My laptop is a Dell XPS-M1530, which has a 2.66 Ghz Core2Duo CPU with 4GB RAM running Windows7-64 and an nVidia 8600M GT video card using the latest 275.33 drivers. The laptop is at least several years old. Playing the clip directly from the YouTube page at 1080P full-screen resulted in basically a slide show with a frame update every 3-4 seconds. There was no semblance of motion whatsoever.

No. 5 year old HP 17" laptop,core duo, 2gb RAM. Plays 5 to 10 seconds in full motion, then pauses 2 or 3 seconds and resumes. This is across an 802.11g wireless network running off Uverse DSL.

Played smooth here but the vid seemed a little stuttery, to me though didn't seem like a playback issue but a video issue almost like it was a higher shutter speed but may be from conversion somewhere.

Intel Core 2 Extreme, 8 gigs of Ram, NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT

- Ray
Underground Planet

Surprisingly enough, it played straight through with no stopping, stuttering, or waiting for complete download...doesn't always happen that way with other videos.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer powerspec
System Model ps9202B2
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6 GenuineIntel ~2422 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Intel Corp. BX97510J.86A.1304.2006.0620.1451, 6/20/2006
Total Physical Memory 6,144.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 2.17 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 5.09 GB

Plays back just fine on the "office" PC.

Intel i5 750 2,67GHz
6 GB RAM
GT220
Samsung SyncMaster 172x so the GPU is doing the scaling
Win7 64 bit
20Mbps cable


Bob.

@Woodenmike,
Are you sure you are playing back 1080p HD in fullscreen from the Youtube site?
Yours sounds like a P4 machine to me and I would be really surprised if it is able to keep up.
As we are seeing, the average Core Duo isn't able to.

I got perfect playback on my system (didn't even have to wait for it to download like I often do). My computer is a year old Sony CW laptop i5 M520 @ 2.4Ghz 4GB RAM Win 7 64 GeForce GT330 512MB 1600X900 screen. Octopus looked amazing.

Yes, it seemed to play fine on my system once the entire thing downloaded. (On DSL, and it took a while to download.) I didn't notice any obvious problems with playback -- no hitches or freezes -- but I probably wouldn't pick up on the kinds of details (blocking, aliasing, etc.) that the rest of you would.

Core i5 760 @ 2.80 GHz (4 cores, no HT)
4.00 GB RAM
NVidia GeForce GT240 / 512MB GDDR5 / PCIe x16
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
Internet Explorer 8

Main screen is a (budget priced) Samsung 23" LCD Monitor/TV with 1920x1080 native resolution, so full screen = 1080 (no scaling).

Musicvid -- you might want to clarify in your first post:
- Click on the "YouTube" logo to open a new window at YouTube
- Click on the "360p" in lower right corner and change to "1080p" resolution
- Once the video loads, click on the four arrows "Full Screen" icon in the lower right corner and play back from the beginning

(well, assuming that I did it right...)

No stuttering whatever - played right through. System specs below copied from my account profile.

Windows Version:XP
RAM:4GB
Processor:Core i7-860 2.8 GHz
Video Card:nVidia GEForce 9800GT 1GB
Sound Card:VIA HD audio; Blackmagic audio
Video Capture:SONY DSR-25, VIA OHCI IEEE 1394
CD Burner:LG Internal
DVD Burner:LG Internal Dual Layer, LG Internal Blu-Ray
Camera:SONY S270U, VX2000
Add. Comments:BMD Decklink Studio 2 for monitoring to HDTV and SD Pro monitor; ASIO audio to nearfield speakers.

Monitors are two Viewsonic VP930b at max res 1280x1024,32bit colour.

Tom

No stutter, downloaded in 1080p full screen in under a minute. I didn't start playback till it was fully cached though.

Nice video :)

A bit from DxDiag:

------------------

System Information

------------------

Time of this report: 5/29/2011, 11:26:54

       Machine name: GRANDT-W7

   Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.110408-1631)

           Language: Danish (Regional Setting: Danish)

System Manufacturer: MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO.,LTD

       System Model: MS-7376

               BIOS: Default System BIOS

          Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs), ~2.6GHz

             Memory: 8192MB RAM

Available OS Memory: 8192MB RAM

          Page File: 6423MB used, 9956MB available

        Windows Dir: C:\Windows

    DirectX Version: DirectX 11

DX Setup Parameters: Not found

   User DPI Setting: Using System DPI

 System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)

    DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled

     DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 32bit Unicode



...



---------------

Display Devices

---------------

          Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512

       Manufacturer: NVIDIA

          Chip type: GeForce 8800 GTS 512

           DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC

         Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0600&SUBSYS_050210DE&REV_A2

     Display Memory: 4071 MB

   Dedicated Memory: 487 MB

      Shared Memory: 3583 MB

       Current Mode: 1920 x 1200 (32 bit) (59Hz)

       Monitor Name: SyncMaster T260,SyncMaster Magic T260(Digital)

      Monitor Model: SyncMaster

         Monitor Id: SAM03E7

        Native Mode: 1920 x 1200(p) (59.950Hz)

        Output Type: DVI

        Driver Name: nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um

Driver File Version: 8.17.0012.7061 (English)

     Driver Version: 8.17.12.7061

        DDI Version: 10

       Driver Model: WDDM 1.1

  Driver Attributes: Final Retail

   Driver Date/Size: 4/8/2011 07:14:00, 12934248 bytes

        WHQL Logo'd: Yes

Perfect playback for me. No download delay, no stutter.

