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Why can I stream Netflix wirelessly with no lag yet can't watch a 360p Youtube video?

Lord JezoLord Jezo Registered User regular
Netflix works fine, no lag, only a little bit of buffering time, and I can quickly switch to any place in the movie with again only a little bit of buffering time. Quality looks fine and it plays with no problem.

Youtube, on the other hand, on a 360p video, struggles to load fast enough to let me watch it, and I will have to pause a video and let it preload before getting to watch it the whole way through. If I want a non lagged video experience with Youtube I need to drop the quality down to 240.

(I have up to 3 mbps DSL)

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Lord Jezo on

Posts

  • SyphonBlueSyphonBlue The studying beaver That beaver sure loves studying!Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Because Youtube has awful servers.

    SyphonBlue on
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  • Dark ShroudDark Shroud Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Netflix uses Silverlight that was designed for media content. Youtube is a mess with H.264, Flash, and possibly WebM.

    I have upto 12Mbps DSL and I still get choppy video from Youtube & Hulu at times.

    Dark Shroud on
  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Netflix uses Silverlight that was designed for media content. Youtube is a mess with H.264, Flash, and possibly WebM.

    I have upto 12Mbps DSL and I still get choppy video from Youtube & Hulu at times.

    "Choppiness," and the codecs used, has nothing to do with the buffering, though.

    SyphonBlue hit it. Youtube has shitty servers. When I have this problem, I can pop open NetMeter and see that despite my connection speed I'm only getting 350Kbps down while buffering Youtube. Even though I get 15Mbps from any other server, including Netflix and other streaming video.

    Of course, sometimes I have the same problem with Netflix, too.

    Regardless, it's almost certainly Youtube's problem, not yours. Well, I mean it's your problem because you can't watch Youtube for shit, but there's probably nothing you can do about it.

    mcdermott on
  • Lord JezoLord Jezo Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Oh. Well that sort of makes me feel better. I just assumed that since Youtube was owned by Google and that they are the biggest video site out there that they would try to put out the best possible experience. Never made sense why they always sucked more than everyone else, I figured something was wrong with my connection.

    Lord Jezo on
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  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    edited February 2011
    Isn't it awesome when it takes five minutes to load one minute of video from youtube?

    Echo on
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    edited February 2011
    This is relevant to my interests.

    I've been putting off Netflix (PS3) because I figured it'd be crap like YouTube. May give it a try; free, so no loss but didn't want to enter credit info, etc.

    MichaelLC on
  • Lord JezoLord Jezo Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    This is relevant to my interests.

    I've been putting off Netflix (PS3) because I figured it'd be crap like YouTube. May give it a try; free, so no loss but didn't want to enter credit info, etc.

    My 3mbps is fast enough for Netflix, so as long as you have at least that it should be fine.

    I think my parents were able to stream it with 1.5 dsl.

    Lord Jezo on
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  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Lord Jezo wrote: »
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    This is relevant to my interests.

    I've been putting off Netflix (PS3) because I figured it'd be crap like YouTube. May give it a try; free, so no loss but didn't want to enter credit info, etc.

    My 3mbps is fast enough for Netflix, so as long as you have at least that it should be fine.

    I think my parents were able to stream it with 1.5 dsl.

    Cool. I've got 3MBps UVerse so will give it a try. Do you have the streaming only, or discs too?

    D/L Mass Effect 2 recently was fun - 8hrs+. I started at 4, at went to bed at 11pm or so with it still going.

    MichaelLC on
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Seriously, I have a 26 mb/s download speed from a cable modem, and youtube still stutters from time to time. They just have lousy speed, I guess.

    Meanwhile, I can get whatever qualifies as HD off Netflix just fine, when they have it.

    Synthesis on
  • rockmonkeyrockmonkey Little RockRegistered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Not to hijack, but while we're bitching about youtube buffering. I've noticed on my parents PC (and my mom has brought this to my attention as well) that the video will buffer fine at first then stop buffering completely somewhere in the middle (not always the same spot) and will not buffer anymore regardless of how long you wait. The video plays fine up to that point. You can refresh and buffer again and it may go all the way to the end or it may stop at some random point again and not buffer further. This happens regardless of the video attempting to play from what I can tell.

    I'm not entirely sure that it's exclusive to youtube, but that's all she uses, and I'm not close to test it out right now. I know the problem existed previous to the system being restore to factory defaults recently and has presisted after the restore and removal of bloatware (HP).

