[OP]
Member
I have been trying to watch the Podcasts but the voice and the pictures never align and everything is jerky. My P.C. is about 5 years old. Is there some software I should download for better performance?
I have not had problems with other u-tube type videos.
David Turner
Plymouth, MI.
Member
That's strange, what kind of internet connection are you running on? Might try starting them and then pausing them until they completely load. Could be a buffering issue (not that I know what I'm talking about). I've also had that happen on an older PC when I watch podcasts on fullscreen, for whatever reason, I've resolved the issue by watching it in the smaller window; though that's clearly not an ideal solution.
Member
I view them without interruption, or the video problems you mention.
Intel Atom CPU 330 1.6Ghz
2 GB RAM
Windows 7 32 bit
I expect your PC is suffering from indigestion.
Guest
Might be a flash version issue (are youtube videos flash?) and could be that other folks who chime in have hardware rendering of videos while you may have software rendering (my understanding of that being that several hands are in the CPU cookie jar at one time unlike hardware rendering where the hardware does a lot of the work).Originally Posted by David Turner
Member
With the video running, right click on the video and click "settings". A little box should come up that is titled "Adobe Flash Player Settings". Make sure that the "Enable Hardware Acceleration" box is NOT checked. I know, I know....one would think that it would help but being enabled can sometimes overload the CPU and cause the problems that you are experiencing.
That said, I find that Blip TV, Vimeo and others require much more juice than YouTube, even the video has the same sampling rate.
Member
Try installing iTunes and subscribing to the podcast through there. Might work better and is quite a bit more standard as far as further troubleshooting (I think).
Member
I think if my solution to any problem involved apple, I'd just punt. My mantra all during the Microsoft reign of terror is if you aren't reinstalling Windows every six months or so then you just aren't living right.
If you are ready to get rid of the problem maker all together, Linux Mint is a nice installation. I spent several years waiting for a Linux version of that last application I needed (UltraEdit in my case) and once that product was out long enough to be sure it was workable, I dumped Microsoft and never looked back. Wishing now I hadn't been paranoid and set things up as dual boot in case I needed to get back into Windows. It's been six months or so and the need has never arisen.
Just to be sure, I hit the logan site and fired up episode 1, plays great using Firefox on Linux Mint!
Member
Realistically, I don't think that the correct solution to a video problem should ever be "completely change operating systems". If David had the knowledge and experience to install and run any version of Linusx successfully, he would never have asked his original question.
Member
If you find no joy, click on the 'podcast feed' somewhere or other (long day, I'm not looking again!) and you'll find you can subscribe to the RSS feed, but there are also downloadable videos of the podcasts there.
There are three different files there, mp4 hi and low resolution and m4v.
I don't think they'll actually help you much if your computer can't handle the flash version though, and you're probably better served giving what you've got (computer wise) a spring cleaning.
This laptop is about 3 years old, but runs pretty strong and is clean as a whistle. I did find that with hardware acceleration checked (on!) the video was smoother than using software acceleration (hardware off!) so try both and see what, if any, works best for you.
Seems to me that site is set up with what's easiest for Mac, which probably isn't doing you any favours either.
I'm not expert on any of this really, but this poor little laptop has spent half of the past 3 days grinding it's way through decoding, encoding, editing and uploading video. Stupidly, letting Vista (gasp!) do it's thing it's own way worked better than anything. Nearly painless actually.
Good luck.
(Me, I'll stick with upolading to Youtube. A little bit easier all round methinks.)
Stu.
Contributor
I guess I'm just not living right…I think if my solution to any problem involved apple, I'd just punt. My mantra all during the Microsoft reign of terror is if you aren't reinstalling Windows every six months or so then you just aren't living right.
I like blue skies, not blue screens…
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Member
I'm not living right either.
Although I must confess that I did re-install Vista on this thing only a month or so ago.
(HD upgrade. Biiiig upgrade.)
Prior to that, only id-ten-t problems, which don't happen often enough to be of note. Always intrigues me as to what on earth folks are doing to get so much trouble out of an complicated, but otherwise dumb piece of technology.
(Also makes me wonder if they should be trusted with anything more dangerous than a plastic spoon...)
Stu.
Member
If you wish to solve this, you'll need to provide a couple of pieces of basic information:
1) What is your average internet download speed. This is easy to test using the Internet Speed Test site (there are others out there as well): http://speedtest.net/
2) How much ram do you have in your system (access the "Control Panel>System")
3) Finally, press "ctrl-alt-del" keys simultaneously, and bring up the Windows Task Manager. In it you will see several tabs. Access the "applications" tab first. You should see nothing but internet explorer running. If anything else is, close it (that includes bloated virus/firewall software, which is guaranteed to mire your system performance in sludge). The access the "processes" tab. You should see about 20 or so processes running in the background, and the "system resources" percentage next to each should be near zero. If any of them are consuming over 30 % or so, you've an issue. Use Google to look up the particular process, which should tell you which program has installed the background process.
If you've, for example, an auto-backup routine running that backs up new content to an external hard drive, close it. You definitely don't need this running while watching 'net videos.
4) Finally, if all of the above isn't the issue, ping Rob and ask him if he'll send you a portion of a (short) video in *.wmv format. Once you've put this on your hard drive, try to run it through Windows Media Player. If it's still jerky/not synced with the audio, I would suspect you're running a system with "integrated video ram" - in other words, you're sharing memory that the system uses with the video system. That's a deal killer. Fortunately, it's very easy and very inexpensive to fix this - go to CompUSA (or insert your favorite hardware dealer) and buy an inexpensive video card. Should cost you about $30 for one of the low-end ones, which is more than enough for 'net videos. Installing this card will turn off system resource sharing, and you should be done.
Guest
I've been running it for 4 years on a $600 notebook computer, never a problem, certainly no reinstall. Aside from the error checking it constantly does, I kind of like it (perhaps that error checking has kept me out of trouble). XP on a desktop across the house for 10, one reinstall when I had a hardware issue (but that old barge of desktop still works fine).
Never could get myself settled with the mac pricing policy - scavenges too much from the tool budget!
Member
Come on guys (and gals)!!!!!
Since you're all already in various stages of sliding down that Neanderthalic slope, you might as well finish the trip and come the rest of the way over to the Darkside.....dump them thar Winders machines and get yerself a real computator: get a Mac....no incompatibility issues, designed from the get-go for graphics, and all the other 10,000 reasons to get rid of the "chisel-shaped objects" of the computer world and upgrade to the Lie-Nielsen of computerdom.....
James
"Uke is always right." (Attributed to Ueshiba Morihei)
Member
Does everyone know that iTunes works very well with a Windows computer too? I've never actually owned a Mac, but love my iPod and iTunes.
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