Buffering
- Thread starter nspire
- Start date
Hi nspire, buffering totally depends on four things: #1 your internet speed, #2 your "ping", #3 the device you're playing the video on, and #4 the quality setting in our player that you select.
Let's examine each of these and how they affect buffering:
1) Internet speed is the most important of these four items. Ten years ago an internet speed of 2 Mbps was considered good. Today 1000 Mbps is becoming fairly common and most people have at least 100 Mbps. It's always a good idea to do a speed test on a site like https://www.speedtest.net/ to see what your "real" internet download speed is. You should actually do this test several times during the day to see if your speed fluctuates or is less than what your internet provider promised you.
What can you do about your internet speed? - try contacting your internet provider and see if they can upgrade you to a faster plan. If you live in an area where there are multiple internet providers, tell them you're thinking about switching. Quite often you can get faster speed for less than you're paying now.
2) Ping is something few people have ever heard of unless they're into gaming. When you do a speed test at https://www.speedtest.net/ you will get your "ping" as well as your download speed. A 'ping" greater than 12 can cause buffering issues. We often have customers report a ping of greater than 100. There is no hope in smoothly watching a video if your ping is anywhere near this high.
What can you do about your ping? - Contact your isp with the ping number you got from your speed test. Quite often your ISP can make changes on their end at no cost to you that will help lower your ping and reduce buffering.
3) If you have a low-quality cheap computer or mobile device it will increase the likelihood of buffering. You don't need the worlds greatest computer or the latest iPad to stream without buffering, but if you're using a 10-year-old computer or an early iPad then you're fighting an uphill battle and buffering is more likely.
What can you do about this? - Obviously, make sure your OS and browser are up to date. But the only real solution for this problem to purchase a better and more modern device.
4) On our Cathe OnDemand player, we offer three streaming options: low, medium and high that you can select by clicking on the settings icon located at the bottom right of the player that you will see after your video starts playing.
What can you do about this? One of the easiest things you can do to reduce buffering is to lower the quality of the stream coming into your device. If you're having a buffering issue I would suggest selecting the low-quality setting and see if this helps.
These are the 4 main things that you should look at when buffering is an issue. There is a 5th thing you might need to look at too and that is your wireless router. But for now, if you focus on these 4 things and correct as many of these as possible your buffering problem should go away. As always, we strongly recommend doing a speed test at https://www.speedtest.net/ as a first step. Hope this helps!
Let's examine each of these and how they affect buffering:
1) Internet speed is the most important of these four items. Ten years ago an internet speed of 2 Mbps was considered good. Today 1000 Mbps is becoming fairly common and most people have at least 100 Mbps. It's always a good idea to do a speed test on a site like https://www.speedtest.net/ to see what your "real" internet download speed is. You should actually do this test several times during the day to see if your speed fluctuates or is less than what your internet provider promised you.
What can you do about your internet speed? - try contacting your internet provider and see if they can upgrade you to a faster plan. If you live in an area where there are multiple internet providers, tell them you're thinking about switching. Quite often you can get faster speed for less than you're paying now.
2) Ping is something few people have ever heard of unless they're into gaming. When you do a speed test at https://www.speedtest.net/ you will get your "ping" as well as your download speed. A 'ping" greater than 12 can cause buffering issues. We often have customers report a ping of greater than 100. There is no hope in smoothly watching a video if your ping is anywhere near this high.
What can you do about your ping? - Contact your isp with the ping number you got from your speed test. Quite often your ISP can make changes on their end at no cost to you that will help lower your ping and reduce buffering.
3) If you have a low-quality cheap computer or mobile device it will increase the likelihood of buffering. You don't need the worlds greatest computer or the latest iPad to stream without buffering, but if you're using a 10-year-old computer or an early iPad then you're fighting an uphill battle and buffering is more likely.
What can you do about this? - Obviously, make sure your OS and browser are up to date. But the only real solution for this problem to purchase a better and more modern device.
4) On our Cathe OnDemand player, we offer three streaming options: low, medium and high that you can select by clicking on the settings icon located at the bottom right of the player that you will see after your video starts playing.
What can you do about this? One of the easiest things you can do to reduce buffering is to lower the quality of the stream coming into your device. If you're having a buffering issue I would suggest selecting the low-quality setting and see if this helps.
These are the 4 main things that you should look at when buffering is an issue. There is a 5th thing you might need to look at too and that is your wireless router. But for now, if you focus on these 4 things and correct as many of these as possible your buffering problem should go away. As always, we strongly recommend doing a speed test at https://www.speedtest.net/ as a first step. Hope this helps!