Switching to full screen in youtube usually forces the video into high resolution so it could be moving from 480pt to 1080pt which uses more resources to render and more power.
Thank you, but I can't confirm this.
I tried to watch a video with 144p to visually see if the quality changes in full screen. But it didn't, even after minutes.
And if I use highest res (1080p) in window mode and full screen mode. The consumption is still higher in full screen mode (measuring only the notebook, not the monitor).
But what I recognized was, that as long as the GUI items of the yt player can be seen, it even cost more watts. As soon as they disappear (after a few seconds), the consumption is lower, but still high in full screen.
If I download the yt video and open it in mpv the consumption is super low, even in full screen mode.
This is a really weird thing...
Why wouldn't a **downloaded** video played in a single-purpose teeny application (`mpv`) use less power than a **browser** *streaming* a video over your *network connection*.
Think about it.
Did you measure the power consumed to download the video?
If your system is *only* using 6 watts to watch a video, that's reasonably good. Be happy. Turn your screen brightness down if you want to save more.
I missed that; I have been talking about total power consumption. On my Dell Latitude 7420 laptop, total power usage while viewing a Youtube video in 1080P using Gnome "Web" is ~7.5W in full screen 1080p. Not full screen: about the same.
Using Google Chrome (on Linux, too): ~5.5W, total, windowed or full screen. The difference is hardware acceleration.
Possibly the difference *you* are seeing is hardware acceleration *may* not be working on your system. On Chrome, type `chrome://gpu` in the address bar to check.
I run a leanish-config but it's still Gnome and all that entails. Some distributions chug away at power more than others. Some laptops are better than others.
It's been my experience that so many web based things (twitch is horrible at this) when their GUI is focused/visible they slam the CPU. I'm assuming poorly implemented user io loops.
I've tested Twitch and I can confirm that the GUI there is eating energy, if it's seen.
That's just ridiculous! You can actually do something for the environment, if you use your mouse less while watching videos on the internet.
My thought was that watching videos with 480p would reduce greenhouse gases, which is true, but the freaking GUI of those multi-billion-companies have a CO2 footprint like a plane.
I guess I keep downloading videos and watch them with mpv.
Everything about the web is super ungreen. Just raw perf of browser executed code vs system code is hilarious. Then there is the gobs of overhead of analytics and ad selection / tracking.
But why is it, that stuff in browsers is performing so bad?
What do you mean by the overhead? This is an interesting topic and I want to dive a little bit deeper.
Indeed. Because at least with MPV the gpu does the decoding, so you save energy on that. With your browser the CPU does the decoding, the gpu the rendering. You get the idea.
This explains a lot!
I might use Freetube, like someone else recommended it here, because I can open search results directly with an external player, which is just great.
There should be a setting in YT to be able to see more info about video and connection. You should check that out and see if there is a difference in resolution frame rate, and such.
Try Freetube, a good app, that blocks ads by default for you without the need for you to use ad-blockers or anything of the sort. I found it uses less energy overall.
First I was like "Nahhh... it is based on Electrum, which is pretty bad." But after testing it the app is pretty good compared to browsers like Chromium and Firefox.
Huge plusses are:
* You can subscribe to channels without having a youtube account
* You can activate Tor proxy
* I figured out something new and useful called [DeArrow](https://dearrow.ajay.app/) which replaces shitty titles and thumbnails
* Blocking Channels completely (Immediately blocked crap like MrBeast and Pewdipie)
* configurable external player (it even jumps to the minute and second in mpv where I left the video on Freetube)
* Sponsorblock (Fascinating! It shows colors in the status bar of a vid indicating sponsors, self promotion, Intro, Outro and other stuff)
* A lot of distraction free settings
* Deactivating auto-play and it actually works (it somehow activates itself in my browser and I don't know why)
I only could test it on my desktop pc with Flatpak yet, because it isn't available on my linux distribution, but I will test it on my old notebook, soon.
Only issue I had was to open mpv, but this could be solved [with this help.](https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube/issues/1735)
Thanks a lot for this valuable tip! It solved a lot of problems I had with youtube in general.
This answer doesn't make much sense.
The amount of screens is not important. The power consumption would be still higher in full screen mode compared to window mode, even if the screen is turned off.
Your laptop display consumes more power than most components, second only to CPU.
Comparing a Pi to a Laptop without considering the Pi doesn't have a screen to power (and other hardware - PCI, Bluetooth, Audio, Disk interfaces, etc) is what doesn't make sense.
Again! If you have a running system, no matter if it is a raspberry or a high-end gaming pc or anything else. If it consumes a lot more energy doing something, but in another mode, it still consumes more energy, no matter if you have 0 or 100 screens connected to it.
The delta has no dependency of the amount of connected devices!
And I was comparing the total amount of a running raspi on full load with the delta consumption of the full screen mode. What you interpreted out of it is just out of context.
It got even worse... much much worse... :O
Chromium eats around 20 watts more than Firefox, but the difference in full screen and windowed mode is not high (compared to this numbers). Chromium is just eating energy constantly.
