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

Post by zanny » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 3:26 AM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #19

revelation wrote: post #12

This is just one of the many fights surrounding net neutrality. We desperately need to break up ISP monopolies and enact strict net neutrality regulation and bandwidth (even latency/routing) guarantees. The idea that a single ISP is in a position to charge both YouTube and its customers is bizarre. By any basic reasoning, an ISP that doesn't enable access to YouTube should be out of customers within a few months. Tha…

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?

Post by randomfool » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 3:43 AM UTC

revelation wrote: post #12

This is just one of the many fights surrounding net neutrality. We desperately need to break up ISP monopolies and enact strict net neutrality regulation and bandwidth (even latency/routing) guarantees. The idea that a single ISP is in a position to charge both YouTube and its customers is bizarre. By any basic reasoning, an ISP that doesn't enable access to YouTube should be out of customers within a few months. Tha…

Post by PavlovsCat » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 4:22 AM UTC

SomeRandomUser wrote: post #5

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…

Failing to load HD versions of the video and then graying them out (reloading the page usually makes it work again), play the video in 320p and display the resolution as set to HD, SD to HD loading ad infinitum (or just display an error and stop playback), stop buffering after skipping (even to pre-buffered parts), really low streaming speeds (that fix after reloading the page), etc, etc. Making a general video host…

Post by wmf » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 5:16 AM UTC

randomfool wrote: post #23

revelation wrote: post #12

This is just one of the many fights surrounding net neutrality. We desperately need to break up ISP monopolies and enact strict net neutrality regulation and bandwidth (even latency/routing) guarantees. The idea that a single ISP is in a position to charge both YouTube and its customers is bizarre. By any basic reasoning, an ISP that doesn't enable access to YouTube should be out of customers within a few months. Tha…

Your ISP wanting money to install caching servers for Netflix and YouTube is not something which has been covered ny net neutrality in the past. It would be great if there was a fixed colo fee for caching servers. That said, I pay my ISP for bandwidth and service. It's bullshit if they refuse free installation of caching servers which improves my service and frees up upstream bandwidth for others.

Post by voltagex_ » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 5:18 AM UTC

Spittie wrote: post #16

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…

ViewTube: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/87011 It replaces the YouTube player with the standard html5 video player. This alone made my experience on YouTube way better. My connection is slow, so many times I'll just open a YouTube video in a background tab, and leave it loading for a while. With this, I can just preload the whole video. And seeking doesn't make the video reload. A side bonus, also, is that every…