Does Flash Encoding Slow Down the Computer?

I tried Ustreaming for a little while and got a few people from now and then, but to be honest I think it really interferes in my personal life and I wouldn’t like opening up my life to “x” amount of people of the web. + I only have one Mac to my disposal and wasn’t going to sacrifice all of my CPU power to streaming.

Chris, you and others like you who do live streaming have the guts to :)

Forian

Of course it slows down the computer! Every application you open slows down the computer! But, I have never seen Flash Encoding cause a computer to reach that high of a CPU Usage…

140% well thats on the caution side… your processor may heat up to its limit. or may break down… some actually explode

only PCs have viruses. Macs don’t

only PCs have viruses. Macs don’t

viruses are rare, macs do get spyware and adware, which are more common, so shut up with your sMac talk.

viruses are rare, macs do get spyware and adware, which are more common, so shut up with your sMac talk.

all u do wif a yoyo is pulling it up and down O.O

The other day when I ran my live stream on my laptop I didn’t have a problem with it. Then again, I’m using Windows.

I’d suggest disabling antivirus/firewall software or the like while live streaming. And if you use a totally separate computer while streaming (like Chris uses his Mac Mini) then you can just keep it off all the time, and hope your router’s security software does the trick.

I got to 20%

I got to 20%

I got to 20%

flash player for mac is sucky compared to flash for windows.

flash player for mac is sucky compared to flash for windows.

Thats a lie. Mac viruses are less common then on windows.

Thats a lie. Mac viruses are less common then on windows.

I stream often using my Windows XP Laptop. It has a 3.06 GHz P4 with HT and it slows down to a drag. I use it only to stream and nothing else when I am streaming. I also have a 2001 Powermac G4 QuickSliver that is running Leopard great. I use it as my main computer, and I want to stream from it because it has firewire so I can use my camcorder to stream but when I am streaming from it I can’t do anything else on it. What exactly is the Windows Software? Could Adobe possibly make a flash software that would allow us to stream without killing our computer?
–Derrick

u cant get virus on mac retards thats why mac is wayyyyy better than ******* windows u get 50000000 million virus year

i use windows mac is waaaaaaaay better

you have no idea what you are talking about…viruses are possible on ALL OS’s…just Mac’s aren’t used as widely as Windows so viruses are made to do the most damage thus they are mostly made for Windows but if you truly believe a virus on a mac is impossible then you are completely hopeless and I’ll just end there so I don’t waste any more of my time.

you have no idea what you are talking about…viruses are possible on ALL OS’s…just Mac’s aren’t used as widely as Windows so viruses are made to do the most damage thus they are mostly made for Windows but if you truly believe a virus on a mac is impossible then you are completely hopeless and I’ll just end there so I don’t waste any more of my time.

I am using Linux and my computer is slowing down too when I watch Flash Videos. Other stuff is just fine. Somehow Flash does this on Macs and Linuxes, but on my Windows it runs smoothly.

sub 4 sub

sub 4 sub

Macs still get viruses its just less likely for someone to take the time to make a virus for macs. I am a mac user but there are alot less of us then PC users. So virus creators make more PC viruses because there is more people they can effect.

Macs still get viruses its just less likely for someone to take the time to make a virus for macs. I am a mac user but there are alot less of us then PC users. So virus creators make more PC viruses because there is more people they can effect.

flash encoding is the main reason why firefox takes up so much memory

flash encoding is the main reason why firefox takes up so much memory

It may not only be the flash encoder, it also has to do with any other applications you run TO stream. Not only will you probably have the flash encoder running but any number of other programs to enhance the stream (Camtwist, Webcammax, etc.) But yes there is a price to pay when you stream and slowing down the PC is a usual one. Probably the best thing to do if you plan on lifecasting is looking for a second PC to run the stream off of, and only that.

