Hulu Full Screen Jerky? Try Adjusting Flash

Posted on March 3, 2009 by thatgeekychristian

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So, recently I have become practically addicted to a television show that comes on NBC. I started watching the show in its second season, and really got hooked when I bought the first season on DVD. However, since I had quite a few missed episodes in the current season, I wanted to completely catch up. Thankfully for me, NBC owns hulu.com and places many of its shows online for free. My laptop has an HDMI port, so hooking up to the television was a breeze.

Everything was clicking along nicely until I placed the video in full screen mode and voila, it stuttered like a shy kid with a speech impediment. Here I sit with a 2Ghz AMD Dual Core Processor, an ATI Radeon 3200HD integrated graphics card with 256 MB dedicated and 3 gigabytes of RAM, and I can’t watch a simple hulu video in full screen. I begin searching the internet to no avail. I updated the drivers, tweaked every setting I could, and still could not watch a video in full screen. YouTube worked in full screen, but hulu jerked horribly! I tried a MacBook, and it worked fine, I checked my old laptop with a slower processor and less video memory and it worked fine. This was simply driving me nuts!

All the help I found mentioned either updating drivers (which as I said I had already done), reinstalling flash (also did, didn’t work), or turning off hardware acceleration. Hardware acceleration! There it is, finally some hope, I can’t believe I had forgotten that! Wait, not all video cards allow you to disable hardware acceleration, and mine happens to be one of them. At this point I want to throw my computer against a wall and acquire a new one. One last ditch effort brought me to yet another google search. Finally, I came across an article that showed me how to disable hardware acceleration inside adobe flash. “What? Adobe has its OWN hardware acceleration? You’ve got to be kidding me!” I thought. It wasn’t.

After literally simply right clicking the video, and unchecking the hardware acceleration box inside flash, my videos were as smooth as silk! So, I decided to post another article that will hopefully help someone. After all, what kind of Geeky Christian would I be if I didn’t share what helped me with the rest of the world? I hope some of you find this helpful!

Filed under: Software, Web

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76 Responses

  1. Bryan, on April 8, 2009 at 6:19 pm said:

    I have a new HP laptop with an 8200m geforce (256 MB dedicated video mem) 3 gig of ddr-2 533 and was running into the same problems. Upon unchecking hardware acceleration in flash settings everything was smooth. I hope this helps other in the future.

  2. thatgeekychristian, on April 8, 2009 at 9:22 pm said:

    Glad I could help!

  3. Aaron, on April 20, 2009 at 6:19 pm said:

    THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!
    I searched everywhere to find why my BRAND NEW computer was glitchy, and you solved it for me!!! THANK YOU!!!
    Right Click ->Settings->Uncheck Box.
    So simple, and effective.
    Hooray for hard to find boxes.

  4. thatgeekychristian, on April 21, 2009 at 10:24 pm said:

    You’re welcome! This is exactly why I wrote the post.

  5. cephas - thefreeradical, on April 26, 2009 at 8:13 pm said:

    Thanks a million! Just what I was looking for. Glad it was an easy fix!

    Pete

  6. thatgeekychristian, on April 26, 2009 at 9:59 pm said:

    You’re welcome! Glad I could help.

  7. Matthew, on May 4, 2009 at 8:05 pm said:

    Oh thank you so much. This issue has been tormenting me for a month. I actually gave up on hulu but because of one show that cannot be found anywhere else I gave one last seach and found your post. Keep up the good work!

  8. thatgeekychristian, on May 4, 2009 at 8:26 pm said:

    Glad to help!

  9. Mark, on May 4, 2009 at 9:32 pm said:

    Thank you very much for the tip. I’ve scratched my head over this problem for months now. I never knew you could adjust the adjust Flash’s settings this way. Works great!!!!!

  10. thatgeekychristian, on May 4, 2009 at 9:42 pm said:

    You’re welcome. It’s amazing what a small change can do to adjust your PC happiness!

  11. Bart, on May 7, 2009 at 2:55 pm said:

    I did try this, and it seemed to work, but it started jerking all over again. I found out that my 64 bit OS and 64 bit browser are not compatible with flash. The solution was to download Firefox, a 32 bit browser that still runs on Vista 64 bit. I thought this might be helpful info in addition to this post.

  12. thatgeekychristian, on May 7, 2009 at 9:29 pm said:

    Thanks for the addition Bart!

  13. eliot, on May 24, 2009 at 1:18 pm said:

    your post saved me a bunch of time and frustration. thank you!

  14. thatgeekychristian, on May 24, 2009 at 4:05 pm said:

    You’re welcome!

