Streaming video download speeds?

[Agile]

I have a broadband rated at 2.2 MB/S and said by the speed measuring sites to be actually running at 8 MB/S

Its provided by AOL and its the AOL program I use.

I have noticed that the video clips on U-tube vary from taking ages to download, sometimes taking 25 secs after showing 5 secs, to playing smoothly.

Last week I viewed some clips on someone elses connection and they all played smoothly.

Can anyone suggest why mine is so erratic but mostly slow. It seems to be the actual item selected which determines how well it may play.

Tony

 

[breezer]

only a guess, AOL.

its terrible, always has been always will be

 

[Agile]

I tried it again last night and as luck has it it working well now.

In between I had reloaded the AOL program which was quite fiddly to retrieve the saved emails. Managed it in the end but still lost my favourite sites.

Thanks

Tony

 

[Igorian]

Streaming can be a bit hit and miss over ADSL. A lot depends on the load on your contended line (probably 20 or 50:1). You also have the load on the host server to consider. Then, to a lesser extent, it would also depend on the spec of your machine, the type of device you use to connect to broadband and the number of other background applications.

 

[Agile]

Whilst appreciating that, when the problem was at its worst it did seem to be very dependent on exactly which U-tube video is watched.

Do you think their server would respond worse if several people are viewing a particular file at the same time?

Tony

 

[Igorian]

Whilst appreciating that, when the problem was at its worst it did seem to be very dependent on exactly which U-tube video is watched.

Do you think their server would respond worse if several people are viewing a particular file at the same time?

Tony

Yes, that and also the route taken to/from the server. Open a command prompt and type TRACERT u-tube.com. Each entry in the resulting list is a router or server, relaying the data until it finally arrives at the host. As you will appreciate, the more routers or hops, the greater the delay. Also, any of these routers could be faulty or overloaded.

 

[Steve]

Igorian, I am interested in any other dos commands you might have for this sort of thing! took me long enough to find the dos prompt in vista! Is there any way, for example, to tell what my contention ratio is? My net slows right down in the evenings During the day I can hit top speed.

 

[Igorian]

The contention ratio will be dependant on your isp, but is generally 50 or 20:1 for domestics.

You can get some idea of your internet performance by running a test like this.

There are some packages that will allow manipulation of packet sizes to reduce fragmentation and a quick google will reveal them.