Issues with Hulu streaming? (choppy video)

Well I just finished assembling my HTPC and everything is working perfectly except for watching Hulu videos.

No matter what I do the playback is fairly choppy especially when I attempt to run them full screen at 480p.

I know that it's not a throughput issue with my ISP as I can run the same content from my desktop rig and it plays flawlessly.

The HTPC's components are:

- Nmediapc micro-atx case w/ 300w PS
- AMD Athlon X2 64 7850 (retail box w/HS)
- Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-US2H (w/ integrated ATI 3200 video)
- 2 two gig Corsair DDR2 800mhz
- D-Link wireless G adapter
- 1tb WD intellipower caviar drive
- Windows 7 RC

While the desktop PC is:

- Coolmaster case w/Antec 550w earthcore PS
- AMD Athlon X2 64 5200
- ECS Geforce 7050-M mainboard
- Galaxy Geforce GTS 250
- 2 one gig Corsair DDR2 800mhz
- Netgear wireless G USB adapter
- 250g Maxtor drive
- Windows XP Home SP2

Based upon the stats of the two computers the only area in which the desktop rig surpasses the HTPC is in the video card but I would find it odd if that is where the problem is in the HTPC as it has been able to handle downloaded 1080p content from other sites without any issues at all.

The only other thing I can think of is that perhaps the Adobe Flash player isn't implemented well in Windows 7?

Any other ideas?

Typically, no.

However I moved the HTPC to the router and plugged it in directly with a network cable and had the exact same choppy video (and then immediately ran the same video flawlessly via wireless to my desktop) so I believe I have eliminated the connection, server and bandwidth as potential sources of the problem.

That leaves the video chipset, OS and possibly the hard drive cache speed as the only other possible problem areas I can think of.

(After spending all day yesterday getting Windows 7 loaded and running on that machine, I am loathe to wipe it and load XP, so that will probably be the "last resort" attempt to solve the problem.)

I suppose that the next thing I'll try subbing the on-board video for a 9600GT I have lying around. That means I'll have to wipe all of the ATI drivers and load the Geforce ones (and then potentially swap them back if that doesn't help).

I am also a bit concerned that the 300w PS in the HTPC won't be up for running the 9600GT so there may be an issue there as well.

Wish me luck...

That is something I hadn't looked at.

Right now I am running the Cat 9.5 drivers at 720p (the resolution of TV in my living room) and have been testing it at 1080p as well on my desktop's monitor.

I'll try a few other versions of the Catalyst drivers and see if that helps before replacing the video.

I've tried the Catalyst 9.4 and 9.3 drivers and saw a small improvement over the 9.5 set but the overall framerate is still probably around 20fps at best.

Watchable (sort of) but not up to the quality I had hoped to see from a HTPC (on a 50" display).

Conversely, Netflix streaming video (using Silverlight) looks smooth and clean.

Worse, after taking another look at the 9600GT, it's just a little too big to fit into the Nmediapc 100b, microATX case which means if I want to test the Geforce option I'll have to hunt down a low profile 9400 or 9500 card. So if I order one on-line today I probably won't see the card until next week.

Right now, I'm very disappointed as Hulu streaming was one of the major reasons I put this system together for.

It's the ATI chipset/drivers that are causing the low framerate issues.

I disassembled the entire HTPC and rebuilt it outside of the case, spread out on my dining room table.

That gave me the room I needed to be able to plug in the 9600GT.

As soon as it booted up, Hulu was running beautifully at 480p full screen using just the default drivers Window 7 has for Nvidia. (wireless connection about 40 feet away from the router, through a wall).

Now I just have to purchase a low profile 9400 or 9500 card (that will fit in the case) and once I have that everything should be good to go.

If other people are having similar issues with Hulu video then I would have to wonder if their problems aren't tied up in the ATI chipset/drivers as well.

That may work for you but I just swapped the system back over to the on-board 3200 chip and Catalyst 9.6 drivers and I saw a noticeable decrease in frame rate in both Hulu and Amazon playback with some tearing appearing in the Amazon HD content (which didn't happen with the Nvidia card).

You don't mention what OS you are using but if it isn't Win 7 (Which I am running) then it is possible that the Adobe flash program and ATI chipsets may work better together in XP and Vista than they do in 7.


I've tried turning the Hardware acceleration on and off when using both the 3200 and the 9600 and frankly neither chipset showed any change at all in playback whether it was turned on or off.

Now from what I understand, the option for hardware acceleration has to be set into the media when it's encoded and if it is not then turning it on in Flash has no effect. So if that is true, then it is probable that the clips I was seeing didn't have the acceleration enabled in them. (The latest episodes of Burn Notice, Merlin, & Royal Pains were what I was using as test media).

Based upon my tests, it looks like my problems will be solved with a low profile Nvidia 9400 or 9500 card. Hopefully I'll be able to find one locally tomorrow or else I will have to order it from the Egg and probably won't see it until late next week some time.

Well if you are correct then currently Adobe flash makes zero use of the hardware acceleration capabilities of either the Nvidia or ATI cards in Windows 7 because neither show any change at all whether the setting is enabled or disabled on my system.

512mb of system RAM was allocated for the video.

The 9500GT also has 512mb of dedicated RAM on the card.

Both the system RAM and the memory on the video card are DDR2.

The difference in watching Hulu and Amazon streaming between the on-board 3200 chip and the 9500 isn't huge but it is noticeable. Not a lot, but enough to smooth out the playback and eliminate the visible frame skipping. (which was very noticeable on my 50" screen at 720p with the 3200 chipset).

Now the 3200 had no problems at all playing back MKV files in 720p and 1080p with media player and Netflix streaming through Silverlight looked fine as well. Only media streamed using the adobe flash player seems to have shown an improvement in using the Nvidia card over the ATI chip.

Now this may be an issue with the chipset or simply a poor implementation in the ATI drivers for Windows 7. Since I haven't tried running any other OS on my HTPC I really can't say. All I do know is that I tried the following ATI drivers for Win7:

Catalyst 8.612
Catalyst 9.3
Catalyst 9.4
Catalyst 9.5
Catalyst 9.6

And of all of them I saw the best performance using the 9.3 set. That set gave me roughly 20fps. The worst was 9.5 which looked to be closer to 17-18 fps in Hulu.

The difference in performance using various driver versions seems to confirm that the issue may in fact be rooted somewhere in the software rather than being a hardware problem.

Perhaps the situation will improve as Win 7 moves closer to final release and the ATI drivers for that OS mature but for now, using the 9500gt has solved all of my playback issues and gotten me up and running to the point where an episode of Leverage, streamed in HD from Amazon last night looked to be of the same overall quality as my Uverse HD content.

Which is enough to make my wife happy, so I'm happy.