Get a PC

chirs are you depressed? do u need some help? i think you are because your useing mac

chirs are you depressed? do u need some help? i think you are because your useing mac

chirs are you depressed? do u need some help? i think you are because your useing mac

my macbook doesnt get all that slow when playing flash videos…. BUT the fan does kick up a notch. Usually the fan mellows down after i see a video, but it is a TAD irritateing!

my macbook doesnt get all that slow when playing flash videos…. BUT the fan does kick up a notch. Usually the fan mellows down after i see a video, but it is a TAD irritateing!

If you know anything you would know that macs can get viruses. Don’t believe me ask Chris.

If you know anything you would know that macs can get viruses. Don’t believe me ask Chris.

i wonder if silverlight will beat flash, i find it loads a lot faster but i have only used it to view videos

i wonder if silverlight will beat flash, i find it loads a lot faster but i have only used it to view videos

what do they mean by like 140% load and ****

what do they mean by like 140% load and ****

U and some other users also inspired me.

U and some other users also inspired me.

i was going to start a live stream once, but thuis is exactly the reason i didn’t. it took up too much cpu load for my small pc.

i dont like u streaming. only because i cant have other people come in live video too. but then again what the heck am i gonna do? yours is cool though.
peace. gregg

I encode videos EVERY single day, as many people in my field of work do. For many people, having a good computer just isn’t enough. We need a super computer to do the type of work we do. I’m thinking, after watching and reading this, that the same must be true for Flash. But, what do I know.. I’m just a geek.

I’m running Windows, and I’m having somewhat of a similar problem, is there anything that I can do through Ustream? (I’m hoping by getting some upgrades soon will increase the performance on my comp…)

Nice information even though I don’t stream.. but it’s always good to know stuff..
–
by the way- found a typo, well kinda, you forgot a space between “us.” and “Anyways”:

“of flash then the rest of us.Anyways, it has been”

[...] Flash Encoding = Slow computer [...]

lmao I didn’t understand **** all…

I have not streamed a lot of content, but I have noticed a CPU load in the times that I have. I was using XP last time I did anything live on cam… maybe it would be better now that I got Vista and the Quad core processor… who knows. I don’t really stream that much anyway… only occasionally.

Thats true even if you got a good computer the computer also slows down if you have windows or if vista is the reason with me

I used to have the same problem with my mac book, watching youtube videos or playing GTA San Andrea on Vista64, but amazingly it suddenly stopped a few weeks ago. I was thinking that the fans were damaged or something, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the new Vista service pack. My macbook is a lot quieter.

I used to have the same problem with my mac book, watching youtube videos or playing GTA San Andrea on Vista64, but amazingly it suddenly stopped a few weeks ago. I was thinking that the fans were damaged or something, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the new Vista service pack. My macbook is a lot quieter.

I love ustream, In my opinion it’s the best there is right now. Although the high quality encoder sucks at audio! You have to be lucky and have it set at the right settings for the audio to sound clear and not to fluctuate. So to all my fellow ustreamers on pc, I suggest not using it. if you do not know what i’m talking about go watch the zedalza show on ustream for a couple of minutes, and you will see exactly what I am talking about. I hope this has helped someone who is reading this.

The CPU load is due to the encoding of the streams. This encoding compresses the streams so that the data can be transferred by a very limited network bandwidth (eg, 4Mb ADSL). There are a number of plug-in PCI cards that allow you to offload this encoding process. I have one from Canopus but I’ve never tried pushing a webcast through it. It shouldn’t be difficult though. Google is your friend, as always.

I tried to stream once, and my computer near burned the house down. It got hotter than it ever has before, and that was the end of streaming. But i can still use the webcam to talk to friends and stuff. Flash seems like one of the most bloated or just CPU intensive program out there right now other than some of the antivirus’.

I’m using Windows Vista and I haven’t seen such a big CPU usage when I tried it out. So that’s one point for Windows :P
what does it make when you run it on a Windows on the apple computers for example with VMware Fusion?

