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General Discussion

Posted by bruinebeer
bruinebeer
16,101 Points

Treehouse almost crashing chrome. Why forced h.265?? (webm)

Hi guys,

i just encountered a huge usability issue on my very new macbook pro '15.

The website is already pretty heavy to load as is. But with the addition of h265, chrome becomes almost unusable..

Also battery usage skyrockets, making this site a pain in the ass in certain circumstances.

So i am wondering whether it is possible to add some kind of interface to choose which codec you want to use.

Although using safari fixes the problem (no h265 in safari), it's kind of a workaround.

Please think about all your users.. almost any computer bought before 2016, will have this issue.

Greetings,

Mark

PS. This probably does affect Firefox & Edge as well since they have h265 support.

Christian Andersson
Christian Andersson
8,712 Points

You should send a ticket to support. I doubt you'll get a response on the forums.

4 Answers

bruinebeer
bruinebeer
16,101 Points
bruinebeer
bruinebeer
16,101 Points

I did, this is only to discuss it with other users. You have no issues? Especially laptop users on chrome/firefox are affected.

Codin - Codesmite
Codin - Codesmite
8,600 Points
Codin - Codesmite
Codin - Codesmite
8,600 Points

No problems here on multiple devices.

Work PC: (10GB/s ADSL, Windows 8, Chrome Version 46.0.2490.71 m, Firefox Version 41.0.2)

Home PC: (250GB/s Fibre, Windows 7, Chrome Version 46.0.2490.71 m, Firefox Version 41.0.2)

Home Laptop 1: (250GB/s Fibre, Linux, Firefox Version 41.0.2)

Home Laptop 2: (250GB/s Fibre, Windows 7, Firefox Version 41.0.2)

Mobile Phone: (4G, Android Samsung Galaxy S3, Firefox Mobile Browser).

Mobile Phone 2: (4G, Android Samsung Galaxy S4, Dolphin Browser).

Work PC is fairly new quad core 3.2ghz 10GB Ram.

Home PC is ancient core2 duo 2.2ghz 10GB Ram (Literally the first ever availible core 2 Duo chipset availible on the market).

Home Laptop 1 is a LAMP stack on a old Core 2 Duo 1.4ghz 4GB Ram.

Home Laptop 2 is a bit newer quad core 2.4ghz 8GB Ram.

Maybe there is an issue with the codec installed on your macbook?

All of the devices I listed above use the same codec from VLC Media Player.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.en_GB.html

bruinebeer
bruinebeer
16,101 Points
bruinebeer
bruinebeer
16,101 Points

No it is the webm -> h265 implementation.

When you look in te html source you can see which container is used.

Right click om video -> inspect element, then scroll down and at the end you'll see either webm or mp4 as video file extension.

Webm -> indicates h265 Mp4 -> indicates h265

Check whether webm is chosen and then check task manager. CPU usage will skyrocket unless you have the newest gpu or newest skylake intel cpu.

On my laptop (macbookpro mid 2015), when heavily multitasking, as we all are when following tutorials, it seriously affects performance.

Chrome doesnt provide me with option to choose my codec so, i am using safari, which is ok, but i'd rather use chrome and not be forced to use another browser.

Codin - Codesmite
Codin - Codesmite
8,600 Points

Just checked and all devices I listed are showing as 750p.webm in the source.

I am having next to no difference in Firefox or Chrome performance in task manager even when opening up multiple tabs with 3 or more videos running at the same time.

(None of my devices Iisted above are new GPU or new CPU one of them is over 10 years old).

bruinebeer
bruinebeer
16,101 Points
bruinebeer
bruinebeer
16,101 Points

Ok, i did a thorough check. Even downloaded the files.

So, when i play the files in vlc. Cpu doesn't even give a kick. Which you'd expect.

The codec used in the video files seem to be VP8, which is essentially googles implementation of h264.

I don't understand the difference in performance. I am using a new MBP OS X El Capitan.

Browser Cpu Usage Cpu tem
Firefox 15-18%   69-75°C
Chrome 16-20%   90°C so the fan kicks in aggressively.
Safari 8-10%  60°C

Cant figure out what the problem is. Maybe its OS X El Capitan : /

Thanks for the checkup on your systems Ashley!

Codin - Codesmite
Codin - Codesmite
8,600 Points

It could still possibably be Chrome, I literally treat Chrome like Internet Explorer usage wise.

I will only open it to test if a project I am working on functions in Chrome, I never use it as my personal browser of choice. I used it for years but switched back to Firefox as I found Chrome uses far more CPU when multi tab browsing. Especially if a page contained Flash elements such as Facebook which is covered in Flash, My girlfriend found that Chrome crashed within 10 minutes of browsing Facebook and I found the same problems with Facebook and other websites that still utililize Flash.

Chrome is known to have problems with large video files using h.264 it may have just as many problems with h.265 (I am not experiencing them myself, but Chrome is not my usual browser of choice so maybe I do not use it enough to replicate the problem).