What is internet buffering and how to stop it while streaming

Buffering videos – talk about a buzzkill! We think the greatest buzzkill is watching your favourite movie, almost reaching the climax, and getting slapped by our unwelcome friend – buffering. We all have experienced buffering while streaming videos online. Be it a YouTube video or an OTT show, buffering of a video really interrupts the whole experience and quite honestly, it can be frustrating too.

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Today’s article is all about internet buffering, what is internet buffering, and how to stop it to get uninterrupted streaming experience.

Let’s start with internet buffering meaning and what are the common factors behind it?

What is internet buffering?

While everyone knows that buffering is basically when you see the loading sign on the streaming platform and wait for the video to play again, many don’t know the actual functionality behind it.

Internet Buffering meaning

Buffering, as the name suggests, is the process of preloading data in a reserved area of memory, referred to as buffer. When it comes to streaming online, the process of buffering assists the software to save a certain amount of data (audio or video) before the audio or video starts playing. By doing this, the audience can watch data which is already saved without interruptions.

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How it works?

If you think about it, when you are video conferencing with someone, the upload and download of data is happening in real time. But streaming platforms don’t work on this principle. The data which you are seeing in the current moment is pre-saved. The platform is always one step ahead of you by saving the data you haven’t watched in advance.

This process of preloading helps viewer get a smooth playback experience without interruption. But due to many factors, the buffering process sometimes gets delayed. In such cases, users experience a buffering issue. Since data is not pre saved, users can’t watch or listen to it.

You might have noticed how you can watch a few extra scenes on YouTube or other platforms even after losing the internet connection. That’s because those scenes’ data was pre saved by the platform.

Now that you have an understanding as to what is internet buffering and why is internet buffering for streaming, let’s move on to how to stop internet buffering.

Read more: How to increase or boost internet speed in mobile?

How to watch videos without buffering?

The basic idea behind stopping internet buffering is close anything and everything which hinders uninterrupted streaming.

Try out the following methods to stop or reduce buffering:

Adjust the video quality

YouTube or any other streaming platform plays a video and decide the video quality depending on many factors like net speed, upload quality, etc. If the video is buffering, you can reduce the video quality and see the results.

Go for a lower resolution playback quality. Keep experimenting until you find the video quality for which your video doesn’t buffer. Going from 1080p to 720p or 480p can make a large difference and give you almost decent video quality.

Close extra tabs, applications

A computer can perform multiple tasks at the same time. But keep in mind, its capacity is shared for all the tasks. If you have kept a bunch of open programs, or tabs, and applications in your system, it will definitely impede your system’s ability to play videos flawlessly, without interruptions. Even if these programs are minimized, you should know they still consume your system’s resources and use internet.

If you have good internet speed but still buffering videos, this can be one of the reasons.

Therefore, if you want to focus your system’s and your broadband connection’s energy for your online videos, close the extra unnecessary programs and applications.

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Remove extra devices connected to your internet

If your internet speed is good but still buffering occurs, this is your answer. Your internet connection has a given bandwidth. This bandwidth is shared amongst all the devices connected to it.

So, if you have multiple devices connected to your internet connection, it means your internet is being shared. Maybe the amount of bandwidth the online streaming platform needs is not met. Therefore, to fix this, remove all the devices which necessarily don’t need to be connected to the internet.

Free up some bandwidth and check if your videos are buffering or not.

Other than the above options, we will also suggest you try a wired or ethernet connection rather than Wi-Fi for faster and stable internet connection. In the end, it all comes down to how fast and stable is your internet.

If you feel your internet needs are more than what your ISP is providing, upgrade your plan or simply search for Wi-Fi connection near me to get best ISP for your home and your online streaming needs.