    I reinstalled flash and flushed internet settings and restarted cable modems and crap and thought the problem was solved (tested 4-5 videos and they loaded fine) only to find out that the problem is still there after I'd already left. The issue here being that the problem has been intermittent.

    They have suddenlink and speedtest.net had them at around 10Mbps down, but I worry that perhaps there is some short lived speed boost at play and that the speed drops out considerable after a short span, or that their cable modem and/or router is acting up somehow.

    What I plan on doing at this point is to take another PC and hook it up and see if the issue persists and then I'll know it's their connection and not an issue of PC hardware or software not performing.

    What I'm asking here is does this problem sounds familiar to anyone here, and does it have a known solution before I spend more time sifting through the possibilities.

    Otherwise I'll keep at it. Another issue is that this PC is used by several different adults and two kids any of whom are at best half decent with just using a computer so installed garbage and spyware is a constant possibility.

    rockmonkey on
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  • DjeetDjeet Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    Cool. I've got 3MBps UVerse so will give it a try.

    I have 3 Mbps UVerse and netflix streaming works well. When I launch a video there's about a 5-8 sec wait for buffering, and the first couple of frames are a bit pixelated/blurry but then it's pretty decent quality. You get the same buffering wait once you hit play if you advance or go back to select a scene.

    Djeet on
  • FyreWulffFyreWulff YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    edited February 2011
    When youtube videos stop buffering in the middle, you have to clear the browser's cache, and then close the browser. If you don't close the browser after clearing the cache, the half loaded broken video is still being stored in RAM.

    It's a Flash issue, not Youtube.

    FyreWulff on
  • RohanRohan Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    I can watch videos on YouTube at 360p no problem, but anything higher requires a wait. And it's really annoying because a video will start playing in 360p, I maximise it, and suddenly it's in 480p and has to load all over again... much more slowly. Damn whoever made the decision for the video to restart in a higher resolution when it's maximised, damn them to hell. Someone must have made this decision because it never did this before.

    Rohan on
    ...and I thought of how all those people died, and what a good death that is. That nobody can blame you for it, because everyone else died along with you, and it is the fault of none, save those who did the killing.

    Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
  • amnesiasoftamnesiasoft Thick Creamy Furry Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Basically, YouTube is awful. I have no issues streaming Netflix on my 1.5 Mbps connection. Complain all you want about Microsoft and Silverlight, but I'll take the product that actually works any day.

    amnesiasoft on
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  • FyreWulffFyreWulff YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    edited February 2011
    It's always done that.. but I swear there's an option to keep it from doing that in the settings. Hold on.

    Yep, here it is.

    click your name

    Account

    click "Playback Setup" on the left

    Select radio button for "I have a slow connection. Never play higher-quality video."

    save

    FyreWulff on
  • RohanRohan Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    FyreWulff wrote: »
    It's always done that.. but I swear there's an option to keep it from doing that in the settings. Hold on.

    Yep, here it is.

    click your name

    Account

    click "Playback Setup" on the left

    Select radio button for "I have a slow connection. Never play higher-quality video."

    save

    Huh... I'm 99% sure I never messed around with such an option... but thanks, anyway. Though it's a pain that I'll have to log in every time...

    Rohan on
    ...and I thought of how all those people died, and what a good death that is. That nobody can blame you for it, because everyone else died along with you, and it is the fault of none, save those who did the killing.

    Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
  • kyleh613kyleh613 Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    I would kill for a paid subscription to Youtube that eliminates this buffering problem on every video it has. I certainly use the service enough to justify it. Basically what it comes down to is that Youtube does not have the money to provide enough bandwidth for the millions of people it serves every minute. I'm surprised it hasn't collapsed in on itself yet. Considering all of the content it provides, the service is still really good.

    kyleh613 on
  • useless4useless4 Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    kyleh613 wrote: »
    I would kill for a paid subscription to Youtube that eliminates this buffering problem on every video it has. I certainly use the service enough to justify it. Basically what it comes down to is that Youtube does not have the money to provide enough bandwidth for the millions of people it serves every minute. I'm surprised it hasn't collapsed in on itself yet. Considering all of the content it provides, the service is still really good.

    Youtube is owned by Google you know... it has nothing to do with bandwidth cost and everything to do with flash as other people have said. If you have a downloading tool installed notice it never hardly has issues grabbing videos in seconds vice the stuttering streaming buffering crap that goes on if you try to watch the same video instead of just snagging.