That Mini is a timebomb, knowing mac the explosion will be shiny

I never thought live streaming would put such a strain on your CPU. It sucks that some people will have to compromise quality in order to be able to actually stream.

I have never really streamed a video, nor have I ever wanted to. The thought of people seeing everythign I do is extremely nerve wracking, and I couldn’t imagine actually entertaining people… I might end up doing so later in my life, but I’m wiling to bet that computer technology, as well as great apps, will have been upgraded so much that streaming takes no CPU power whatsoever.

Personally, I have noticed that the usage goes up with streaming on any OS. It gets really laggy on my computers. Then again, I don’t have dual-core.

But yeah, like Giblet said above. It’s from the compression it has to do before sending it over.

Yeah, i agree, only way to is to get an second computer that you can use to stream from, it’s not going to work if try to do anything, compressing things will max out your computer’s CPU, it’s good that Chris is streaming live feed 24/7 but that will reduce the lifespan of the mac mini , computers aren’t made to be used 100% all the time, but thanks to Chris that streams 24/7 and makes good videos, we are able to have this wonderful community.

I think flash encoding does actually slow down my computer. I don’t know if it actually does, but it deffiantly does feel like it, like when I have a couple windows open such as your stream, and say a youtube video and a flash based game it does seem to slow down my computer at a certain time. but thanks for making this topic chris.

Flash has always been very processor intensive but now with flash player 10 it fixed that problem. I really think flash 10 is much better

Flash is great. PDF is great. Unfortunately, as the platforms become more capable, they become for CPU and RAM intensive. As Adobe continues to get bigger, their programs are going to become hogs. The great things about both are that everyone has them. This makes it the easiest way to spread multimedia and data to users on the Internet.

Hmm I never knew that streaming would take so much CPU power. It is quite a shame for MAC users that they are not getting their fair share of flash loving. Hopefully with this new beta from Adobe, everything will change! Thanks for showing us this.

Thanks Chris!

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I haven’t actually tried to stream video from my computer.
Sounds like a pretty fast computer is required.
I have a dou core mac g4 and a fast internet connection.
So maybe with adobes new beta I’ll try some streaming of my own, just to test things out.

I tried to broadcast via ustream.tv a few days ago and I did not notice a slow down in performance at all and I am on an iMac G4. I thought the whole purpose of Flash encoding was to reduce the amount of CPU power required. I guess that is not the case.

That sticks that Mac users are not getting any support from the software developers for better software. Hopefully Flash Play 10 will fix some of these issues.

I guess that this means that I wont be live streaming like Chris. I like to get as much power out of my computer as possible and game on it also, so that puts livestreaming out of the question.

I dont stream But i’ve wondered sometimes how intensive is it on your system. Looks like it really is if its using 100% of the CPU. But Chris mini is small but its tough because its been running 100% for the last year pretty much Nonstop. Thats impressive. But what happens if it goes wrong one day. lol. that wont be so fun. Chris’s will need a replacement but im sure he’ll would run it off the Mac Pro meanwhile. since that has plenty of power.

Flash really does slow the computer down! If only there was a better version of flash that loaded without freezing my browser a little. Even with a lot of RAM it still happens. Adobe definitely needs to do something to their Flash Player.

Woah, I guess that if you are going to live stream you should have a computer that just does that.

Maybe the new Flash BETA will take a load off your CPU, we shall see.

inst it maxed out because the it has to compress and uncompress the video and audio streams when its sent or received? ( my computer runs steady at only only 4% cpu on stuff like that ( amazingly, thats what i call POWER, or good software))

inst it maxed out because the it has to compress and uncompress the video and audio streams when its sent or received? ( my computer runs steady at only only 4% cpu on stuff like that ( amazingly, thats what i call POWER, or good software))

just as i was starting to learn about encoding AVI and FLV using c++ with some libraries…

Even though you may have 2GB of ram,it still happens. I used to think that was due to my crappy system but actually it does create problems for everybody.