  15. Amber, on July 15, 2009 at 3:21 pm said:

    THANK YOU!!! I was going nuts with my new laptop!!

  16. thatgeekychristian, on July 15, 2009 at 10:01 pm said:

    You’re welcome! I hope to get some more helpful articles on here soon.

  17. Jen, on August 24, 2009 at 6:22 pm said:

    Wow, thanks. We want to ditch the cable since there are only a handful of shows we watch. We could not understand why the TV looked so bad on fullscreen hooked up to the macbook. Now we know. Thank God for geeky Christians. God bless!

  18. thatgeekychristian, on August 24, 2009 at 9:59 pm said:

    Hi Jen,
    I’m so glad I could help! I realize I haven’t added much to my site in quite some time, but I’m glad what’s on here helps others!

    Take care,
    TGC

  19. Tracy, on September 25, 2009 at 10:39 pm said:

    Thank you so much for posting this! I had spent hours on the phone with HP tech support trying to solve this issue, but it was to no avail. I finally got the case escalated to a senior case manager, who gave me the okay to take the computer in to be repaired. But, before I took it in, I searched on Google one more time and found your easy fix. It worked like a charm!! Thanks!!!

  20. michelle, on September 29, 2009 at 10:18 pm said:

    awesome!!!! i love you!!!

  21. thatgeekychristian, on September 29, 2009 at 11:07 pm said:

    Glad you like the post… I’m sure on some level I love you too. It’s probably the friend level, or the same level for the people in church whom I don’t know, or the same level of love I have for everyone! Love is love, though! :)

    Thanks for reading!
    TGC

  22. thatgeekychristian, on September 29, 2009 at 11:08 pm said:

    Wow! You had them seriously scratching their heads! I’m so glad I was able to help!

    TGC

  23. Sean, on October 17, 2009 at 1:48 am said:

    Smooth as silk indeed! Thanks so much for this post! First hit on google search results, very nice.

    Will be keeping an eye on your blog, thanks again and God bless!

  24. Jerry, on October 18, 2009 at 3:19 pm said:

    Hey yo,

    Very nice of you to post this. Was wondering my new church laptop was having a chunky hulu screen. You rock! God bless.

  25. Caleb, on October 18, 2009 at 5:20 pm said:

    WOW! THANKS. I HAD the same problem fixed now!!!

  26. thatgeekychristian, on October 18, 2009 at 10:50 pm said:

    You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help!

  27. thatgeekychristian, on October 18, 2009 at 10:52 pm said:

    God Bless to you too Jerry! Glad you’re up and running now!

  28. thatgeekychristian, on October 18, 2009 at 10:55 pm said:

    You’re welcome Sean! Hopefully you’ll find some value in my future posts as well!

  29. Dennis, on October 30, 2009 at 4:17 am said:

    Thank you! I was trying to watch family guy.. And these [edited] lags was driving me crazy untill I got on this wonderful article! Now I’m happy!

    I have pretty much the same system (HD3200, dual core AMD and 4gig of ram) and I was shocked I just couldn’t believe that these specs can’t handle flash high quality videos.

    Thank u one more time

  30. Simon Forster, on November 5, 2009 at 4:05 pm said:

    Great article. Helped me out. Thanks!

  31. Sam, on November 6, 2009 at 3:19 pm said:

    Still jerky for me. Is there something else I need to check?

  32. Cakenoodle, on November 9, 2009 at 8:04 am said:

    Bingo. Thank you.

  33. thatgeekychristian, on November 10, 2009 at 12:34 am said:

    You’re very welcome!

  34. thatgeekychristian, on November 10, 2009 at 12:35 am said:

    Sam, email me your specs and I’ll see if I can help!

  35. thatgeekychristian, on November 10, 2009 at 12:35 am said:

    Thanks! I’m glad it helped!

  36. thatgeekychristian, on November 10, 2009 at 12:37 am said:

    You’re welcome Dennis!
    I’m glad my article helped!

    Hope to add some more helpful articles in the near future!

  37. dennis, on November 17, 2009 at 8:00 pm said:

    i found one more solution download flash player 10.1 beta

  38. Howard, on December 29, 2009 at 12:06 am said:

    It’s amazing how a such a small amount of effort (e.g. posting this tip) can help so many people.

    This has been driving me nuts – and it worked like a charm!

    Thanks!

  39. Hayakawa, on January 2, 2010 at 6:35 pm said:

    Must have the same computer as you, specs all the same ^^ Anyway, I’m about to try it too and hope it works

  40. AlericCarver, on January 8, 2010 at 12:31 pm said:

    Thanks! Me and the wife were getting a little frustrated and I didn’t even think to check flash’s hardware acceleration. Yours was the only answer that helped!

