Why YouTube buffers

[hazelnut]

Slow internet?

 

Well it just might not be totally to blame

 

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/why-youtube-buffers-the-secret-deals-that-make-and-break-online-video/

 

But behind the scenes, in negotiations that almost never become public, the world's biggest Internet providers and video services argue over how much one network should pay to connect to another. When these negotiations fail, users suffer. In other words, bad video performance is often caused not just by technology problems but also by business decisions made by the companies that control the Internet.

[nikki605]

We Verizon FiOS customers have long complained about poor YouTube performance. Good article, thanks for posting.

[Andavari]

Tons of free/paid download hosting sites are buffer and trickle mad, have only so many user slots for downloading a particular file, etc., so the YouTube thing is of no surprise.

 

I do notice a trend in the U.S. at about primetime say 6PM or 7PM (CST) onward up to perhaps 12AM to 1AM (CST) YouTube can become unmercifully slow which would have to be heavy usage.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Andavari

[Derek891]

We Verizon FiOS customers have long complained about poor YouTube performance. Good article, thanks for posting.

 

 

 

Nikki605: I found this link a while ago and thought I would share it. This person claims it works, but I can't vouch for it since I don't watch Youtube a lot and haven't had a need to try it. He claims the problem is in your router settings, specifically I.P. filtering. Read it, see what you think, and give it a try.

 

http://www.worldofashishb.com/2013/04/youtube-buffering-fix-for-verizon-fios.html

[nikki605]

Shortly after making my post, I found a similar solution here: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28027601-Horrible-youtube-speeds

 

It specified 2 ip address ranges to block:

 

173.194.55.0 - 173.194.55.255

206.111.0.0 - 206.111.0.255

 

I entered those 2 ranges in the router and it did seem to help reduce the buffering issue. I don't watch a lot of YouTube videos either but when I do I'd like them to be viewable.

[Coffee4Joe]

Didn't know weather to post here or in the firefox addon thread.

I tried blocking those IP ranges and it was hit or miss, after using the below addon & disabling dash youtube videos are finally loading right for me.

 

YouTube's default option has Dash enabled, because it's buffering faster for people with a good internet connection.

http://github.com/Ye...s#dash-playback

 

and for the addon itself https://github.com/Y...TubeCenter/wiki

 

(sorry if this has already been posted, couldn't find it doing a quick browse)