One thing that i found interesting is that with the same computer (hardware wise) after putting on the Ubuntu OS, it actually was worse when it came to streaming video and such. What might really rock your marbles (or not) is that I was simply switching from the Xandrof Linux distribution.

I used to use the default (Linux) OS on my Asus EEE PC (that’s the default) but a few weeks ago, I borrowed by friends CD drive and installed the latest version of Ubuntu. I was surprised to find that streaming was actually a lot slower on the Ubuntu that the less functional default OS my computer came with. Has anybody else had this issue?

I must say, though, one of the biggest reasons why I don’t live stream is that I’m overly concerned about maxing out my CPU and then having to replace it or buy a whole new machine. A pity…

Usually for me Flash only slows me down when I am streaming or uploading something via Flash. If I’m downloading something, like watching a Youtube video, it doesn’t barely affect my CPU at all.

Well yeah that is quite bad problem but i have quite a different problem, sometimes when i try to view a video the sound sometimes disappears or picture gets kinda distorted or if i’m trying to view multiple videos via net from firefox then every single video freezes when i’m trying to view them, No sound and freezes in couple of seconds, it’s not that serious but kinda annoying

my flash player wired. it work then it just stops. i dont know why. it will be fine for a wile then i go away for 10 min. come back and it stops. to get it to work i half to reboot my comp.

The new upcoming version of Flash (10) is said to fix some of the problems OSX users are experiencing with CPU usage.

What are you going to do when your mac mini gives up.

I’ve definitely thought about live streaming before, but I really don’t have a spare machine to do it. The only extra computer I have is an old IBM ThinkPad with 184 MB of RAM and a 600 MHz P3. So yeah, Flash Encoding would probably slow down that computer. If I ever run into a Mac Mini, or, I don’t know, an HP Dragon….. I might give it a shot. But I’m not about to waste resources on my main rig for live streaming.

Good thing I don’t plan on live streaming if I ever get a Mac it sounds difficult.

i have similar cpu problems. but its because of the os.
when i use windows xp sp2 i barely get about 10% cpu load no matter what im doing. in games i barely use 40-50%
but in linux ubuntu 8.04 my cpu load when doign nothing is almost 30% and it spikes close to 100% when i run something. i dont notice any lag of my pc and nothing slows. could it be my computer or my monitoring program?

I never did streaming.I do not intend to but if Flash encoding slows down the computer than I think you need a very powerfull machine to do this,or a better optimized software

I tried live streaming a couple of times, but I have to stop for this exact reason. My computer became really noisy and hot and unpleasant to be around.

yea it does very true

I never have done a live stream, but I certainly think they should put this in schools everywhere. It would just make sense, people can ask questions about things and they can have them answered immediately. Also, it is strange that Flash Encoding wouldn’t get some type of upgraded software for Macs, those things have video in mind.

Attempting real-time encoding will always push just about any system.

Flash is pretty nifty thing, and seeing as it is running within a web browser as well I think its doing a pretty good job. This is really what multi core processing is all about though. Giving people the ability to do many demanding tasks at the same time. My sometimes live streams our practices or song writing sessions so that we can get real time feedback from people. We use other applications at the same time such as Apple’s Logic as it allows us to play different instruments of the band without those members being there. And that wouldn’t be possible without multicore processing! So if you want to use flash for important tasks, and you computer is struggling I would suggest closing down everything you don’t need at the time.

my cpu load on my mac is always high, i don’t know why but i can always hear my fans and they are loud.

Good question. Looks like something that would need a professional bench test to tell exactly how much it affects it, but I think that it is obvious that it makes your computer slower (as compared to faster).

i personally dont do video casting and encoding and all that stuff but my friends do and when i am over, there cpu’s and fans are blaring

Adobe Flash for Beta sounds very interesting. I’ll make sure to check it out. Thanks for the tip!