Your once great laptop may now be struggling even with simple YouTube videos or downloaded mp4 files.
The reason behind it is not (or perhaps not only 😜 ) planned obsolescence.
You can learn more about it in this article:
https://steemit.com/hardware/@hwtrendsetter/wait-didn-t-we-figure-out-hd-video-playback-like-15-years-ago
So without wasting any more time let's explore the possible solutions to video stuttering.
For YouTube - there is easy one-click solution
There are add-ons like h264ify and they force YouTube to use older (less demanding) codec.
You will use more internet bandwidth (as the videos will be less compressed and therefore larger). But at the same time you will have to compromise a little bit on video quality.
The colors may not be quite as accurate, the contrast between the darkest dark parts and the lightest light parts may not be as big.
But don't worry - if you are watching those videos on (even modern, not to mention older) budget monitors there is absolutely no way that you could notice the difference.
And it will still be a proper HD video - with 1 million pixels (or more), that will look just as crisp as all other HD videos. And most importantly it won't stutter.
h264ify is available for all major browsers:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/h264ify/aleakchihdccplidncghkekgioiakgal?hl=pl
https://addons.opera.com/pl/extensions/details/h264ify/
https://addons.mozilla.org/pl/firefox/addon/h264ify/reviews/
https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/h264ify/ldjamdlpbjpcfagnckgipdjiamhdcnbd?hl=pl-PL
For downloaded videos (such as those from TikTok) it's a few more clicks, but it's also quite easy
Default Microsoft Film and TV, Windows Media Player, and Windows Media Center apps have improved over the years in terms of compatibility and stability.
Unfortunately, one area where they have gotten worse instead of improving is their impact on performance.
Just opening the Microsoft Film and TV app can hit even modern Ryzen processors quite hard, sometimes exceeding 10% CPU usage.
That's not overly dramatic on newer systems, but on older machines, that performance impact is devastating.
Fortunately, there are many lightweight media players. My top pick would be Media Player Classic - Home Cinema.
It's very easy to use, settings are not overwhelming, and it defaults to the least hardware-intensive decoding methods wherever possible.
It's also open-source and available for Linux and Android apart from Windows.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpc-hc/
Quick reminder how to change default apps on any Windows - right-click on the file while holding the shift key and select open with and then choose another app
Select the app you want to use and tick the box always use this app to open this type of files
Netflix console looks scary, but it's not that difficult to handle
In order to change video settings on Netflix, open any video and hit CTRL + ALT +SHIFT + S
A scary console will appear - do not panic.
For 720p HD video Netflix will most likely default to 2260 or 2350 bitrate (2350 kbps). So the computer gets 2350 kb of data every second to decompress.
That may be too much, therefore I would suggest lowering the bitrate to 750 kbps. That is the minimum required for any HD resolution.
To be clear - in this case, a lower amount of data does not mean more compressed data.
Compression methods are the same - it's just that a smaller file contains less information and results in lower video quality.
Therefore in this case it takes less processing power to decode 750 kb every second than it would take to decode 2260 kb every second.
The final results are video frames with the same numbers of pixels. But in the case of a smaller file with less accurate information (regarding color, contrast, etc.)
Since there are no codec-related or other software "tricks" - we just get fewer video data with less information, the impact on quality will be more significant than in the case of changing codecs on YouTube. But it will still be a sharp HD video that plays without issues.
So I was to choose - either slightly washed-out colors or the video constantly freezing during the most important scenes in Narcos, I would go with slightly washed-out colors any day.
Video streams from other streaming services can be manipulated, but it's far more tricky
There are media center management applications such as Kodi, that allow capturing and manipulating video streams from most streaming services such as Amazon Prime, HBO GO, Canal+ Film, etc.
Unfortunately, their setup is far more complex than installing a browser extension or changing the default app. There are some tutorials on the internet so you can just Google tutorial for changing bitrate on HBO GO using KODI, or anything along these lines.
But beware as Kodi users have been associated with piracy (since they are capturing and modifying proprietary video streams, theoretically nothing is preventing them from distributing those streams in unauthorized ways).