Computer help forum: Streaming video choppy

If two different browsers give the same problem, then the problem doesn't lie with your system. Either you're on cable Internet and someone on the same neighborhood hub as you has recently discovered the world of file sharing, or the sites themselves are overloaded. There's also a possibility of things being throttled now that the FCC's attempts to reign in such behavior have been struck down. In any case, there's nothing you can do but hope for the best, because the problem isn't with your system.

It definitely seems to be something with this computer. I tried my 8 year old laptop, and while it wasn't a super viewing experience, it was better than this one. So that cuts out internet as the problem and narrows it down to something with my computer.

Drivers all seem to be up to date and none of them have been changed recently.

I tried looking for some info on video codecs, but I'm not having much luck there.

This is really driving me crazy. I'm having the same problem with both flash (hulu, cbs, tv.com) and silverlight (netflix). But it isn't consistent. Hulu works a bit more often than the others, but not all the time. Until recently Netflix was a bit better, but now it rarely works. Cbs and tv.com rarely work. I can't imagine it is the sites though. They are big and popular enough that other people would be complaining and I've searched and haven't found anything.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far!

That used to be my experience more so too with CBS the worst and netflix the best, but within the past month or so, none of them will work very reliably.

It doesn't seem to be a time of day thing, I tried this morning at 5:30 and nothing worked, I've tried during the middle of the day, afternoon, evenings, weekends, it doesn't seem to make a difference.

I read a comparison of Flash on several browsers and their CPU usage. Safari came out on top even when on a PC. I installed it recently and it seems a bit better. I don't see why as my CPU usage is still low no matter which browser I choose. Chrome is the worst for CBS.com. I really can't even use it.

On another note, I don't think it's internet speed either. I used to live in an apartment and me and my neighbor shared a 3mbit (the slowest one) and CBS was bad, Netflix was great. Now I live in a house with the 8mbit connection and it pretty much looks the same. These speeds come from doing a speed test, not from what the cable company sold me.

Just food for thought. If someone has an answer or consistently gets CBS.com crystal clear, I would like to hear about your setup.

I looked up the specs on the inspiron 1521 and the processessor could be from 256k to 1mb L2 and from 1.8 to 2.2 mghz processor. I don't think the processossor speed is the problem, although it's not helping, but the cach may be. I think you may be trying to outdo the machine. Flash does not use your video card and so everything is handled by the CPU. Newer versions of Flash are incorporating Hardware Accelleration, but you have to have a new compatable video card. Watching things like DVDs or MP4s does use your graphics card and will have different results. I don't know about Netflix (Silverlight) though. Having Vista doesn't help. I'm running XP so much more of my resourses are free. Two suggestions. 1) turn off your virus scanner. They can bog down the machine. 2) go to msconfig and turn everything off that looks like a program you recognize. You can look in the "directory" column if you are unsure. You can also search for each program and their are many internet sites that will say if you can turn them off or not.

I watched NCIS on CBS.com last night and it was smooth. I suspect they were doing a lousy job of encoding their shows and as time goes on they are getting better.

About 2 days ago in the middle of watching an episode of 48 Hours online the video started acting weird. Ever since that moment I cannot watch a video on any website at any time of day without having a choppy video. The sound plays continuously without a problem but the video will never play smoothly. I have uninstalled and reinstalled every plug-in, add on, extension, and video player that i have but nothing seems to be working. I have cleaned, defragmented, and scanned the computer for viruses. Nothing is working. Somebody please help!!


I am using a Dell Latitude D620
Windows XP SP3
Firefox 3.6

I googled DMA and how to enable it, then took the steps to enable it and it was already enabled so I don't think that was the problem. It was a good guess though, I though you had solved my problem but no luck. Also I wanted to clarify that I am having this problem when steaming videos online. Continuous sound with choppy video??