    You guys think you have it bad? try it on a mac because flash on a mac is horrible to start with. Silverlight is a great idea from a company that often misses.

    useless4 on
  • Dark ShroudDark Shroud Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    The only reason Youtube didn't fold is because Google bought them and is now paying the bills. That's why there are Chrome ads on every page. I use Youtube but I never liked it from the start and would never pay for it. Veoh has a paid option. The only one I that makes sense for me to pay for is Hulu Plus.

    Edit: Gah beaten, took too long to post.

    Dark Shroud on
  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Isn't there a way to enable direct H.264 playback in order circumwent the flash garbage?

    Dratatoo on
  • Dark ShroudDark Shroud Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    Isn't there a way to enable direct H.264 playback in order circumwent the flash garbage?

    OSX has Click to Flash. Keep in mind that Safari supports H.264 by default, the only other browser that does this is IE. Before Chrome & Firefox could use something like this they would have to install the H.264 add-ons from MS to enable H.264 play back via Windows.

    Dark Shroud on
  • Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    edited February 2011
    I think you can use an HTML5 version of Youtube too.

    Dunno how to do it though.

    Donovan Puppyfucker on
  • PatboyXPatboyX Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    PatboyX on
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  • useless4useless4 Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    HTML5 doesn't work on all videos. Any ones that have ads or commercial overlays won't work

    useless4 on
  • smokmnkysmokmnky Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    safari has an extension that forces all video to html5 instead of flash, I uninstalled flash on my mac and hardly miss it, never have problems with youtube. I'd assume FF has to have something like this as well.

    smokmnky on
  • SmokeStacksSmokeStacks Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    My understanding is that Youtube (and a lot of other video streaming sites) intentionally gimp their speeds so that they aren't paying to serve you the entirety of a five minute video you're just going to watch the first ten seconds of.

    SmokeStacks on
  • Roland_tHTGRoland_tHTG Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    Considering they hit the mark of a billion videos watched, and 4 years worth of videos uploaded per day over a year ago, I'd say SmokeStacks has the answer that's most likely. Shitty servers indeed. O_o

    Roland_tHTG on
  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    My understanding is that Youtube (and a lot of other video streaming sites) intentionally gimp their speeds so that they aren't paying to serve you the entirety of a five minute video you're just going to watch the first ten seconds of.

    Yeah, I'm not sure when it happened, but I've noticed that with youtube it'll quickly buffer ahead for a bit, but then slow down and just buffer as needed. Kind of annoying when you'd like to skip ahead without waiting for it to buffer more, but at least when you do skip ahead it immediately buffers quickly again.

    That said, this behaviour isn't what's happening to the OP, given that it quits buffering altogether.

    I'd recommend doing this next time you're having a youtube session:

    hit winkey+r to bring up a run dialogue box. Enter 'cmd', hit return. Enter 'ping www.google.com -t', hit return. Google doesn't care if you ping them with default windows parameters. I ping them pretty much day and night. This'll load up a window running ping, reporting how long it's taking your computer to reach google and for google to respond to you.

    Watch for requests timing out, particularly when you're getting regular intervals of requests timed out combined with low ping times (the time=Xms field,) which can indicate your internet service is being interrupted. Intermittent interruptions like this in service are common with line problems, but don't tend to manifest themselves noticeably in non-gaming internet usage (in gaming it'll come up as momentary freezes or longer freezes with spurts of 'catching up.') See if youtube failing to buffer a video as you watch it is tied to ping failures.

    Ego on
    Erik
  • FyreWulffFyreWulff YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    edited March 2011
    It's not Youtube suddenly choking your speed, the initial burst is Powerboost and the many other names the technology is marketed under where your ISP gives you burst bandwidth for the first x amount of bytes of downloading a file.

    FyreWulff on
  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    I don't think that's it, since the timeframes don't line up.

    Ego on
    Erik
  • Dark ShroudDark Shroud Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    Agreed, I never noticed a difference between a Comcast DOCSIS 3 25/5 Mbps connection with power boost and AT&T U-verse DSL 12/1.5 Mbps connection with no power boost.

    It's a combination of Shitty servers and Flash. Not to mention that word is Google is converting youtube over to WebM video format inside of Flash.

    Dark Shroud on
  • FyreWulffFyreWulff YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    edited March 2011
    I notice it very heavily on my connection. Very fast for the first half of the video, then throttles down.

