General Chat

Seeing as one of our computer experts is about, may I please ask a question?

Why, when I have cleared my cache and run CC cleaner to try and stop videos buffering, are they still buffering?

Thanks.

do you mean on-line videos?

Yes, Errol, YouTube videos and suchlike. I think Prickles put one on recently, which I wanted to watch, but couldn't because of the almost constant buffering.

ok
it may be your internet speed or you can try altering your internet cache.

Are you using Internet Explorer?

No, Firefox

ok click on Edit and then Preferences followed by Advanced.
Click on the Network tab.
Alter the cache size and see if that makes a difference.
I suggest maybe 50 Meg to see what happens

Baa :-S Did you mean Tools - Options - Network?

If so, it says Limit cache to 300 MB

Is that what I should alter?

yes File oops
you can try various different settings to see what works for you - 50 may suffice but try a higher value and see what happens

Also do a speed test to see if it's your Internet speed

assuming your Internet is Broadband

http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/

or

http://www.speedtest.net/

It will tell you both your download and upload speeds

Roy

Edit, another thing, Do you have Adobe flash player? is it up to date, I believe the latest is version 11.6

Assuming Firefox make sure that on "advanced" options hardware support is set to on; some installations have it off. This matters.

If you usually connect by WiFi try connecting with a cable to a router LAN port. If things are now you have home wifi problems. These are usually caused by any of thick walls, microwave, large metal object, neighbours. 15m is about the max without a repeater.

By and large leave Firefox to manage the cache, in any case 50MB is much too small UNLESS yr connection is using a USB key (3, EE etc ) in which case any kind of vid streaming is a minor miracle. However in these cases the USB key manages the cache so still leave it to default.

YouTube vids do not come from a central server but all over the place so performance may vary ... for sorting out performance use a fast site.

Try using BBC iPlayer - if performance on this is ok then any problems with UTube are down to the remote site.

For streaming vid full screen you need as a minimum : (32 bit) Pentium 4 Northwood or Prescott 2.8/3.0 with 1 GB RAM (2 GB is better ) or equiv Athlon, WinXP SP3. A dedicated graphics card with at least 256MB RAM AGP8x/PCIe. Integrated Intel graphics won't be very good, later stuff good enough for video.

The internet connection needs to be fairly good. 2MB does not really hack it, Virgin minimum is 10MB and that is in the ballpark.

Chrome is rather better at online video rendering than Firefox.

The more recent BlueRay boxes cost £ 70-100 and have net, YouTube and iPlayer built in and will play through the TV using HDMI. This is usually better than using the PC.

Rollo although you are correct you may just be getting a tad technical for some users

What are you suggesting Errol? :-| :-D

Many thanks for your help. Just going out now - will try out your suggestions later. :-D

Give me a shout or PM when you get back and will try to help if I can