  41. brad, on January 9, 2010 at 9:01 am said:

    Wow I had the same problem and wasted hours in forums till I came across this post.Thanks a lot what a simple fix it turned out 2 be.

  42. Paul, on January 14, 2010 at 9:26 pm said:

    Thanks for the help! I’ve tried just about everything else; this worked instantly. 5 stars!

  43. eebrinker, on January 16, 2010 at 7:03 pm said:

    holy f-ing….oh my gosh!!! thank you thank you thank you thank you.

    i spent time this week writing intel about their graphics chip and adobe about their flash update messing up my graphic chip settings to where ALL my video….even my own files played on windows media player/cyberlink/divxplayer….turned slow and jerky on every full screen setting but for apple/itunes/quicktime.

    i knew it was adobe and the flash update…..but somehow their hardware acceleration settings imposed themselves on the intel chipset, which was interesting….

    thank you again…..xp system with ATI is fine but was showing same symptoms in flash fullscreen at hulu.com…..so can fix that at least. and now have somewhere to look on vista machine with the intel chipset.. the intel chipset doesn’t allow for hardware acceleration changes either.

    (should have seen my letter to adobe last week…..asked if they even test their software before they throw it on everybody….., and you betcha i cc’d to microsoft.) knew it was them….but didn’t know why. so again…..thank you

    eebrinker
    http://www.fit2c.com

  44. stuttering children, on February 12, 2010 at 9:26 am said:

    Hi. I genuinely enjoyed reading your current article!. Very good material. I would have to recommend you to submit posts a bit more frequently. By doing this, having this kind of a useful site I imagine you will certainly rank better in the search engines :) . I also subscribed to your RSS feed. Keep up this excellent work!

  45. thatgeekychristian, on February 13, 2010 at 12:06 pm said:

    Thanks! I’ve been struggling with posting more frequently and hope to get back on track soon.

  46. Dan, on February 19, 2010 at 10:39 pm said:

    Thanks so much for the fix, this was driving me crazy! I’m so glad I stumbled on your site! Keep up the great work!

  47. thatgeekychristian, on February 23, 2010 at 8:55 pm said:

    It drove me crazy at first too!

  48. Contemplationist, on February 24, 2010 at 8:54 pm said:

    Doesn’t work for me :(
    I’m using the Chrome browser. After changing the setting it got marginally better but its still jerky. I have a Dual Core 1.7 Ghz, 2 gig RAM and have 25 GIG space free on my 120 gig drive.
    Maybe its the browser?

  49. thatgeekychristian, on February 24, 2010 at 10:17 pm said:

    I suppose it COULD be the browser, but Chrome is supposed to be built for flash. Have you checked the hardware acceleration on your actual computer yet?

  50. Skyyla, on February 28, 2010 at 11:16 am said:

    thank u for posting this u saved me so much frustration I am not too good with computers, but I did find out how to upgrade the driver finally and then it still didn’t work!! I wish I read this first because it was so simple now my hulu videos are so smooth thank you so much :)

    Skyyla xoxo

  51. thatgeekychristian, on March 1, 2010 at 11:27 pm said:

    You’re welcome, I’m glad it helped!

  52. Rocky B, on March 21, 2010 at 7:40 pm said:

    OMG that is amazing. My videos are now watchable…. Cheers

  53. stuntpuppy, on April 3, 2010 at 8:03 pm said:

    Cheers!!! That totally worked. You’re the best!

  54. Anon, on April 11, 2010 at 2:49 am said:

    OMG THANK YOU!

    Not a member of this site. but a google search came up with this article at the top of the list. Such a simple solution…

  55. thatgeekychristian, on May 4, 2010 at 11:05 pm said:

    Glad to be able to help!

  57. JSmith, on June 14, 2010 at 12:19 pm said:

    How do you check the hardware acceleration on the actual computer? I did the other thing but still have a jerky picture in full screen. Thanks for your help.

  58. thatgeekychristian, on June 14, 2010 at 12:37 pm said:

    I sent you an email.

  59. Jay, on June 18, 2010 at 11:33 am said:

    This is driving me crazy, hooked up the projector up so i could watch the games in the world cup but the screening seems slow. I’m using an intel R Core 2duo cpu 1.40 GHz 1.19 Ghz, 1.99 Gb of Ram. Please help having a BBq later too!!

