Thinkpads Forum

I recently received a new T510 with Intel i5 processor, 4GB RAM, Full HD screen, and Windows 7 64-bit. Very happy about everything so far, except one thing: when I try to view 1080P HD videos from YouTube, it seems the processor can't keep up and play the video without having to pause every 20-30 seconds. When this first happened I was surprised and quite disappointed -- is it really that the i5 with 4GB of RAM can't process fast enough? I'm trying this with nothing else running on the machine. Any thoughts? Do I really need 8GB of RAM to stream full-HD video?

How fast is your internet connection? Internet speed would be my first suspect.

ahinz04 wrote:I recently received a new T510 with Intel i5 processor, 4GB RAM, Full HD screen, and Windows 7 64-bit. Very happy about everything so far, except one thing: when I try to view 1080P HD videos from YouTube, it seems the processor can't keep up and play the video without having to pause every 20-30 seconds. When this first happened I was surprised and quite disappointed -- is it really that the i5 with 4GB of RAM can't process fast enough? I'm trying this with nothing else running on the machine. Any thoughts? Do I really need 8GB of RAM to stream full-HD video?

Why dont you pause, stream the entire thing first and then play it.

@ahinz04 : If it's not you internet connection speed then try to install the very latest version of Flash : version 10.1.xxxxx . I don't know if there's a 64bit version of it though. http://get.adobe.com/fr/flashplayer/otherversions/

This version uses the gpu to decode hd videos, which helps a lot.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will make sure I have the most current version of Flash. Pausing to let it load is obviously an option...but we Americans are impatient!

RE: the first response - according to speedtest.net, my download speed is around 2.83 MB/s, and upload speed is 2.15 MB/s

That's your problem. Even my T60 with a Core Duo could handle 1080p.

ahinz04 wrote:RE: the first response - according to speedtest.net, my download speed is around 2.83 MB/s, and upload speed is 2.15 MB/s

Are you sure that it's 2.83 MegaBytes per second and not 2.83 Mb/s (Megabits)? Most speed testing sites will give you a megabit rating which is also what ISPs advertise since the numbers are bigger. However download transfer speeds in windows are shown in bytes not bits. If your connection is ~2.8 mbits/s you would expect download speeds to top out around 300 kB/s and that would be on the slower end of being able to stream HD video.

At home I have a 25Mbit symmetrical circuit that is able to get over 2.5 MB/s so it's not unreasonable that you do have a connection that fast. That little b or big B is the difference between downloading a Linux iso about 700mB in 45 minutes vs 5 minutes.