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JWPlayer uses way too much CPU in Chrome and Firefox with Flash

I have the following problem, that on my Ivy Bridge Ultrabook (Intel HD4000), whenever I watch a full HD stream over JWPlayer (Flash), the CPU usage is extreme at about 70% and the temperature rises to about 77°C. This happens in Chrome and Firefox. If I watch the same stream on IE, CPU usage is just about 3% and temperature stays at about 55°C. If I watch the stream on Chrome, there are two processes which use about 23%, one Chrome process and one GPU process, which seems to be a bug. If there's a GPU process already, Chrome shouldn't use that much CPU too next to the GPU process, and of course, the GPU process uses way too much total CPU percent anyway, compared to IE11. All drivers, JWPlayer, Chrome, Flash are newest versions. OS is Windows 8.1 64bit. Hardware acceleration is turned on in flash options.

14 Community Answers

MisterNeutron

Best Answer 

You started off by implying that the poor Flash performance was somehow the fault of JW Player. We're simply trying to explain to you that it has nothing to do with JW Player. The problem is Flash.

No one here can solve the problems with Flash. I have no idea why Flash behaves better in IE11 than it does in Chrome or Firefox. This is not a Flash forum.

If you want live streaming, you're stuck without any good choices. Otherwise, provide an MP4, and stick to HTML5.

It's not an argument. It's just a statement of the facts.

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MisterNeutron

User  
0 rated :

JW Player doesn't actually include any "player," per se. It either passes the video to the browser's native HTML5 <video> tag, or to Flash. In short, what you're seeing is simply the way Flash operates in different browsers. JW Player doesn't really have anything to do with it.

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Cooper Reid

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Correct, JWPlayer leverages either the Flash object or the HTML5 video tag to playback video content. I recommend updating to the latest version of Flash if you are experiencing this sort of issue.
-Cooper

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rimiperi

User  
0 rated :

Flash sucks, force it to use HTML5
The difference is huge in terms of resource consumption

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Cooper Reid

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Correct, you can do so by using the primary parameter:

jwplayer(“player”).setup({
file: ‘bunny.mp4’,
title: ‘Bunny’,
image: ‘bunny.jpg’,
width:‘100%’,
primary: ‘html5’
});

-Cooper

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MisterNeutron

User  
0 rated :

Doesn't JW 6.11 default to HTML5 mode, as long as the browser supports it? The "primary" attribute is redundant in this case. Of course, if you're feeding the player an RTMP stream, it will be Flash only, so there's no relief possible there.

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dustbowl

User  
0 rated :

Since when does JWP support HTML5 for RTMP streams, of course it is a RTMP stream, what else? Than tell me, why does IE11+Flash uses 3% CPU via JWP, and Chrome or Firefox use 60-70% CPU? Do you want to tell me, that Flash is bugged with Chrome and Firefox?

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dustbowl

User  
0 rated :

And like I said in my post, everything is newest build. Ive tested this on three different PCs now, also asked two friends to test this, and it's all the same. IE11+Flash results in 1-3% CPU usage, Chrome/Firefox+Flash in 50-70%.

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MisterNeutron

User  
0 rated :

What you're seeing is just what Flash does, and that's why Flash is so hated by so many. It's also one of the reasons there's no Flash on a mobile device - massive power consumption, and a boatload of heat.

What else besides RTMP? Well, there's HLS, but on desktops, that's still invoking Flash, alas. But maybe you don't need streaming at all - without knowing about your use case, I couldn't say. But if you just feed an MP4 via HTTP, this problem goes away.

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Cooper Reid

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Flash will be extinct as less and less devices are supporting it. Almost 100% of Desktop browsers support MP4 playback natively. I highly recommend using Mp4 videos for your player, unless you are trying to do livestreaming of some sort.
Cooper

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dustbowl

User  
0 rated :

Like I said, it <is a live stream, and it's RTMP>.

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dustbowl

User  
0 rated :

And nope, neither does your JWPlayer support HTML5 RTMP, nor HLS for desktop browsers.

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MisterNeutron

User  
0 rated :

Um, I'm guessing that you don't understand that RTMP is Flash, by definition. No player script under heaven can handle it with native HTML5 video capabilities. And there's no support for HLS streams in desktop browsers (except for Safari, of course), from anyone, anywhere, without using Flash to do it.

If you want to provide a live stream, you're pretty much stuck with RTMP, which means you're stuck with Flash. There's no magic.

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dustbowl

User  
0 rated :

And? And what... ? I don't get your way of argumentation? Where did I say I wouldn't want or care to use flash? It was all the people on here saying, totally out of context. Yes flash is "bad" because of all the security holes in it found every week, but it can be fine, the problem here is Chrome/Firefox I guess, why does it work perfectly with IE11, huh?

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MisterNeutron

Best Answer  User  
0 rated :

You started off by implying that the poor Flash performance was somehow the fault of JW Player. We're simply trying to explain to you that it has nothing to do with JW Player. The problem is Flash.

No one here can solve the problems with Flash. I have no idea why Flash behaves better in IE11 than it does in Chrome or Firefox. This is not a Flash forum.

If you want live streaming, you're stuck without any good choices. Otherwise, provide an MP4, and stick to HTML5.

It's not an argument. It's just a statement of the facts.

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