This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Choppy Playback

  • 6 cavab
  • 120 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

On YouTube and other Flash based video sites, Flash drops a huge number of frames, making playback very choppy even with the smallest resolution (360, 480). This doesn't happen with IE, not even while using the highest resolution (720, 1080) available. I know my computer is more than powerful enough to play back full HD, even without hardware acceleration. Is this Firefox's fault or Flashes and is there anything I can do about it?

On YouTube and other Flash based video sites, Flash drops a huge number of frames, making playback very choppy even with the smallest resolution (360, 480). This doesn't happen with IE, not even while using the highest resolution (720, 1080) available. I know my computer is more than powerful enough to play back full HD, even without hardware acceleration. Is this Firefox's fault or Flashes and is there anything I can do about it?

All Replies (6)

more options

Hi Jamesc359,

Have you looked at our Youtube video troubleshooting section? There is a lot of great content in there.

Hopefully this helps!

more options

Hello Matt, thank you for your reply. :-)

Yes I've already looked at the trouble shooting section. The problem persists in safe mode with hardware acceleration either enabled or disabled and my antivirus disabled. CPU utilization is minimal and fluctuating between 8-16 percent. GPU utilization is virtually non-existent. An easy Gig of RAM is free. There's no HDD activity, or any other activity that should cause problems.

more options

FireFox browser R11.0 + Adobe Flash player version 10,3,183,5 installed YouTube video stream playback for all videos: observing quick stop-jerk behavior every 4 seconds on average during streaming playback.

IE browser R9.0.8112.16421 + Adobe Flash player version 11,1,102,55 installed YouTube video stream playback for all videos: observing smooth behavior during streaming playback - no jerk behavior.

more options

While playing videos, I have noticed a choppy audio playback/echo since yesterday.

more options

When web pages have embedded video, the video gets broken up when scrolling up or down the page. Really annoying, IE does not do it.

more options

Try to disable hardware acceleration.