  60. Niko, on July 16, 2010 at 8:01 pm said:

    DUDE…GOD BLESS YOU! The full screen feature was not working on my laptop. My laptop is a HP but its old (got it in 05′). The full screen use to work and then, stop (so I thought). I’ve been at it for about a week, asked a techy friend who mentioned about the drivers being updated and even convinced me to switch browers to firefox (great on mac sucks on my laptop fyi). Nothing worked. I decided to “research” online…came across you page and followed your instruction. Now i can watch BLEACH (anime) full screen…on my laptop…but more importantly on my FLATSCREEN TV (that was really the whole point also.) Thanks a million!

  61. thatgeekychristian, on July 21, 2010 at 10:30 pm said:

    I’m glad I wrote this post for comments just like this. Glad your all set up now!

  62. thatgeekychristian, on July 21, 2010 at 10:31 pm said:

    I am approving this way late, but was glad I was able to help you via email!

  63. Fading-Dream, on August 8, 2010 at 11:14 pm said:

    Thank you so much for this article. I love that you gave backstory, as I was able to simply disable hardware acceleration, but chose to keep it on and just disable it in flash. It would be awesome of people would post simple solutions such as these without requesting a bunch of info from the user and providing actual advice. Thank you, and God Bless.

  64. Kelly, on September 11, 2010 at 10:15 pm said:

    This is even later, but I just started watching Ghost Hunters and Destination Truth again after a summer off. I was surprised to see how awful the picture was in full screen. This was on Syfy. Then I watched a program on Hulu and it was even worse. There had been nothing wrong with the full view picture the last time I had watched them and the only thing I had done was download Flash Player 10. I have been searching the Net for hours for a solution and finally found this – and it worked! Although I have some fuzzy pictures now, at least the picture is smooth and it doesn’t look like I’m watching a puppet show any more. And lips keep up with the sound. YAY! Thank you so much!!

  65. thatgeekychristian, on September 29, 2010 at 10:51 pm said:

    I’m glad I was able to help!

  66. thatgeekychristian, on September 29, 2010 at 10:51 pm said:

    God bless you and you’re welcome!

  67. Kate, on September 29, 2010 at 11:47 pm said:

    For the hundreds of others for each of us who do stop to say thank you: THANK YOU!

    I paused my long-awaited Hulu show just to come back and tell you. I have a MacBook with a 2.66Ghz intel core i7 and 4GB of RAM, and I just couldn’t understand what the heck was wrong.

    I’ve been watching things small screen and lights lowered for a couple of weeks, it’s terrible.

    Thanks again!!

  68. thatgeekychristian, on September 29, 2010 at 11:51 pm said:

    Thank you for the comment! You’re welcome for the help, This is EXACTLY why I keep this site. I hope to start posting more soon (I’ve said THAT before) and hopefully I’ll be even more help in the future.

  69. Kerry, on October 2, 2010 at 9:31 pm said:

    Another satisfied customer! Thanks for the quick tip. My wife is now watching full-screen Bones with no problems and iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii am the hero.

  70. thatgeekychristian, on October 5, 2010 at 10:57 am said:

    Glad to make a husband a hero! Thanks for the comment.

  71. PeterD, on November 15, 2010 at 3:29 pm said:

    Here is another solution… decrease your screen resolution to the lowest allowable. Sometimes flash has a hard time upscaling to the native resolution. If you set the resolution to 720×480, or 800×600, flash plays MUCH better.

  72. thatgeekychristian, on November 15, 2010 at 6:07 pm said:

    Great tip! I actually had to do that once also. Thanks for pointing it out!

  73. zenoe, on November 25, 2010 at 4:36 pm said:

    worked like a charm! thanks.

  74. Mandy, on February 13, 2011 at 12:08 am said:

    I did as you instructed, and no good. Still jumpy. And I have 4 gig ram, AMD 64 dual core. Jerky no matter what. But netflix , which I think uses MS silverlight? runs superbly. Why is this? Wish You Tube and Hulu would go with Silverlight. Its obvious much better, and easier to use for the end user. I guess there is a cost issue. Hence the old saying, you get what you pay for. I wish I could get it to work though as I too watch my shows I am addicted to online, but the jerky motion is so annoying I cant.

  75. Mark, on February 23, 2011 at 2:57 pm said:

    OK, so this worked for me as well, which is great :D I don’t understand why though :) Just got this brand new laptop yesterday, decent specs (HP with i3 with 4gb of ram). Also, is there a way to check how much memory is dedicated for video? I used to be able to set that in the BIOS, but with this laptop, there are no setting.

  76. thatgeekychristian, on April 19, 2011 at 12:04 pm said:

    Did you try adjusting your resolution? Sorry the reply is so late.

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