Re: hulu in TV over IP http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20173584 en Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:40:02 EDT Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:40:02 EDT Re: hulu http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20181789 DracoFelis :
said by frankdsl124c See Profile :

Thanx 4 all the help. I found that Hulu seems to work best when all of the startup programs, especially the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are turned off. Of course then i'm in danger of getting my computer infected.
Agreed. I personally wouldn't turn off the anti-virus for that reason. And that's especially true now that some malware authors have sometimes managed to use "ads" on legitimate web sites, as one way to try infecting PCs. So just because we presumably trust HULU, doesn't mean I would necessarily trust all the (3rd party) ads that HULU posts on their site. Because if the place HULU gets it's ads gets compromised, than those "ads" could try infecting your PC (at which point you would really want your anti-virus running)!

OTOH while I don't turn off my anti-virus in situations such as this, I have been known to use Task Manager to lower the priority of the anti-virus, so that the real time activities (such as the video) get better priority than the anti-virus itself. Seems to help a bit.

BTW: I forgot to mention one of the best "tricks" for good streaming video on low CPU machines. Lower your video resolution as much as you can get away with. For example, I've found that HULU at 800x600 screen resolution works fairly well. Remember that the CPU used is proportional to the amount of pixels drawn, NOT how big that is on the screen. So if you lower your screen resolution, you need to draw much fewer pixels to fill the same amount of the screen!

And that also means that a newer video card (that offloads more of the drawing of the video to the video card) might also speed things up for you. Remember, a large fraction of the CPU of rendering video, is the CPU needed to draw the video images in real time. And how fast that is, is not only dependent upon the speed of your CPU, it is also dependent upon the speed of your video card.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20181789 Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:22:25 EDT Re: hulu http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20177617 frankdsl124c : Thanx 4 all the help. I found that Hulu seems to work best when all of the startup programs, especially the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are turned off. Of course then i'm in danger of getting my computer infected. Maybe someone from Hulu will be reading this column and will come up with a solution. Also some of the other video websites suffer from the same problem. For example MSNBC's news video. It used to run good but lately someone seems to have made changes and now it does not work as well as it used to. I had to switch over to Reuters which runs a lot better. As mentioned YouTube and Goodgle Video also run pretty good. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20177617 Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:14:31 EDT Re: hulu http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20176574 DracoFelis :
said by frankdsl124c See Profile :

I was also thinking of getting a faster internet service such as Verizon Business Class or such. Would this help?
In theory yes, but in practice it appears that you may have enough ISP speed, and the problem is your CPU speed. If so, a faster ISP speed won't make much of a difference (except to your pocket book), until/unless you get a computer with a faster CPU...

BTW:
I have the same problem with 3meg (supposedly 10meg, but my older modem can't sync with my DSL at full speed) internet, and I still have the same hulu problems you do with my older computer. And yes, things like playing with the priority, using smaller video, etc, all help (but only so much).

OTOH: I just got done viewing things using my newer (albeit not exactly super fast) laptop (but cabled up to my 20" CRT monitor), and I had little problems watching "full screen". So in the end, the solution appears to be to get a faster CPU, not necessarily a faster internet (as your internet is probably "fast enough", it's your CPU that's having trouble drawing the video in "real time").]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20176574 Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:46:03 EDT Re: hulu http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20173584 frankdsl124c : Thanx 4 the information, i have tried some of your suggestions and they do help. I was also thinking of getting a faster internet service such as Verizon Business Class or such. Would this help?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20173584 Sun, 16 Mar 2008 11:36:09 EDT Re: hulu http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20171174 DracoFelis :
said by frankdsl124c See Profile :

But how do you raise the priority of your web browser's task above normal?
As I mentioned, I don't remember what the Win2K task manager is like (it's been a few years since we used Windows 2000 at work).

