what internet speed do video sites require for interrupted videos?

[edong]

Youtube, Yahoo, etc. Even @ 360p, videos are buffering so many times I could not watch HD. I will concurrently check my speed with speakeasy and speedtest and I have around 22-25Mbps speed downstream. My CPU and RAM usage are not even 5% and 20% respectively(Quad Core, 4GB RAM). I wonder if it's the deficiency of the video sites but why would they allow that to happen? Or is it just me?

[guns1inger]

The speed at your end is only a small part of the connection chain. You also have all the routers and switches between you and the video site, your ISP's proxy servers and gateway, and the load on the video server infrastructure that is sending you the video. Any of these points could be the bottle neck, and most are outside the control of your ISP.

For example, from the laptop I am writing this on, it takes 23 hops to get to youtube.com. 3 of those are just getting out of this network to our ISP, then there are another 5 to get out of the ISP's infrastructure, then another 4 to get out of Australia, then the balance to get to youtube. That is a lot of places that things can (and do) slow down.

[jagabo]

Even @ 360p, videos are buffering so many times

Most likely the site is overloaded.

[redwudz]

I've used NeoTrace to give me hop times and it might be useful to see where the bottlenecks are. It's trialware: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Network-Tools/Traceroute-Whois-Tools/McAfee-NeoTrace-Professional.shtml

[k.]

Try downloading a youtube video with a download manager. If speed improves you may try an accelerator like SpeedyiTunes or SpeedBit Video Accelerator.

[edong]

Thanks, guys.

While playing a YouTube video, I downloaded it using keepvid.com(my download speed is 100-110KBps which is around 1/20th of my internet speed). But this time the video did NOT buffer. Is the keepvid.com's download speed different from the streaming speed of YouTube?

[jagabo]

SpeedTest.net shows my connection to be about 30 Mb/s down, 5 Mb/s up. Using Download Helper in FireFox I can download from YouTube at about 2 MB/s (16 Mb/s) when Youtube isn't overloaded. I don't get any pauses for rebuffering while viewing.

For example, the 720p version of video (28 MB, 1 minute 38 seconds running time):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkie0qX3YHU

downloads in about 12 seconds. Bitrate Viewer shows the file to have an average bitrate of about 4500 kbps, peak bitrate around 13000 kbps. But at other times of day performance is much worse.

[edong]

Thanks, Jagabo.

Using my VERY slow Dell XP single core, I watched the video from that YouTube link in 720p. There was NO buffering, the pink bar is already at the end while the red is less than halfway! This PC is so slow that it opens a browser/program in more than 10 seconds. This PC uses USB wireless-B and my internet speed is only 10 Mbps.

BUT when I watched this using the same slow PC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtrB9bELGSY

@ 360p, red and pink bars are neck and neck. It paused @ 480p and a lot worse @ 720p. So probably, it depends largely on video content and length maybe. Of course, there are other factors to consider.

[pirej]

I have(at work) internet speed of around 80-90Mb/s down and 70-80Mb/s up.. and i still get some buffering on youtube sometimes, so.. its not just about the net-speed you have.
Like guns1inger said.. "you" have a lot of "hop-ing" to do.. to get the video on your PC.

[dylz]

Do a ping test to see how long it takes to send a request and receive the request http://www.pingtest.net/ as it says bandwidth only tells half of the story. http://www.pingtest.net/learn.php

[jagabo]

As redwudz suggested earlier, run a tracert (trace route) to see how "far" youtube is from you. It will also show you the ping time to each intermediate routersL



The idea of streaming video is to send it to you a little bit faster than the video is playing, not to send it as fast as possible. It looks like youtube shoots for about twice the bitrate of the video. But if they are very busy, or if some router between you and them is congested, or your internet connection isn't fast enough, you may not get the video as fast is necessary. And youtube has thousands of servers all over the world. So some videos may get to you faster than others.

[edong]

Can someone decipher that for me, please? In any event, because of what pirej said, I feel better now

[edong]

Here's one without the timed out

[pirej]

Ok, you dont have "timed out".. but you still have 2233 ms ?!?!!?
I think you have some problem, maybe you should read this

[El Heggunte]

Even @ 360p, videos are buffering so many times

Most likely the site is overloaded.

I Even with a cräppy 1Mbps connection like mine,
usually the playback of the YouTube videos is not interrupted.

[jagabo]

BUT when I watched this using the same slow PC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtrB9bELGSY

That video's average bitrate is only 2000 kbps. Less than half the bitrate of the video I linked to (4500 kbps).

This morning, the video I linked to had a running time of 1:39 and downloaded in 12 seconds. The video you linked to has a running time of 11:43 and downloaded in 1:44. Neither has any buffering pauses. Yesterday afternoon when I tested your video it had some buffering pauses but mine didn't.

I don't think your speed of your connection has anything to do with your buffering problems. It's either at youtube's end or the transmission -- neither of which you can do anything about. If everything was running smoothly you would only need a connection with little more bitrate than the bitrate of the video you're playing.

That 2233 ms ping time to your router is a little worrying. I would ping that address repeatedly and see if it happens often or was just a fluke (maybe there was a lot of other local network activity at the time?). Windows has a built in ping utility. -t will cause it to ping until you CTRL+C out:

Ping -t 192.1...

What tracert is showing you is how ling it takes for a round trip to each of the intermediate nodes between you and the youtube server. The first line is your local router, the next line is maybe your IPS's router down the street, the next line is your ISP's router downtown... finally the server at youtube.com. Each node is pinged three times to give you some idea of its repeatability.

[edong]

Thanks again, guys.

Pirej, I clicked that link and found it to be too technical for me. I'm sorry.

You and Jagabo noticed the huge number on the first one. I also noticed that. I tracert 5 more times and got 1800 as the lowest and 3800 as the highest. I also tracert yahoo.com and microsoft.com and I got more than 2500!

I tried to download Windows XP SP3 from Microsoft and my download speed was 1.2MBps. There might be some factors why I did not get close to my maximum internet speed of 2MBps on average. Nothing strange there I don't think.

Jagabo, here is the result of the ping test:


The thing I do not understand is, if the hop times is the cause, why are my download speeds very satisfactory(usually)? Speedtest.net and speakeasy.net will report it as slow, right? And why is my first number(router?) huge compared to the three of you? I use Sygate Firewall, Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG anti-virus and Spybot S& D. Windows Firewall is also ON. Microsoft said I should not use a second anti-virus, no mention about another firewall.

Anyway, I can always download the video for uninterrupted playing. Just cumbersome. Thanks.

[jagabo]

Hop times are not the cause of your problems. Youtube is.

I suspect your router is going into a low power state between runs of tracert since the long reponse appears to be on the very first ping. Try starting a continuous ping, then while that's running, run tracert. Do you still get the long hop time on the first try?

[edong]

I believe I know now what caused the huge number on the first ping. When I turned the Sygate firewall to "allow all", the first number shows only 9 ms. The huge number depends on how fast I can click "yes" to "allow." So, one mystery solved!

Since you also experienced some buffering on that video link I posted, and with pirej's experience also on buffering, I think my problem is not unique. Thanks.

[jagabo]

I believe I know now what caused the huge number on the first ping. When I turned the Sygate firewall to "allow all", the first number shows only 9 ms. The huge number depends on how fast I can click "yes" to "allow." So, one mystery solved!

Yes, mystery solved.