Youtube stuttering, frame loss, and losing quality 4k videos

[Jezza819]

Youtube has been driving me crazy on PC for several weeks now. Regardless of the browser I use Firefox, Chrome, or Edge, it really struggles with 4k videos. The video will sometimes start off defaulting to 480p, then when I change it to 2160p where it should be it starts stuttering and buffering. The audio gets off synch with the video. Sometimes it will automatically change down quality. I've got plenty of internet speed as the test below shows. I'm not on wi-fi I've got my PC hard wired to the modem. I've tried every suggested fix on Youtube and the internet I can find and nothing helps.

Here is one of the videos that really struggles.



Here is my speed test.

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/0b2941d4-e74c-409f-909d-e39959268a7f

 

[Jordan]

That's an odd one.

Do you have any trouble playing YouTube videos on other devices on your home network? Like your phone, smart TV, or another computer?

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

What are the computer specs (CPU, GPU)?

My theory would be that it's most likely the CPU not keeping up. I've noticed my old computer can't handle 4k videos some times and even 1080p rarely.

edit: Though not sure why it would lower the resolution settings. Is there any difference playing the video minimized versus full screen?

 

[Jezza819]

That's an odd one.

Do you have any trouble playing YouTube videos on other devices on your home network? Like your phone, smart TV, or another computer?

I have two Samsung smart tv's, one Q80R 55" that is three years old and one 40" that I can't remember the model name of but neither one of them have any trouble playing full 4k Youtube videos. The older one did develop a problem similar to what the PC is doing where it would have constant buffering, reduce quality on it's own, etc. but that only lasted a couple of weeks and I had to get Samsung to do a factory reset on it and it's been fine ever since. But the newer tv has never had any trouble playing 4k and the phone plays 4k just fine even though I don't watch stuff on it. My laptop is too old and doesn't have 4k capability.

What are the computer specs (CPU, GPU)?

My theory would be that it's most likely the CPU not keeping up. I've noticed my old computer can't handle 4k videos some times and even 1080p rarely.

edit: Though not sure why it would lower the resolution settings. Is there any difference playing the video minimized versus full screen?

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7400 CPU @ 3.00GHz 3.00 GHz
Ram: 8.00 GB

If you right click on a video that it's struggling to play and go to "stats for nerds" you can see it's dropping nearly half the available frames.

No it makes no difference if the video is minimized or full screen.

EDIT This just started happening a few weeks ago. I got this computer in 2015 and it's never had any trouble until now and I can download a 4k video and it plays just fine.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

I'm not getting any dropped frames on that video on the old computer and my CPU is slower/older (using Firefox with hard acceleration disabled). I'm out of ideas.

Did anything change a few weeks ago that may have caused this (software/driver/Windows update)?

 

[Jezza819]

I'm not getting any dropped frames on that video on the old computer and my CPU is slower/older (using Firefox with hard acceleration disabled). I'm out of ideas.

Did anything change a few weeks ago that may have caused this (software/driver/Windows update)?

No not that I know of.

 

[Jordan]

Are you running any VPN or tunneling software on the Windows computer or in the affected browsers?

 

[Jezza819]

Are you running any VPN or tunneling software on the Windows computer or in the affected browsers?

No I don't have a VPN and I had to Google what tunneling software was because I've never heard of it but I don't have any of that either.

 

[Jordan]

Hmm.

If you right-click the video and select "Stats for Nerds", what kind of numbers/activity do you see on the Connection Speed, Network Activity, and Buffer Health fields?

The fact that the computer can play 4K video just fine suggests to me that it might be some kind of networking issue, but nothing else really suggests that.

Can you watch 4K videos on the computer from other providers? Does this 4K video from Vimeo play OK? (You might have to select 4K quality manually.)

 

[Jezza819]

Hmm.

If you right-click the video and select "Stats for Nerds", what kind of numbers/activity do you see on the Connection Speed, Network Activity, and Buffer Health fields?

The fact that the computer can play 4K video just fine suggests to me that it might be some kind of networking issue, but nothing else really suggests that.

Can you watch 4K videos on the computer from other providers? Does this 4K video from Vimeo play OK? (You might have to select 4K quality manually.)

Yes that Vimeo video played perfectly smooth, no hesitations at all. I tried to look on Netflix for something that was in 4k but apparently they don't stream in 4k on PC but they do on my tv.

Here is a different video but it has the same problem.



I took a couple pictures of the "stats for nerds". One at the very end of the video with it paused and another one at the beginning with it running.

 

[Korza]

Yes that Vimeo video played perfectly smooth, no hesitations at all. I tried to look on Netflix for something that was in 4k but apparently they don't stream in 4k on PC but they do on my tv.

Here is a different video but it has the same problem.



I took a couple pictures of the "stats for nerds". One at the very end of the video with it paused and another one at the beginning with it running.

Can you try playing that same video back, but with DPI scaling disabled for your display.

Assuming you're running Windows 10, right click the desktop, select Display Settings, then scroll to Scale and Layout. Change it from 175% to 100% then try the video again and see if you're still missing frames.

I have a high-end PC (R7 5800x, 6900XT, 32GB RAM) and I get skipped frames when playing on my 4K display with DPI scaling set to 150%. No skipped frames when DPI scaling is disabled (set to 100%).

 

[Jezza819]

Can you try playing that same video back, but with DPI scaling disabled for your display.

Assuming you're running Windows 10, right click the desktop, select Display Settings, then scroll to Scale and Layout. Change it from 175% to 100% then try the video again and see if you're still missing frames.

I have a high-end PC (R7 5800x, 6900XT, 32GB RAM) and I get skipped frames when playing on my 4K display with DPI scaling set to 150%. No skipped frames when DPI scaling is disabled (set to 100%).

I did change that setting to 100% and it still does the same thing. About 5 seconds after the video started it dropped down to 1080p on it's own. Reset it to 2160p and it's still doing the stuttering and dropping frames thing.