How to make web videos run smoother?

Thanks for your suggestions. I only watched using BBC iPlayer whilst in London - I know you can't access UK programs outside the UK - more's the pity. Here in Australia I'm using ABC's i-View. I'm afraid nothing has worked but, having checked the ABC's i-View site, apparently wireless connections/networks can be problematic for i-View. I'm situated quite a long way from the wireless modem and the website says distance and walls can interfere(!). Also, they suggest that you have 2Mb RAM and I only have 1Mb. But thanks for trying to help.

 

I'm pretty sure its a codec and/or player issue, and I'm trying to narrow it down as well. One of the reasons I bought my 250 was to use it to show videos to clients, so naturally I was almost ready to take it back when I cued up my own demo reel off the HD and it wouldn't play. This is an mpeg with the bitrate optimized to stream smoothly off my website from low-Q DSL or Cable - so its nothing that should have taxed the 250 with a small file that was on the local HD. Viewing videos off the web was much worse - totally unwatchable.

I got the package deal that shipped with a copy of Nero, which I upgraded to Nero9 that has h264 encode/decode built in. Nero 8 played it almost perfectly, just losing sync in a few places - also telling me at the splash screen that I needed to purchase the H264 module for better playback. Hence my decision to just go all the way and get Nero 9. Post-upgrade I can play my reel full-screen, with no dropouts and the audio stays in sync through to the end.

Quicktime Player still can't play it smoothly, and I haven't tested Flash yet. But the fact that the exact same file went from completely unplayable to full-screen-no-problem tells me that something changed a codec somewhere. At least it demonstrates that the hardware can play videos smoothly if you set something right.

Now to figure out what the optimum settings would be.

 

Well scott8933, if you do work out the right settings, let us know...

 

Going back over this long running thread, I don't see mention of the Atheros driver. Everyone running XP should have gotten last fall's update via Microsoft Windows Update (it's shown as "optional" along with a RealTek driver that should also be updated.)

One other problem is that the driver has a built in power saving mode set to "maximum" which seems to interfere with video. It improved my video to turn it off: Control Panel/System/Device Manager/Network Adapters/rt-click Atheros/Properties/Advanced/highlight Power Save Mode and set Value to Off. I also suspect from reading this site, that HDDs are handling video better than SSDs. Good luck.

 

After much testing of my network (my broadband connection is 20Mbps cable) and the 2 other computers at my home with various configurations, i narrowed down to the problem to my Aspire one AOA150. i also stream videos from net, and i was surprised to see that my videos would stop often, though not from all the sites. AFter doing some speed tests, and research on the net, i have confirmed that the problem lies in the performance of the aspire one, not with the network component of it. Even when i connect my aspire one to my ethernet and disable the wireless, i still dont see the network speeds anywhere close to what my other computers would do. The maximum ethernet speeds i have seen are around 4 to 5 Mbps, so no wonder my video streaming is crappy on this notebook. I will start another topic on this site about this, as i am still searching for a solution.

 

Thanks Poyfish. Sounds like there may not be much we can do about it if the fault lies with the netbook itself (which I suspected). Can you post the title of your new thread here?

 

Success! (at least for me... at least on Windows7)

Well... Not sure if this will help anyone or not...
But I am running an

Acer Aspire One 751
Windows7 Ultimate
2GB of RAM

I've done some tweaking to my system... I'm personally convinced that the hardware really CAN handle most things that are thrown at it. The last few nights, when (trying to) watch videos on Hulu, I noticed that they were terribly jerky... except if I moved my mouse back and forth rapidly over the video window, it looked like the motion was smooth. That was strange. So I turned off all Aero effects having to do with the pointer. That didn't do anything. Then I went to the control panel and looked at the Synaptics Touchpad (mouse) driver... 12.2.4.1 -- the same version that Acer has on their support page.

BUT -- when I went to the Synaptics page, I saw there was a newer driver version -- 14.0.3. I installed it and now My videos are running smooth as butter.

(1) Your results might vary -- please don't blame me if you break anything in the process!
(2) You are welcome
(3) Link: http://www.synaptics.com/support/drivers

 

Uptownguy you are a star!! I downloaded this new driver and now videos work properly on my Aspire One netbook, even though - unlike yours - it only has 1Gb RAM.

Can't believe that after all this time, the problem has been resolved. Thanks again.

 

it's the processor, try overclocking by a little

 

I have just upgraded Flash to Flash Player 10.1.51.66 Beta 2, and for me it has made web video smoother - give it a go!

 

there is a bunch of this computer out there with this problem cuz i know a lot of people that are having this problem( do a seach in this site too) how to resolve this: THERE IS NO WAY TO RESOLVE THIS cuz this acer computer when u use the internal speaker the vibrations interfere with the hard disk and the video u r watching starts stopping for segments and then bang the famous blue screen of dead lol... how to prevent that? i have done it trying not to use the internal speaker instead use and external usb speakers (works perfectly) or headphones ...good luck...

 

aoa-150, 1.5GB ram, win7 ultimate: reduced all startup programs to a minimum, services etc, so it's lean, but nothing removed from the OS. I am on wifi with a good N router, which is shared with <3 PC's/laptops. I run Panda AV as it's no hog. I use the standard Win Media player that came with Ultimate (think it's wmp 11 ?) with the addition of the mega-codec pack from k-lite, installed without their media player.
As set up, I have NO issues at all with video. Playback from an attached DVD drive, Samsung, is smooth and stutter free, and streaming of movies via Netflix is perfect. Yesterday we watched a movie streamed over wifi from Netflix, using Chrome browser, with the AOA hooked up to/driving a Sharp projector. It all went perfectly. I have the Acer Fan control s/w installed, with the temps set at 65/70...........and the fan came on just once for about 2 minutes. I am impressed with the AOA's abilities, especially when care/thought is given to how it's set up, and what software it runs.