Buffering

[Parrotman]

Though I understand what buffering is, would appreciate advice how it actually works.

Problem is, when I listen to BBC radio there is frequent re-buffering and occasionally similar when listening to itunes radio. However, of late also noticed a kind of ' audio jumping/skipping ' ( there's a quick pause followed by a quick catch up to the normal 'speed ' )regardless of whichever station I'm listening to.

Could someone explain or indicate why this might occur and if it's likely to be a server download issue or my pc.

Any help or advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks John

 

[GuyFawkes]

 

[Gollom]

Though I understand what buffering is, would appreciate advice how it actually works.

Problem is, when I listen to BBC radio there is frequent re-buffering and occasionally similar when listening to itunes radio. However, of late also noticed a kind of ' audio jumping/skipping ' ( there's a quick pause followed by a quick catch up to the normal 'speed ' )regardless of whichever station I'm listening to.

Could someone explain or indicate why this might occur and if it's likely to be a server download issue or my pc.

Any help or advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks John

Generally down to your broadband speed - do you find it gets worse in the evenings?

 

[Antharro]

Your connection is too slow, or the content provider is having problems. Either way, the information isn't getting to your PC as quickly as it needs to. If it's a problem at their end there's not much you can do.

I would be very surprised to not be able to receive an audio stream on any decent broadband connection these days. Check for applications sucking up your bandwidth, running updates, that kinda thing. They often run in the background without you knowing.

Additionally, head over to http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html and run the speed test there - what speeds does it report for you?

 

[Parrotman]

Generally down to your broadband speed - do you find it gets worse in the evenings?

Thanks Steve, yes it is although that is when I listen to it. Guess it's down to volume of traffic. Makes me think though if they can't get average connections to work at advertised speeds how will they get on with all this 50M
b stuff.

Thanks for replying.
Regards John

 

[Parrotman]

Your connection is too slow, or the content provider is having problems. Either way, the information isn't getting to your PC as quickly as it needs to. If it's a problem at their end there's not much you can do.

I would be very surprised to not be able to receive an audio stream on any decent broadband connection these days. Check for applications sucking up your bandwidth, running updates, that kinda thing. They often run in the background without you knowing.

Additionally, head over to http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html and run the speed test there - what speeds does it report for you?

Thanks Antharro. Got 9.5 Mb on a 10 Mb service which is quite good thoughit is late evening. Had'nt thought about anything running in the background which is making me think further.

Thank you also the link.

Thanks once again, regards John

 

[Antharro]

9.5Mb on 10Mb is pretty darn good. However as you've found out, raw speed doesn't always mean you'll get reliable transfer. Audio and video streaming rely on a certain "quality of service" which isn't (generally) guarantee-able over the internet.

So, for example, if you were downloading a large file and it came in in "clumps" - a bit here, then another bit, then a brief pause, then a load more now - the overall speed would still show up as pretty good. However, when multimedia is concerned, that brief pause can cause delays and problems. Buffering partially gets around that, but if the connection is that bad, even buffering won't help. As you've found out.

 

[Gollom]

Thanks Antharro. Got 9.5 Mb on a 10 Mb service which is quite good thoughit is late evening. Had'nt thought about anything running in the background which is making me think further.

Thank you also the link.

Thanks once again, regards John

Most (AFAIK) anti-virus programs are set up "out of the box" to scan daily in the early evening? That could be sucking resources away

 

[fuzzer]

try adding ram.

 

[Parrotman]

Your connection is too slow, or the content provider is having problems. Either way, the information isn't getting to your PC as quickly as it needs to. If it's a problem at their end there's not much you can do.

I would be very surprised to not be able to receive an audio stream on any decent broadband connection these days. Check for applications sucking up your bandwidth, running updates, that kinda thing. They often run in the background without you knowing.

Additionally, head over to http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html and run the speed test there - what speeds does it report for you?

Thanks for all your replies on this but after checking everything and stuff running in the background etc,found the problem and should have tried this in the first place, remembering my long gone old BT days and fixing dead phones/sockets.

If I've understood it correctly, buffering ( only ?) concerns wireless connections/networks.

Still getting the drop-out this afternoon and this evening.

As mine is a wired network, unplugged cables from the router, plugged back in and working ok now for 3 hours with no signs of any dropout - dolt!!!!

Thinking about it, had re-decorated the room a couple of months ago and what with moving everything around etc, guess a bit of crud or dirt had got into the socket(s) perhaps and it's taken this length of time to gradually build up and really interfere with the connection.

Feel bit of an ass now but nevertheless many thanks for responses.

Regards John

 

[Parrotman]

try adding ram.

Thanks fuzzer and already have 1gb. However, whilst I've seemingly ( and hopefully ) cured the main problem, your comment does raise a further point concerning another issue and apologise in advance for my ignorance.

More often than not, if one copies a disk direct from cd-rom to cd-writer it will inevitably fail. If the disk is copied to say, the hard drive and then copy it to the re-writer it will burn ok. Is the former due to the read speed being too fast for the write speed, or is it something to do with memory?

Use Nero and do not usually have any gremlins when burning disks only when I try copying directly from one to the other.

Thanks John

 

[fuzzer]

Thanks fuzzer and already have 1gb. However, whilst I've seemingly ( and hopefully ) cured the main problem, your comment does raise a further point concerning another issue and apologise in advance for my ignorance.

More often than not, if one copies a disk direct from cd-rom to cd-writer it will inevitably fail. If the disk is copied to say, the hard drive and then copy it to the re-writer it will burn ok. Is the former due to the read speed being too fast for the write speed, or is it something to do with memory?

Use Nero and do not usually have any gremlins when burning disks only when I try copying directly from one to the other.

Thanks John

These days , with the price of ram 2GB is easilly the best option with windows XP , moving to Vista youre talking 3-4gb+ to make it run smooth and fast depending on version.

Run Disk defragmenter and depending on how full your disk is may also have an effect. If you don't have enough ram your computer it will be using the hard drive to bridge the gap and thus slowing down the read time from it and that could be causing your disc write to fail.

Its quite difficult to say without seeing it , but with ram at about £10/gb at the moment its not really an expensive change to make.