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Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make and break online video

arstechnica.com

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Re: Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make and break online video

#81

Post by gregsadetsky »

jlgaddis wrote: post #71
ams6110 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Providing internet service requires a lot of physical infrastructure, e.g. cables run to every home, all the attendant routing and switching gear, a fleet of trucks and maintenance workers available 24/7, etc. Right now the ISPs (phone and/or cable company) provides this. Are you saying that the physical infrastructure should be separated from the ISP function? Who owns the physical infrastructure then?

In my perfect world, municipalities would only fiber that ran to every home and to a central facility but they would not manage any logical devices or infrastructure. Any carrier who wanted to have a presence in the facility could, for the same exact cost. Customers would then be able to pick and choose their carrier and carriers would be forced to compete based upon service. Not happy with ISP A? Call up ISP B, sign…

Amsterdam seems to be a good example of what you're describing (FTTH installed by the city, Internet service provided by private companies). See:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/how-amsterdam-was...

Re: Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make and break online video

#82

Post by gregsadetsky »

GhotiFish wrote: post #55

Youtube has a very poor connection around my area in Canada. Video connections are unreliable, unexpectedly dropping or just being slow. Slower than the Kbps of the video I'm trying to watch. For youtube's client side player this is completely intolerable. Which is why you don't depend on youtube's clientside player for anything. Use SMplayers downloader, or youtube-dl, or videodownloadhelper. These make use of more…

What area? What ISP? Let's start naming and shaming.. ;)

I had a pathetic experience with an ISP "reselling" Bell's DSL service. The ISP's name is Distributel. YouTube would not, at "peak times" (6pm - 9pm on weekdays, most times on weekends), work at 1080. The download speed forced you to wait for the entire clip to pre-buffer before it would be possible to play it.

What was frustrating was that opening an SSH proxy to a US server (hosted at Linode) and going through that proxy would allow you to watch 1080 clips with plenty of pre-buffering headroom. I tried to explain this to tech support (with bandwidth measurements, etc) to no avail.

I finally switched over to TekSavvy who have always had their shit down. They truly rock (the tech support is amazing).

Re: Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make and break online video

#83

Post by drbawb »

IgorPartola wrote: post #64

As a temporary workaround I access YouTube over an IPv6 tunnel through Hurricane Electric. Since I set it up almost two years ago I have had no issues with YouTube. The only downside has been the IRS's quarterly tax site which seems to be misconfigured for IPv6 access but works if r over IPv4 (/etc/hosts FTW).

Interesting, thanks for the idea. I've just finished setting up an IPv6tunnel w/ sixxs.net, so I'll have to see if IPv6 connectivity provides a better YouTube experience on my network.

YouTube usually works quite well on my network (TimeWarner Cable in SE Wisconsin, US), but occasionally I'll be completely unable to receive HD streams of certain content, so I have to select 480/320p to buffer the video at all.

Re: Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make and break online video

#84

Post by umsm »

There was a similar discussion on HN a few weeks ago regarding a similar issue about ISPs buffering the CDN (I think).

I dug up a link that I saved:

http://mitchribar.com/2013/02/time-warner-cable-sucks-for-yo...

Here is the fix:

  sudo ipfw add reject src-ip 173.194.55.0/24 in
  sudo ipfw add reject src-ip 206.111.0.0/16 in

Re: Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make and break online video

#85

Post by 300bps »

The reality is that major ISPs like Verizon and Comcast want Netflix to DIE because it is a major competitor of theirs. How many people have cut their cable TV service because Netflix is "good enough?"

So Verizon and Comcast can compete with Netflix, or they can attempt to cut off their knees.

"Nice streaming service you got there. Be a shame if it was so slow your users got frustrated and cancelled their service."

This is why Verizon and Comcast don't take Netflix up on their offer to provide caching servers, create peering agreements and take other actions that actually decrease the ISP's cost. Because Verizon and Comcast want Netflix DEAD.