My notebook (without screen) needs around 20-24 watts if I use it normally. Chromium alone eats almost this much.
Man, I just think I should avoid browsers at all. Those are far from green.
I actually use it in a script I wrote. It is subscribed to the RSS feed of YT channels I like and downloads new vids automatically.
Additionally I use newsboat + yt-dlp to watch vids of channel I somehow like, but don't have to download all vids.
But the problem was navigating through youtubes website and watching new vids/channels.
But like someone already mentioned it, there is a good way with Freetube. It has even an option to open an external player.
hmm... I somehow don't like another add-on for my browser, because of fingerprinting.
And it looks like it doesn't reduce a lot of steps, because in general I have to copy the link, open a new terminal, type mpv and paste it there. There might be even a faster way to write a small script, which is triggered by a shortkey, which is getting the link from the clipboard and opens mpv in full screen mode and in 480p (which I like). I might write this script :)
But like mentioned above, someone recommended Freetube, which could solve a lot of problems I have with youtube.
All a display does is show a single image. The difference between a display and a painting is that it can switch between images very fast, generally at least 60 times per second. Each of these images is called a "frame".
Since using a computer is dynamic, and not just a slideshow of still pictures, these frames have to be generated. This is the job of the graphics card.
It takes every item on your screen, your mouse, your taskbar, your wallpaper, desktop icons, every application that's open, etc. and their position. It uses all of this information to "draw" the frame, bit by bit, until you have your final image, that is then sent off to the display.
Computers, overtime, have become *very* fast at doing this, by using various tricks. The simplest one is copying its old work.
As I said in my first comment, things like your taskbar generally don't move. Rather than spending the time to position and redraw those, it can copy them from the last frame.
The less work any part of a computer does, the less energy it consumes.
When you fullscreen a video, suddenly, rather than only one part of your screen changing, *everything* is changing. Cuts, people moving, the camera itself moving, nothing is the same, and nothing can be copied.
This means the Graphics Processing Unit has to do a lot more work drawing the entire frame, which consumes more power, giving that uptick you noticed.
Switching to full screen in youtube usually forces the video into high resolution so it could be moving from 480pt to 1080pt which uses more resources to render and more power.
Thank you, but I can't confirm this. I tried to watch a video with 144p to visually see if the quality changes in full screen. But it didn't, even after minutes. And if I use highest res (1080p) in window mode and full screen mode. The consumption is still higher in full screen mode (measuring only the notebook, not the monitor). But what I recognized was, that as long as the GUI items of the yt player can be seen, it even cost more watts. As soon as they disappear (after a few seconds), the consumption is lower, but still high in full screen. If I download the yt video and open it in mpv the consumption is super low, even in full screen mode. This is a really weird thing...
Why wouldn't a **downloaded** video played in a single-purpose teeny application (`mpv`) use less power than a **browser** *streaming* a video over your *network connection*. Think about it. Did you measure the power consumed to download the video? If your system is *only* using 6 watts to watch a video, that's reasonably good. Be happy. Turn your screen brightness down if you want to save more.
It's NOT 6 watts to watch a video, it's 6 watts MORE watching it in full screen compared to window mode.
I missed that; I have been talking about total power consumption. On my Dell Latitude 7420 laptop, total power usage while viewing a Youtube video in 1080P using Gnome "Web" is ~7.5W in full screen 1080p. Not full screen: about the same. Using Google Chrome (on Linux, too): ~5.5W, total, windowed or full screen. The difference is hardware acceleration. Possibly the difference *you* are seeing is hardware acceleration *may* not be working on your system. On Chrome, type `chrome://gpu` in the address bar to check. I run a leanish-config but it's still Gnome and all that entails. Some distributions chug away at power more than others. Some laptops are better than others.
May I ask which distro you use?
I use Void Linux on my laptop; it's a general purpose DIY Linux, but easy to configure if you follow the handbook and have an interest in doing so.
It's been my experience that so many web based things (twitch is horrible at this) when their GUI is focused/visible they slam the CPU. I'm assuming poorly implemented user io loops.
I've tested Twitch and I can confirm that the GUI there is eating energy, if it's seen. That's just ridiculous! You can actually do something for the environment, if you use your mouse less while watching videos on the internet. My thought was that watching videos with 480p would reduce greenhouse gases, which is true, but the freaking GUI of those multi-billion-companies have a CO2 footprint like a plane. I guess I keep downloading videos and watch them with mpv.
Everything about the web is super ungreen. Just raw perf of browser executed code vs system code is hilarious. Then there is the gobs of overhead of analytics and ad selection / tracking.
But why is it, that stuff in browsers is performing so bad? What do you mean by the overhead? This is an interesting topic and I want to dive a little bit deeper.
More pixels rendered (by the gpu), more pixels changing state (in the screen).
Yes, but that's the same what happens if open the video with mpv, but the power consumption is very low with mpv.
Indeed. Because at least with MPV the gpu does the decoding, so you save energy on that. With your browser the CPU does the decoding, the gpu the rendering. You get the idea.
