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bananamana
Asked: 2012-03-12 09:27:26 +0800 CST

High CPU usage when watching youtube videos (HTML5)?

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When I watch a youtube video, especially in HD, the browser I'm using (chrome) will use in excess of 200% of the CPU. This causes the video to stutter and also makes my laptop very hot. Is it normal for it to use this much CPU? Also, it's even worse when I watch it fullscreen.

I'm on a Dell Studio XPS1645 with a first generation i7 and a ATI radeonHD 4670 graphics card (With the latest proprietary drivers). Running Ubuntu 12.04 (but the same thing happens with earlier versions). Also I'm using the HTML5 version of youtube as flash performs even worse..

Can anyone help me resolve this issue or at least tell me if this is normal?

Thanks

cpu-load video youtube hd-video html5

2 Answers

  1. This is something I had to deal with as well and I came to the conclusion if I use a desktop application like Miro, Totem, VLC, or MiniTube it makes my system run much better and cooler.

    I prefer Miro, but it still needs some more development until it is perfect and crash free. I hear MiniTube is great, but it is a paid app. Totem works, but isn't as convenient.

    I know this might not be your preferred method, but using Miro has opened up a lot of great content I wouldn't have found otherwise like free and creative commons audio books, music, and video series/episodes.

    Also if you go this route check out Fluendo Codec. It improves video quality and works with Gstreamer. Only costs about $30 bucks.

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  2. Try Mozilla Nightly Browser!

    Nightly browser will help you to reduce load on CPU. I may say that Nightly isn't stable as much as Firefox, but worth trying. Open terminal (Ctrl + T) and enter the following commands to install Nightly Browser.

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa

    sudo apt-get update

    sudo apt-get install firefox-trunk

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