But if it works anything like the XP task manager, it's very easy to change process priorities. In XP you just have task manager bring up the process list, find the process used by your web browser (for example, I use the FireFox web browser, so my browser's process is "firefox.exe"), right click that process (in Task Manager), and choose "Set Priority => Above Normal" (and OK the change, when Task Manager asks you to verify). Voila, your web browser is running at higher than default Windows priority (and therefore gets CPU slightly ahead of other things running on your machine).

NOTE: Higher priority for your web browser seems to help a little bit. But in the end, a "too slow" machine, will still be too slow. And we all have to live with the fact that HULU is just more CPU hungry than say YouTube is (so it won't work as well on slower machines)...]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20171174 Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:53:57 EDT Re: hulu http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20168482 frankdsl124c : I have turned off all of the start up programs when running hulu videos including anti-spyware and anti-virus programs and this does reduce the tendency to stall. But how do you raise the priority of your web browser's task above normal? Also r there any programs that i can get that will help reduce video stall? Y does Google video and YouTube work so well? Thanx 4 the help! ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20168482 Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:51:41 EDT Re: hulu http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20162176 DracoFelis : Bring up task manager, and then minimize it to the systems tray. This will give you a real time read of the CPU used. You will likely find that HULU is moderately CPU intensive. And when you max out your CPU, you start to get a case of the the pauses, jumps, etc.

A faster CPU will obviously help this, and adding more memory (which is fairly cheap these days) might help as well. Beyond that, here are some "tricks" that I've found that help some (especially on the older/slower computers in our house):

1) First the obvious one. Since the problem is likely lack of sufficient CPU, close down anything else you don't need to run (which is using up CPU). This gives more CPU to the flash video.

2) As others have said, pausing the video briefly (until the CPU goes close to zero according to task manager) allows the HULU app to buffer a little ahead. This doesn't help a lot, but it's sometimes just enough to allow HULU to display things without "hanging".

3) I forget what the Win2K task manager is like, but if it's the same as the XP task manager, you can use it to raise the priority of your web browser's task above normal. The effect of this (temporary) change, is that your browser (and therefore the HULU flash video) will get a little higher priority (over other tasks in Windows) for any CPU that you have. In my experience, this also makes a minor improvement in the quality/smoothness of HULU video.

4) When things start getting "jumpy" try a smaller video display (as drawing less of the screen uses less CPU). The WORST CHOICE (if you have an older CPU that can't keep up) is their "Full Screen" mode, as it (in my experience) uses a lot of CPU, and can often have problems with hanging and jumpy screens. Obviously the "best choice" (CPU wise) is their normal boxed screen (that first comes up). However, I have also found that the "Pop out" option (i.e. video in a new browser window that you can size as you wish) is often a good compromise between video size and CPU load.

WARNING: If you do go with "Pop out", be sure to close the original browser window ASAP. Yes, the original browser window will now be "paused", but I've found that sometimes the HULU controls can goof and start running BOTH windows (the new "Pop out" one, and the original smaller one). And when that happens, you not only have your CPU go south, you get very funny audio, as the two screens won't be at the same place in your show...]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20162176 Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:07:41 EDT Re: hulu http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20161945 checkinout : I ran into the same problem even with 1 gig of memory and 1.8 ghz processor. It depends how fast the stream and what other programs youre running on your pc. I did find a fix that's not too much of a problem. If you start the stream and pause it and wait a few minutes for the pc to load up some of the packets and then resume it will go alot longer without stopping to load up again.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20161945 Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:08:26 EDT hulu http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20157816 frankdsl124c : i have gone to the hulu and tried to watch a tv program but the stream started and stopped too frequently. Why does this happen? i watch youtube and google videos without any problems. what can i do to fix this problem? i have an old computer running w2k with 256 memory. my dsl service is verizon, the 15 buck deal. this seems to be good enough for most apps and for surfing websites, but i seem to be having problems with hulu and some of the other streaming video websites. would i have better luck buying a newer computer or getting faster dsl service? i have speedit video accelorator and that seems to help a little bit. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20157816 Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:48:33 EDT