CPU usage whil watching videos and flash videos

I am curious as to what the "normal" cpu usage is for watching a video, such as a divx or xvid video, and also what the "normal" cpu usage is for watching a flash video online, on a site such as youtube.

I did some tests and found when watching an XVID video, I got the following results...

Windows Media Player 11........... 30-42%
Windows Meida Player Classic..... 27-40%
VLC......................................... 12-25%

I was interested to see how much lower the usage was with VLC - how can this be? I would think they would be using the same engine for decoding, so I can't account for this difference. It also jumped around a lot, as you can see with these wide ranges.



Then for flash videos, on you tube for example,
I got...

Firefox 3 (beta 4).......... 35-50%
IE7...............................30-45%
Opera..........................32-48%

About the same for all 3. I was wondering if this is high or considered normal.
Also something interesting to note, is that if a video is playing, but i scroll down so that the Flash "box" is no longer in viewing area (i can no longer see the video playing, only hear it), CPU usage goes down to about 18-22%. Same thing happens if I keep the video playing but just minimize the page.


I'd like to hear from anyone with the same issues, or if I am just being paranoid!

Thanks,
Tyler

 

playing flash and divx videos requires much processing power. as far as i guess your pc is p4 1.7 ghz or something like that. updating ram or agp will not work to improve performance.

 

sorry i always forget to include my specs..

P4 3.0ghz w/ HT
1GB (2 x 512) DDR400 Kingston ValueRAM
160GB WD Hard Drive 7200rpm 8mb buffer
Radeon 9550 256mb DDR video card
Creative Live! 5.1 Sound Card
Samsung 162c DVD Drive
NEC 2510A DVD Burner
Geniatech X8000A HDTV Tuner Card
Floppy Drive
Antec 350W tru power supply