I get a lot of computer questions and one I've had a lot is people asking why a video they're trying to watch on a website won't play smoothly. In this article I'll go over a few common reasons for this, help you understand why they're affecting you, and give you a few suggestions about what you can do to fix the problem.
Reasons a video on a website may "stutter" or stop-and-go when playing:
1) Your computer is too old, or too slow for a different reason (like a virus, not enough memory, etc.) to play the video properly. One way to test this is to try playing a video you've downloaded or that you play off a CD or DVD. If it plays smoothly from a local file then the problem lies outside of the computer, if the local file has the same problem, it's your computer.
2) Your Internet connection is too slow, like if you're using dialup access, which is incredibly slow compared to modern "broadband", and is just not suited to watching videos online but doesn't matter for videos playing from a DVD for example, since that's coming from your DVD drive, not the Internet.
Using dialup to watch videos online is like trying to fill a swimming pool with a drinking straw.
Maybe you could do it's but it's sure going to take a long time if it works at all.
3) You might have tried playing the video when the website was being flooded with visitors and it got bogged down.
Kind of like it's trying to walk, chew gum, and draw a picture all at the same time.
4) The website wasn't overloaded, but there was Internet congestion either in your neighborhood, or somewhere between you and the website.
This is like rush hour traffic -- the speed limit may be 55mph, but there is so much traffic on the road everything slows down. This happens on the Internet the same way it does on the highway.
These last two usually clear up by just waiting and coming back later.
Another trick that can work in a lot of situations is to click the pause button on the video: looks like the pause button on your VCR, DVD or Blu-Ray player remote -- a pair of vertical lines like
After you pause it, wait for the progress bar at the bottom of the video to move along a ways while it loads more of the video (this is called "buffering") then unpause it once it's gotten a fair way along the bottom of the video.
Hopefully these suggestions will help you understand what might be going on if this happens to you, and give you a few ideas of what you might be able to do if it does.
About this Author
Worth Godwin is a computer coach with over 15 years' experience helping computer users of all levels, and has also worked for many years "in the trenches" as a hardware and software tech, solving real-world computer problems.
Worth has also been studying the human mind, and how people learn, since the early 1990s. He draws upon all of this experience, as well as his English and writing degrees, to teach people in a unique way with explanations that really make sense.
In 2006, Worth began putting his easy lessons together on CD, helping you with either Apple Mac training or Windows computer training that lets you go at your own pace, for an affordable price, with a system that is both simple and easy.
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