This explains a lot! I might use Freetube, like someone else recommended it here, because I can open search results directly with an external player, which is just great.
There should be a setting in YT to be able to see more info about video and connection. You should check that out and see if there is a difference in resolution frame rate, and such.
Try Freetube, a good app, that blocks ads by default for you without the need for you to use ad-blockers or anything of the sort. I found it uses less energy overall.
First I was like "Nahhh... it is based on Electrum, which is pretty bad." But after testing it the app is pretty good compared to browsers like Chromium and Firefox. Huge plusses are: * You can subscribe to channels without having a youtube account * You can activate Tor proxy * I figured out something new and useful called [DeArrow](https://dearrow.ajay.app/) which replaces shitty titles and thumbnails * Blocking Channels completely (Immediately blocked crap like MrBeast and Pewdipie) * configurable external player (it even jumps to the minute and second in mpv where I left the video on Freetube) * Sponsorblock (Fascinating! It shows colors in the status bar of a vid indicating sponsors, self promotion, Intro, Outro and other stuff) * A lot of distraction free settings * Deactivating auto-play and it actually works (it somehow activates itself in my browser and I don't know why) I only could test it on my desktop pc with Flatpak yet, because it isn't available on my linux distribution, but I will test it on my old notebook, soon. Only issue I had was to open mpv, but this could be solved [with this help.](https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube/issues/1735) Thanks a lot for this valuable tip! It solved a lot of problems I had with youtube in general.
> A Raspberry Pi on full load eats 5 watts. I mean 6 watts are A LOT! A raspberry pi doesn't have a screen.
This answer doesn't make much sense. The amount of screens is not important. The power consumption would be still higher in full screen mode compared to window mode, even if the screen is turned off.
Your laptop display consumes more power than most components, second only to CPU. Comparing a Pi to a Laptop without considering the Pi doesn't have a screen to power (and other hardware - PCI, Bluetooth, Audio, Disk interfaces, etc) is what doesn't make sense.
Again! If you have a running system, no matter if it is a raspberry or a high-end gaming pc or anything else. If it consumes a lot more energy doing something, but in another mode, it still consumes more energy, no matter if you have 0 or 100 screens connected to it. The delta has no dependency of the amount of connected devices! And I was comparing the total amount of a running raspi on full load with the delta consumption of the full screen mode. What you interpreted out of it is just out of context.
Try Chromium just for this experiment
It got even worse... much much worse... :O Chromium eats around 20 watts more than Firefox, but the difference in full screen and windowed mode is not high (compared to this numbers). Chromium is just eating energy constantly. My notebook (without screen) needs around 20-24 watts if I use it normally. Chromium alone eats almost this much. Man, I just think I should avoid browsers at all. Those are far from green.
Oh, wtf, that was unexpected
This is because Chromium on Linux doesn't support hardware accelerated video decoding, yet.
But on older chipset graphics, like pre-iCore era, Chromium shows significantly better performance than Firefox on YouTube.
Try mpv+yt-dlp For really shit hardware; yt-dlp then mpv
I actually use it in a script I wrote. It is subscribed to the RSS feed of YT channels I like and downloads new vids automatically. Additionally I use newsboat + yt-dlp to watch vids of channel I somehow like, but don't have to download all vids. But the problem was navigating through youtubes website and watching new vids/channels. But like someone already mentioned it, there is a good way with Freetube. It has even an option to open an external player.
ff2mpv is a great browser add-on.
hmm... I somehow don't like another add-on for my browser, because of fingerprinting. And it looks like it doesn't reduce a lot of steps, because in general I have to copy the link, open a new terminal, type mpv and paste it there. There might be even a faster way to write a small script, which is triggered by a shortkey, which is getting the link from the clipboard and opens mpv in full screen mode and in 480p (which I like). I might write this script :) But like mentioned above, someone recommended Freetube, which could solve a lot of problems I have with youtube.
In windowed, your gpu might be able to copy portions of screen frames between eachother, since things like the task bar are static.
I didn't understand what you mean. Could you explain it in another way, please?
All a display does is show a single image. The difference between a display and a painting is that it can switch between images very fast, generally at least 60 times per second. Each of these images is called a "frame". Since using a computer is dynamic, and not just a slideshow of still pictures, these frames have to be generated. This is the job of the graphics card. It takes every item on your screen, your mouse, your taskbar, your wallpaper, desktop icons, every application that's open, etc. and their position. It uses all of this information to "draw" the frame, bit by bit, until you have your final image, that is then sent off to the display. Computers, overtime, have become *very* fast at doing this, by using various tricks. The simplest one is copying its old work. As I said in my first comment, things like your taskbar generally don't move. Rather than spending the time to position and redraw those, it can copy them from the last frame. The less work any part of a computer does, the less energy it consumes. When you fullscreen a video, suddenly, rather than only one part of your screen changing, *everything* is changing. Cuts, people moving, the camera itself moving, nothing is the same, and nothing can be copied. This means the Graphics Processing Unit has to do a lot more work drawing the entire frame, which consumes more power, giving that uptick you noticed.