    FyreWulff on
  • Roland_tHTGRoland_tHTG Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    Ego wrote: »
    My understanding is that Youtube (and a lot of other video streaming sites) intentionally gimp their speeds so that they aren't paying to serve you the entirety of a five minute video you're just going to watch the first ten seconds of.

    Yeah, I'm not sure when it happened, but I've noticed that with youtube it'll quickly buffer ahead for a bit, but then slow down and just buffer as needed. Kind of annoying when you'd like to skip ahead without waiting for it to buffer more, but at least when you do skip ahead it immediately buffers quickly again.

    That said, this behaviour isn't what's happening to the OP, given that it quits buffering altogether.

    I'd recommend doing this next time you're having a youtube session:

    hit winkey+r to bring up a run dialogue box. Enter 'cmd', hit return. Enter 'ping www.google.com -t', hit return. Google doesn't care if you ping them with default windows parameters. I ping them pretty much day and night. This'll load up a window running ping, reporting how long it's taking your computer to reach google and for google to respond to you.

    Watch for requests timing out, particularly when you're getting regular intervals of requests timed out combined with low ping times (the time=Xms field,) which can indicate your internet service is being interrupted. Intermittent interruptions like this in service are common with line problems, but don't tend to manifest themselves noticeably in non-gaming internet usage (in gaming it'll come up as momentary freezes or longer freezes with spurts of 'catching up.') See if youtube failing to buffer a video as you watch it is tied to ping failures.

    better yet, use the free version of pingplotter

    Roland_tHTG on
  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    You keep your newfangled programs away from my command prompts.

    Ego on
    Erik
  • jerbyjooberjerbyjoober Registered User new member
    edited March 2013
    [img][/img]youtube.jpg

    I came here confused as to why YouTube wouldn't ever stream 720p and up for me when NetFlix would play amazingly. Sometimes I would even have trouble getting the low quality YouTube video to stream. I can use YouTube to MP3 to get just the audio and it is blazingly fast. I signed up for the YouTube HTML 5 tester, and the videos seemed to stream a little more smoothly. Not enough to make a huge difference. In order to stream any YouTube video, nothing can be going on with the internet or I can just hang it up. With NetFlix (Both the Windows 8 app and the browser version through Chrome), I can do anything on the internet and still get the HD streaming.

    Today, I found YouTube's speed test page by accident. I ran their test video at 720p and by using NetMeter, I watched in real time what my speed was. Through the whole video, my speed was 1.5-2.35 MB/s! Any other video on YouTube, I can only get the maximum speed of about 700 KB's, and that is very rare. Usually it is about 356 KB/s. When I run NetMeter with NetFlix, I can see a sustained average speed of 1.7 MB/s through the whole movie. YouTube says that my average is 7.45 Mbps or 953.6 KB/s. This is close to what I am actually supposed to be receiving, but I DO NOT get this speed while watching YouTube videos. :)

    I had to post this because it seems to me that YouTube's speedtest page works great, but none of the other videos do. I also have the YouTube app for Windows 8 and it is even WORSE. By no means am I knocking Google, I am actually a huge fan. I just thought what I saw today was worth a laugh. If for some reason my picture does not show up, YouTube's speedtest is at http://www.youtube.com/my_speed#

    Oh, and I have NEVER had an ad skip and pause on me before my video plays. LOL

    jerbyjoober on
  • DjeetDjeet Registered User regular
    edited March 2013
    NetFlix negotiated QoS delivery of their content with service providers long time back which is why their service delivery is pretty awesome. I'm sure Amazon Prime has negotiated similar by now. Doubtful Youtube has.

    Edit: The hell? This is a 2 year old thread.

    Djeet on
  • LavaKnightLavaKnight Registered User regular
    Yeah, apparently it has been going on for a while, but I've only recently ran into the issue as well. Pretty much the same as everyone else, doesn't buffer until skipping ahead, then randomly stops buffering no matter how long you wait.

    Seems weird and random that it would happen to me now after months of no problems, but the symptoms match what everyone else is saying.

  • CuvisTheConquerorCuvisTheConqueror They always say "yee haw" but they never ask "haw yee?" Registered User regular
    What's really bizarre is that, for me at least, Youtube buffers like crazygonuts at 360p, but plays smoothly at 480p. I just don't get it.

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  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    http://mitchribar.com/2013/02/how-to-stop-youtube-sucking-windows-guide/

    No promises or anything, but have a look. Supposedly fixes things for a lot of folks.

    Erik
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