Summary: Online video is becoming more and more popular, but it often assumes you have a fast connection. If you don't, video playback can be affected.
I would like to view YouTube without the stops and starts. What causes that and can it be corrected?
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It's typically a sign of a slow or overloaded internet connection, or just a slow server out at YouTube.
The good news is that there are a couple of ways to approach the problem.
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Watching a streaming video on a service like YouTube is really just a special form of downloading the file that contains the video.
Normally when you download a file from a web site it's downloaded completely into a temporary location or a location that you specify. Once the download is complete the application that's used to operate on that file is launched and it then has the entire file available to it, ready to play with.
With a service such as YouTube the idea is the same only with one important twist: the video viewing program is launched and begins playing before the download is finished. In essence, it begins playing from the "front" of the file while the download process keeps adding to the "back" of the file.
The problem that you're experiencing is what happens when the download of the file can't keep up with the playback. Playback reaches the point where the video is currently being downloaded and has to stop and wait for more of the file to be downloaded before it can continue playing. Hence the repeated stops and starts.
You can actually see the progress of both when you view a YouTube video:
Here you can see the progress mid way in one of my videos. The red bar indicates the amount of the video that has been downloaded so far. The circular progress indicator shows you where playback is. As long as the red download progress bar remains ahead of the circular playback indicator, you should be fine. That means the file is downloading faster than you're playing it back.
On the other hand, if you rarely or never see the red bar extend from the right of the playback progress indicator, your download speed is probably not fast enough to watch videos while they're being downloaded.
The solution is simple: press pause and wait for a while. Pause is the button on the far left, in the example above. When you press pause, playback stops, but the download continues. Wait a while until the download progress bar has completely filled out to the right indicating that the download is complete. One complete hit play and you should have smooth playback of the video.
Note that this tip works for other video players such as Google video as well, though the controls may look different. Look for that download progress indicator and see how it behaves compared to the playback indicator. If the download's not keeping up, just press pause and wait for more of the video to be downloaded before you watch it.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - How do I stop, start and generally control videos I watch on the web?
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Ask Leo! - Why does my video flicker?
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Ask Leo! - Can I get a virus or spyware from a free video download?
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Jake Ludington - How to download movies from YouTube
Article C2981 - April 2, 2007
Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!! I hit pause and let the video completely download, went back and when I hit play - it played just as it "should" - no stops and starts. I am very grateful. :-)
Posted by: 'chele at October 4, 2008 7:54 PMIs the buffering a Vista problem? I have a notebook with vista (w/3 megs of ram) that has this problem and a desktop with XP that does not.
Posted by: Avi elch at January 7, 2009 6:37 AMboth are connected to the internet thru a broadband connection. What should I do?
If it had been up to me, I wouldn't have put You Tube up until that bug got work out. But then I would have made sure saccharine and cyclamates were harmless and not cancer-causing before putting them on the market.
06-Feb-2009
I cannot tell you how much this info helped!! Been having this problem for awhile. Not just on Youtube! Very cool and no need to get frustrated anymore. I will just pause....
Posted by: Shannon at March 26, 2009 11:21 AMWhen running internet videos the red load line does load far ahead of the playing point. And the video still stops, skips frames, and starts and stops. Even going back to the beginning point and rerunning the video with the red line full the video still does the stop and start thing. The sound is doing the same. I am running windows XP with Internet Explorer. Adobe Flash player 10 Active X is loaded and Java Script is enabled. Memory space is clear. System is an Intel 866 MHZ, 512 ram with service pack 3. Display adapter is a Nvidia GeForce 2 MX 100/200. And the wireless connection is at 54Mbps.What possibly could be wrong or set to cause this video problem? Videos do run normal in Microsoft Media player. But are jumpy in Flash. Thanks
02-May-2009
THANK YOU SO MUCH for the info. I have had problems trying to watch the news videos on my homepage with all the stopping every few seconds. I just hit the pause and let the line move to the right and NOW I have no problems watching.
Posted by: Sara at June 2, 2009 3:06 AMhi Leo
Posted by: inakshi at June 3, 2009 6:02 AMthanks for the information but even when i pause the download progress wont happen or is very slow and it very annoying. so please please tell me what to do
I had the same start and stop problem with watching videos online. I tried numerous sites to make sure it wasn't the site. The problem came on suddenly so I tried all the fixes on the first page, but no luck. I finally uninstalled ITunes which I had recently installed and now everything is working fine again. ITunes installed a mess of programs that I would never even use and it made itself the main music player. I also noticed that Itunes had a lot of task running all the time, at least 5 or more. So, that's my fix. Hope it might help someone else.
Posted by: Marlene at June 10, 2009 12:37 PMIve been having a similar problem but Ive found that if I reboot my PC the videos play faster what could be causing this?
26-Jul-2009
Posted by: Stephen Totten at July 27, 2009 2:42 PM
well my problem is a bit different than this...
when i try to watch a video online sometimes its plays fine but after serveral viedeo watching or sometimes just one...
the sound stop & the video stops playing if i click the video it plays for 2 secs.. then stops again only thing i can do is restart my PC
to fix the problem & repeat
Please help...
Posted by: Nidancer at September 18, 2009 3:21 PM