If you experience stuttering, jerky video playback on an Apple PowerBook or iBook, it might be because of the settings in your Energy Saver system preferences.
Open your System Preferences and click Energy Saver. In Energy Saver, click the Options tab. Now check the setting for Processor Performance. If it’s set to Reduced, change it to Highest or Automatic. Video playback may be smooth now.
If you’re running on battery, be sure to change the Processor Performance setting back to Automatic or Reduced when you’re done watching video. The Highest setting drains the battery the fastest. Note that on a notebook, the Energy Saver preference lets you save different settings for Battery and Power Adapter.
You might see the effect of the Reduced setting any time you perform processor-intensive tasks such as audio or video rendering, or gameplay. In those situations, you’ll want to set Processor Performance to Automatic or Highest.
If you set Processor Performance to Highest and you still see choppy performance, the cause may be another application that’s using processor cycles. Open your Activity Monitor utility, view the CPU tab, show all processes, and sort the list by %CPU to see if any applications are using an unusually high percentage of CPU cycles.
Note: This tip won’t work with MacBooks and MacBook Pros, because Intel CPUs automatically try to balance smooth playback against battery drain. The older PowerPC CPUs were not as smart. On an Intel-based Mac, troubleshoot for the following:
- For internet video, does the video need more throughput than your Internet connection is capable of?
- For HD video, was the video encoded using a codec that demand a higher data rate than your hard disk can deliver? The codecs in some raw and professional footage are designed to prioritize quality over playback performance, and are intended to be edited on high-end systems. They can be too demanding for notebook computers and low-end desktops.
- Is your CPU busy doing something else, keeping it from throwing all of its power behind playing back the video? See the Activity Monitor tip earlier.
Keywords: iBook, PowerBook, laptop
