How can I view online video without the starts and stops?

The number-one cause: Your internet connection

By far, the single biggest reason for videos that pause periodically while playing back is the speed of your internet connection.

Or rather, the lack of speed.

Video can require a lot of data and that data has to be transferred fast enough across your internet connection for the video to playback smoothly.

If a video requires say three megabits per second (just an example) to play smoothly and your internet connection is only 1.5 megabits per second, you are going to experience these stops and starts. The video player just can't get the data fast enough for the video to play without interruption.

In that same vein, if some other program on your computer is simultaneously downloading something from the internet, then the available download speed that's left over for your video to playback will be reduced. You may have the required three megabits per second1 connection, but if another program is simultaneously downloading something, your effective speed might be cut in half and your video once again begins to pause.

In addition, if another computer that shares your internet connection does the same thing, then the bandwidth available to your machine watching video is similarly reduced and pausing can once again happen.

The number two cause: Your computer's too busy

In addition to requiring that there be available download speed, depending on your computer's specific hardware configuration and the software you have running on it at the same time, it might just be too busy to keep up with the work of displaying video.

Other programs that are running at the same time that might be placing high demands on the computer's CPU, RAM, or disk can interfere with video playback and symptoms like periodic pausing can be one result.

Fortunately, using programs like Process Explorer, you can peek into the inner-workings of your computer, see exactly who's doing what while you playback video, and identify any resources-hogging culprits.

There's also a small chance that your video card might not be up to the task. This isn't nearly the issue it once was, but it's something to consider on older computers.

Solution number 1: Pause

Most video player progress bars will typically show three stages of video playback:

• Video seen: This shows how much of the video you've seen2 so far and ends at the playback position indicator.

• Video downloaded but not yet seen: This shows you the amount of the video that's been downloaded into a buffer somewhere on your computer, but that you haven't seen yet.

• Not yet downloaded: This is the amount of video that has yet to make it from the video server to our computer.

If you never see the "video downloaded but not yet seen" during normal streaming playback, then it's likely that the download can't keep up with playback or can only just barely keep up.

More often than not, this results in the pauses that we're talking about.

My most common recommendation when faced with this is to start it playing, then click on pause, and then wait a while.

Most video players will either have a separate Pause button or will change the Play button to a Pause button, as in the YouTube example above.

Pressing play initially begins the streaming of the video. By pausing the video, we're giving the download a head start, letting it fill the buffer with video ready to be played back.

Now, while this works with many players, YouTube has of late seemed to impose limits as to how far ahead it will buffer; it'll buffer a certain amount and then stop before it's done, apparently waiting for playback to catch up.

Unfortunately, when it chooses to stop buffering, it's typically not buffered enough to finish the video without more starts and stops.

Thus, another solution might be called for.

Solution number 2: Reduce the demand

Many video players provide the video in multiple formats, usually including different sizes of video and different qualities.

The players may choose a default, or they may guess and guess wrong.

On YouTube, you can click on the gear icon to select a different resolution:

The maximum resolution available is typically selected by whomever uploaded the video and results in the largest and clearest picture.

And it also requires the fastest internet connection in order to play smoothly.

By selecting a lower resolution, the image will typically be smaller and perhaps a little less clear, but it will also place less of a demand on the speed of your internet connection, and thus may playback without pausing.

What if you have a slow internet connection, but still want high quality? That calls for a different approach.

Solution number 3: Download

Streaming and downloading a video is very similar. Oh, there are differences in protocols and software and whatnot, but the fundamental difference is simply this:

• Streaming plays the video on your screen immediately

• Downloading3 writes a copy of the video to your computer's hard disk

The technical differences, while complex behind the scenes, are conceptually fairly simple. Unfortunately, the legalities are anything but.

The problem is that when you download a video you are creating a copy of that video. That may be illegal or against the video-sharing site's terms of service. I'm not going to weigh in on that, other than to point out the possibility.

Some sites will simply offer a direct-download link. I do this with most of my more recent video offerings here on Ask Leo! or in any bonus videos I might offer with my books. It's by far the simplest approach. Click on the download link (or right-click and Save As...) and then after the download completes, you'll get a video file on your machine that you can play using your favorite media player.

Other sites, most notably YouTube, do not provide this ability.

However, if you search for "youtube downloader," you'll find many. The problem, of course, is that it's unclear which to trust. In my brief research for this article, I checked out a few and found many to be discontinued, not working, or loaded with toolbars and other unrelated software.

One I did find and install (I have to stress that all installs should be performed very carefully to avoid unneccesary toolbars, search engine changes and more) is the Free YouTube Downloader from Best Video Downloader. This is not a recommendation, just a report that I found one that seemed to work. Naturally, I have to caution that you use it at your own risk.

One final note about downloading a video. If the download takes longer than the video would play - for example, it takes 15 minutes to download a video that only plays for three minutes, then almost by definition, it's an internet connection speed issue. If you were able to download that same file in three minutes or less on a faster connection, then you'd also be able to stream it directly without the starts and stops.

(This is an update to an article originally published November 8, 2004.)