- Mar 11, 2000
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I have an old 2008 white MacBook Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (T8300), with no hardware H.264 or VC-1 decode acceleration. The GPU is an Intel X3100.
I was noting that with Firefox, Netflix HD playback was occasionally stuttering, and the CPU fan was revving up high. Firefox uses Silverlight.
So, I tried Chrome. Even on 10.7 Lion, the latest Chrome does NOT use Silverlight. SD quality in Chrome leaves something to be desired. It looks different, with much more visible aliasing than Firefox with Silverlight.
I don't know if Chrome's rendering in HD is worse, but on a 1024x768 MacBook, it already looks good, and is much less CPU intensive. I didn't try Safari, mainly because Safari is no longer being updated and has other issues, but I do remember having some Netflix HD issues in the past, probably because it's also dependent on Silverlight.
Some numbers from Activity Monitor, playing back Curious George (just because that's what my kid was watching at the time). Numbers are CPU usage. Total is 200% (since this is a dual-core CPU).
Firefox: 15-20%
Firefox Silverlight plug-in: 75-95%
Chrome: 10-15%
Chrome Helper (including all 4 instances): 60-75%
To put it another way, Firefox with Silverlight easily saturates more than a single core, but Chrome does not. In fact, Silverlight alone saturates a single core.
Also, in Chrome, there were never any stutters unless I brought up the menus, etc. In Firefox, there was occasional stutters in HD just sitting there playing things back with no menus active and doing nothing else. However, I've noticed in the past that usually a restart of the browser fixes this. I'm not convinced this is strictly a CPU performance issue, since I've seen the same thing with Firefox/Silverlight with SD playback as well, and obviously, SD playback is much less CPU intensive.
In addition, in Chrome the fan didn't rev. as high in HD mode, which made a noticeable difference audibly. In Chrome the fan was still somewhat annoying but in Firefox/Silverlight, the fan was much more annoying.
I don't know if non-animated material would measure differently, but the times I've tried it, Chrome again revved the fan up less, and playback was smooth.
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However, on my 2009 MacBook Pro with GeForce 9400M with 10.10 Yosemite, I use Safari with Silverlight. While Netflix HD in Chrome is good, as mentioned Netflix SD isn't so good, whereas both SD and HD in Safari with Silverlight are decent. The fan isn't an issue, since the GeForce 9400M has proper H.264/VC-1 decode acceleration.
For some reason, I cannot get HTML5 playback in Netflix to work in Safari even in Yosemite with this machine. I'm told it may be because my CPU is too old and doesn't support the necessary security features.
EDIT:
See below, but in 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, Netflix playback in Chrome is a real pain.
I was noting that with Firefox, Netflix HD playback was occasionally stuttering, and the CPU fan was revving up high. Firefox uses Silverlight.
So, I tried Chrome. Even on 10.7 Lion, the latest Chrome does NOT use Silverlight. SD quality in Chrome leaves something to be desired. It looks different, with much more visible aliasing than Firefox with Silverlight.
I don't know if Chrome's rendering in HD is worse, but on a 1024x768 MacBook, it already looks good, and is much less CPU intensive. I didn't try Safari, mainly because Safari is no longer being updated and has other issues, but I do remember having some Netflix HD issues in the past, probably because it's also dependent on Silverlight.
Some numbers from Activity Monitor, playing back Curious George (just because that's what my kid was watching at the time). Numbers are CPU usage. Total is 200% (since this is a dual-core CPU).
Firefox: 15-20%
Firefox Silverlight plug-in: 75-95%
Chrome: 10-15%
Chrome Helper (including all 4 instances): 60-75%
To put it another way, Firefox with Silverlight easily saturates more than a single core, but Chrome does not. In fact, Silverlight alone saturates a single core.
Also, in Chrome, there were never any stutters unless I brought up the menus, etc. In Firefox, there was occasional stutters in HD just sitting there playing things back with no menus active and doing nothing else. However, I've noticed in the past that usually a restart of the browser fixes this. I'm not convinced this is strictly a CPU performance issue, since I've seen the same thing with Firefox/Silverlight with SD playback as well, and obviously, SD playback is much less CPU intensive.
In addition, in Chrome the fan didn't rev. as high in HD mode, which made a noticeable difference audibly. In Chrome the fan was still somewhat annoying but in Firefox/Silverlight, the fan was much more annoying.
I don't know if non-animated material would measure differently, but the times I've tried it, Chrome again revved the fan up less, and playback was smooth.
---
However, on my 2009 MacBook Pro with GeForce 9400M with 10.10 Yosemite, I use Safari with Silverlight. While Netflix HD in Chrome is good, as mentioned Netflix SD isn't so good, whereas both SD and HD in Safari with Silverlight are decent. The fan isn't an issue, since the GeForce 9400M has proper H.264/VC-1 decode acceleration.
For some reason, I cannot get HTML5 playback in Netflix to work in Safari even in Yosemite with this machine. I'm told it may be because my CPU is too old and doesn't support the necessary security features.
EDIT:
See below, but in 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, Netflix playback in Chrome is a real pain.
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