Choppy Videos

Ebe_Scrooge

Just recently I'm having problems playing videos on my laptop. YouTube is fine, but things like the BBC website, where they've got a video included somewhere on the page, the video is really jerky, and seems to pause every few seconds. I'm running Windows 7 and using Firefox. I've run virus, spyware and malware checks, all clean. It's only started happened in the last couple of weeks or so. Any ideas ?

Laz123

Try using Chrome et al and if still a problem post back.

Ebe_Scrooge

Thanks for the advice. I've just tried on Chrome and it seems to be OK, but Firefox is still choppy.


I've used Firefox for years and always liked it, but if I need to switch to Chrome I will.

Laz123

To be honest I've never found any browser to be 100% reliable. FF on my Vista machine loses my home page when it's updated, Chrome doesn't support Vista, Opera doesn't have a good sidebar like FF and IE9 is crap. I did try Slimjet, a scaled down version of Chrome which is super quick but unreliable by crashing.

Try uninstalling FF but save your bookmarks to a html file using a good uninstaller like IObit http://www.iobit.com/en/advanceduninstaller.php, using the powerful scan then reinstall it and import your bookmarks.

Ebe_Scrooge

Just in case it may help anyone else with similar problems - I did a bit more Googling, and came across some advice to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox. Here's how :


http://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-hardware-acceleration-gpu-rendering-in-mozilla-firefox-4-0-to-fix-font-problem/


I've no idea what hardware acceleration does, but switching it off fixed the problem :beer:

fleshandbone

People need to get out of the habit of saying "Googling" they have too much power over us and we need to rein them in.

Fightsback

Make and exact model of Laptop please ?

How old are the video drivers ?

Ebe_Scrooge

Fightsback wrote: »

Make and exact model of Laptop please ?

How old are the video drivers ?

It's an HP Pavilion ( don't know the exact model off the top of my head, but can check when I get home ). It's about 5 years old - I know that's ancient by a lot of people's standards, but it serves me perfectly well I've never consciously updated any drivers, but I suppose they may have got updated during the normal Windows updates that come out every so often ?

Biggles

The last choppy video I saw was the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.