, play five seconds of video and then just plain stop. Immediately before/after running speed tests showing 5000 kbps down. Not just hulu either.

 

[kaitak98]

I hate that I can not solve this for them. Now the videos just seem to load for a while, play five seconds of video and then just plain stop. Immediately before/after running speed tests showing 5000 kbps down. Not just hulu either.

I've been having the same problem. I installed Flash10 and that didn't help. Finally, I decided to stop SnapzPro (a Macheist package I don't use much) from loading at startup. Not sure why but now Hulu works with just some very minor glitches. Watched a whole episode of Family Guy with just a couple of split second stutters.

Hope this has solved my problem permanently and helps you as well.

 

[spitfyre]

I just got a Macbook yesterday and I am having this problem and it is really frustrating b/c I don't have a TV so the only shows I watch are on my computer. Anyway, it can't be Hulu b/c I tried it simultaneously on my old PC and it worked perfectly (no stuttering) there. I'm not running anything else when I do this and I downloaded all of the Mac software updates. Ahhhhhhh. Help.

 

[watevr56]

I've been having the same problems when I installed flash 10 on my computer.

The best solution I can think of is to downgrade your flash player to a previous version.:

First, uninstall your flash player by downloading this program from adobe:
http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/uninstall_flash_player_osx.dmg

Then install the archived versions of flash 9:
http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/fp9_archive.zip

After you extract the 'fp9_archive.zip' file, browse into to the 9r151 folder within it.

You should see 'flashplayer9r151_ub_mac.dmg.zip'.

Extract it and install the dmg.

I hope this helps you

 

[macadmiral]

tell him to try it on firefox. thats helped me lately

 

[synth3tik]

I stopped using Hulu after I started getting way to many ads like 1 every 4-5 minutes.

I suspect the shuttering comes from the way the show is broken up. If you look at the time line at the bottom of the window you will notice the dots. The dots signify an ad break. So you are only buffing one section at a time and not the whole show. Which is kind of annoying, but I would figure that is really the only way of doing it, without eliminating the ads.

 

[spitfyre]

I tried to uninstall flash and then I installed Flash Player 9.whatever. It didn't work and I'm having problems at other flash sites as well. this sucks. I am so annoyed.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

It just started happening to me yesterday. Prior to that - it was running fine. No new software or configurations to speak of.

Somewhat annoying. But, what can you expect for $0.00usd?

 

[brgale]

This is happening to me as well, and it's driving me crazy. I know bandwidth isn't a problem, and the system should be able to handle this fine (2x2.66 GHZ Mac Pro, 3Gigs Ram). I'm using Flash Player 10. It does this in firefox or safari. Youtube is a big offender for me.

Anybody?

 

[Superman07]

My Hulu stopping problems always happen when watching NBC content. Conincidence?

 

[macadmiral]

Hulu blows

Hulu really blows. stuttering problem makes watching vids unbearable. I have a 2.5 mbp with 512 vram and extremely fast university line internet.

 

[decksnap]

I think you guys do not have the same problem. General Hulu stuttering from time to time is not the issue of this thread. It is 'plays for five seconds, stutters to a stop, waits 45 seconds, plays 3 seconds of stutter, repeat.'

 

[macadmiral]

I think you guys do not have the same problem. General Hulu stuttering from time to time is not the issue of this thread. It is 'plays for five seconds, stutters to a stop, waits 45 seconds, plays 3 seconds of stutter, repeat.'

yeah about the same for me

 

[decksnap]

yeah about the same for me

Well when you solve it, come back and let me know how. I've tried almost everything.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Different browsers, reset Safari, other video sites?

 

[czaffa]

Please help!

I'm having the exact same issue on both Hulu and Comedy Central (Daily Show/Colbert Report), making just about all of my favorite shows unwatchable online. I've tried both Safari & Firefox, on both a university OC3 line (75 mbps during tests) and a U-verse max line (8 mbps during tests). Flash version 10,0,12,36.

 

[Dimwhit]

Maybe someone with the resources can do a little investigation? If someone has Windows installed on the Mac and is having this issue, try booting into Windows and see if the problem persists. Then maybe try some other different options. Are other computers on the same network having the problem?

 

[decksnap]

If anybody is interested, I have isolated my particular issue to the ISP. Not that they will solve it.