Internet connection: Verizon FIOS.
Actual dl speed per my TaskInfo application never exceeded 2.1 MBps (i.e. Mega Bytes per second).

Browser FireFox 4.0.1.

system HP Pavilion Elite m9150f
CPU Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 (K) 2.4 GHz
Memory 3 gigabytes in use
OS Vista 32 bit
Graphics GEForce 8500 GT

By the way:
In general, it's not uncommon for YouTube to hesitate on playback for me. It seemed to start this behavior all of a sudden some months back (fall, maybe?). I don't know if it's due to my isp, youtube server behavior, or my antivirus program performing 'real-time' av checking causing throughput issues, or something else. Some discussions I've read since then suggest that Youtube introduced this behavior as a by-product (?) of a server-load-balancing methodology that they implemented at the same time.

In this case, however, butter-smooth. Almost makes me wonder if they may have tweaked something even specific to this video or account (e.g. if they noticed that this video is a test that involves YouTube performance.

I did go to view another 1080p video (first one I found) & experienced a stall of the type described above after about 30 seconds.



j

It played "sort of" smoothly for me, with just the very slightest hint of a bit of tearing/shear here or there, but only because I was really looking for it. I say "sort of" because somehow it's not quite comfortable to watch, but I can't put my finger on exactly why. Almost like sometimes it's giving me 15fps or something.

Dell Precision M6300 notebook >3 years old
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
NVIDIA driver 6.14.11.7575
Flash Player version 10,3,181,14
Screen Resolution 1920x1200
Dell 24" 2407WFPHC 1920x1200 monitor connected over DVI

Took a good few minutes to load. I'm in Bangkok and presumably the first viewer to pull the file onto YouTube's local node (which I think is Singapore).

Very smooth on my laptop (spec in my profile).
By the way, thanks Nick to put it on YouTube's local node as I gave up to download it this morning (way too long...)

An additional comment:

Tried again this morning. This time the download was a lot quicker (it almost kept up with the play rate).

However, the point I wanted to add is this: the 1080p version has significantly less blocking in the transitions than the early 720p versions.

...Jerry

Yes : HP G-70 laptop, duo core 2ghz, 3 gig ram, intel graphics internals. Virgin cable internet 20Mb.
took about 10 seconds to start buffer, then all good. Ducks were smooth, no stutters.

Paul.

Loaded very fast and looked great except for the (blocking) dissolve in the traffic scene.

Windows Version:7 64-bit
RAM:8 gb
Processor:Q8300 2.5 ghz
Video Card:NVIDIA GeForce GT 220
ethernet cable connection

Played back just fine here on YouTube, full screen 1080 resolution. Played back just fine embedded on Sony Forum at 1080 as well (not full screen). No stuttering no tearing.

System:
Windows Version:7 Pro 64-bit
RAM:6GB
Processor:Core i7 x980 6 Core 3.33GHz
Video Card:ATI Radeon HD 5800 Triple Graphics
Sound Card:Creative Xfi Titanium Fatal1ty
Video Capture:None
CD Burner:Optiarc DVD RW AD-7241S
DVD Burner:Optiarc DVD RW AD-7241S
Camera:Canon Vixia HF10

No download delay and no stutter at full screen 1080p on my Dell laptop.

Operating System
Platform: Windows 7 64bit
Version: 6.01.7600

Processor
Class: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz
Number of processors: 8
Memory: 6,132.5 MB

Video Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD4670

Display: 1920x1200x32

Internet: Uverse 12Mb/s down

/jerry

"@Woodenmike,
Are you sure you are playing back 1080p HD in fullscreen from the Youtube site?
Yours sounds like a P4 machine to me and I would be really surprised if it is able to keep up.
As we are seeing, the average Core Duo isn't able to."

The first time I watched, I didn't have it set to 1080, but I went back and tried again with the proper settings and it still played all the way through. I just tried it again and it still plays straight through without stopping or stuttering. This hasn't always been the case in the past with YouTube or especially Vimeo, where I usually have to let the file load completely before trying to watch, but with this particular file it just plays straight through. I am using a cable connection that speed tested at 11.44 mbps on FireFox.

It's looking like the threshold of reliably smooth playback is with quad / i-class processors, and a couple of exceptions using older processors.
Thanks all for the helpful information, and feel free to keep posting.

Yep smooth playback
I7 960 process with Asus Mobo and Nvidia video

buffering until downloaded. Then, flawless - clean cross-fades, no tearing, etc. Very impressive for full-screen YT.


That's in Chrome @ 1080p. For some reason, Opera only gave me the 720p highest HD option.

I have rather slow DSL.

i7-970 (6 cores) @ 4.2 gHz, 12 GB RAM, $40 GT240 GPU.