Streaming Videos online

[Tigerllc74]

I am rather new to the forum and enjoyed the wisdom of several honest and smart people on the site. We all know that PCs are not perfect, sometimes down right frustrating. Also, there are issues with PCs that we live with everyday but have absolutely no idea why and how it works. But life goes on.

 

This is one of those issues. It has to do with streaming videos online. I know that the quality of streaming has to with PC processing speed, RAM, and internet connection speed,, etc.... I live in USA, California where we enjoy consistent 20+mbps download and 1-2+mbps upload. 99% of my use with internet has to do with downloads. (watching movies/shows/news, etc...) I have 1.6Ghz, 3G RAM, etc...and Vista.

 

So why is it that sometimes, I have buffering issue. In the middle of streaming, picture stops for buffering. It doesn't happen all the time, but often enough to ask the question. 20+mbps download is pretty fast !!!!

 

I know it also has to do with host site upload speed. But my issue is with typical sites like Hulu, CNN, etc... major sites.

 

There's a product called Slingbox where one can watch home cable feed via internet. I hear of people with only 1 mbps (yes one mbps) feed who says they are watching the Slingbox. I take their word, but hard to believe when I have buffering issue at 20+mbps.

 

Sometimes I goto website to watch non USA sports games. Often pictures stop for buffering. I cannot be the only one who has this issue.

 

Is there anything that i can set on my computer to rid of buffering issue ?? Set a side more HD or RAM space ?? Or special settings on browser (Firefox or Chrome)??

 

Thanks,

Tiger

[Tigerllc74]

Oh, I use CCleaner religiously along with virus scan, registry cleaner etc... Basically I do pretty good maintenance on my computer.

Any suggestions to stop buffering during inline streaming ??

[DennisD]

I think this happens to all of us, and I don't think there's any one particular reason for it, or any one particular cure or suggestion as to how it can be fixed.

 

It could be issues with the server or servers of the site you're streaming from, which will be affected by the volume of traffic at different times.

 

Suggestions for improvement include clearing your browsers cache, which I've personally never found to make a difference.

 

I've improved streaming speeds by shutting down and rebooting my computer, and I've improved things by rebooting my router either through it's settings page or just by pulling the power cord for a short while.

 

And then at other times, none of this makes a tad of difference, and the only solution is to let things buffer for a while, assuming the site lets you do that.

 

I often watch UK on-line TV (4OnDemand, Demand5, BBC iPlayer etc), and occasionally I get the message "you don't have enough bandwidth to watch this broadcast without interruption, please try later", or something similar, when I know I do have enough bandwidth.

 

Rebooting everything is a good place to start, and maybe make a note of the times of day the problem occurs, and see if there's any pattern. Most servers will have "peak periods" and relatively quieter times.

 

I've tried googling for solutions to this, and I haven't found any definitive answers.

 

One final thing is to contact your ISP, and ask them to do a line check. I've just solved a connection drop out problem by doing that. They found a fault at the exchange, which has now been rectified, and when I come to think of it, I haven't had any more buffering problems with the BBC iPlayer since.

 

That's my two penneth for what it's worth Tiger, and I'm sure you'll get other takes on the problem.

[fireryone]

I've also noticed lag/buffering issues depend on what the site uses to stream.

IE. I can stream a high quality divx (~700+ MB) file with no issues, yet a low quality flash stream can just... lag..

[Andavari]

What I do in audio+video software is input a big obscene buffer amount as if I where on a very slow connection which I'm not, then do something else for a couple of minutes then I won't have any buffering issue - unless the site itself is super slow.

 

Now for Flash streaming for some reason it's worse than streaming a huge video sometimes, I always hit pause on those and let them get about 1/2 to 2/3rd downloaded then click play again. Of course the longer the video length the longer the wait is before I click play, however it beats that annoying buffering text.

[Tigerllc74]

What do you mean by "obscene buffer amount" ?? Do you mean giving more MB to browser cache ?? I use Firefox and cache is at 50MB. Larger buffer makes sense but never really know how and where to set them ?????

Also, does using different browser help with streaming ??? Is one faster than another ?? (I wouldn't think so)

 

Lately, (last few months) I noticed that even loading a browser (Firefox) page takes little longer. Before it used to pop up fast, now it takes few more seconds (not complaining about few seconds, point was it's taking longer than before).

Thanks,

[Andavari]

What do you mean by "obscene buffer amount" ?? Do you mean giving more MB to browser cache ??

 

What I stated has nothing at all to do with the browser cache. Setting the browser cache to a large size will only allow you to store an already downloaded video, however most sites I've seen start streaming again from the beginning without utilizing the browser cache. What I'm referring to is the installed audio/video player software (say WMP for example in the Performance tab of the preferences) which launches when streaming a WMV music video.

[Tigerllc74]

Thanks for all the comments. I guess we all just have to learn to live with the streaming problem !!!!