Re: Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make and break online video

#87

Post by drbawb »

magicalist wrote: post #8
epa wrote: post #2

While it may be true that there are some outstanding ISP issues that lead to slow internet, I think the more pressing issue is the behaviour of the new(ish) youtube player acting erratic. For instance, you cannot fully load a video anymore, it will only load a portion as you continue watching. If you wish to rewind the video, for some reason youtube will want you to rebuffer the entire from where you have rewinded to…

Not buffering the entire video has happened for a long, long time. Years. There's various browser extensions out there that can help you if you want them. The resolution selection is still weird, though, and jumping forward or backward to what look like buffered times is definitely annoying. But the ISP makes a gigantic difference. I have the benefit of a great ISP (smallish in size, no surprise) and seeing all the y…

I have TimeWarner as well in SE Wisconsin. Quite honestly I wouldn't describe YouTube w/ the "dial-up" badge; but this is probably a regional issue, at least in part.

I have their second-highest tier, 30Mbps down / 5Mbps up. The speeds I receive are pretty consistent, even during peak hours, according to speed tests.

I often find that YouTube will either work splendidly on my TWC connection, or it simply won't work at all. In other words: perhaps 80-90% of videos I can seek to a new spot in a 1080p video w/o any perceptible buffering... the other 10% of the time the video just refuses to load, or seeking is horribly broken, or it cuts off before the video is finished.

I guess I would agree that, for the videos that fail, YouTube _does feel_ like a different product.

(I should also add that, in my case, advertisements usually work even when the video fails to load.)

Re: Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make and break online video

#88

Post by estebank »

jaynos wrote: post #68
Qantourisc wrote: post #45

The internet used to be ran by engineers. Now it's ran by suits ... The former does what needs to be done, and all pitch in to move traffic. Suits on the other hand only see $$$. As for the suits: either your are overselling your bandwidth and you don't have enough money to make the necessary changes REGARDLESS of where the traffic is going/coming from. Or your just being greedy ! To fight this, I think it's best to…

Not sure if that last part will work. I can definitely see Comcast allowing speed test to work to it's fullest and then buffering youtube and other sites where performance matters.

What stops speed tests being done that use real sites for their tests?

I could envision using a random YouTube/Netflix/Hulu video for a test to be done across several providers at the same time. Add some legal torrent and FTP servers as you're at it.

That way you get results that can be compared directly. For end user results, you really don't need to be that thorough when comparing results (after all, if you're doing at different times on different you are already adding unhandled variables) you just use any random video from one of those providers.

Re: Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make and break online video

#89

Post by shoxty »

This peering issue has affected me a lot. I watch a lot of gaming streams online and during peek hours Twitch.tv has becomes unusable. During a major tournament this is very unfortunate. Another example of this peering dispute affecting me is with the game League of Legends.

Almost everyone who is on Comcast (myself included) during peek times experiences lag that makes the game unplayable. Your character "skates" along the map and usually when it buffers and catches up to you you'll find yourself dead. My friends and I got together to play over the weekend and ended up having to stop due to the lag.

Heres a thread where the guys at Riot are trying to identify the issue. It wasn't until 7/22 that they identified the problem everyone has been having was due to a peering dispute between Verizon and other vendors. To fix the problem they are having to make changes with their provider to route traffic to bypass problematic junctions.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3521364

Its been very eye opening to me. I have a 50mb connection and I always thought that as long as I had a faster connection I wouldn't have lag issues. It was disappointing to learn that regardless of your connection you can still be throttled by ISPs and their vendors.

Re: Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make and break online video

#90

Post by Shivetya »

zanny wrote: post #21
ams6110 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Providing internet service requires a lot of physical infrastructure, e.g. cables run to every home, all the attendant routing and switching gear, a fleet of trucks and maintenance workers available 24/7, etc. Right now the ISPs (phone and/or cable company) provides this. Are you saying that the physical infrastructure should be separated from the ISP function? Who owns the physical infrastructure then?

The public (ie, local or state government). Like the roads. Like the sewers. Like (some) power lines. Like the phone and coax lines (depending on time period, they have passed between private and public owners, but were always state subsidized in their deployment).

Considering the state of the infrastructure in the US I think the last people I would trust with this is the government. I can see a model similar to how natural gas and even electricity is using in some states, where their is one carrier responsible for the pipes/lines and everyone and their brother selling service over it.
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