Shocking Youtube performance, please share your experiences.

N

nihilist

Expert Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2005
Messages
4,521
Reaction score
28
edit: Sorry, I should have mentioned I'm mostly referring to the various uncapped accounts.

Hey guys.

I've been on 4096 uncapped on Openweb - I have used 4 backbones. IS, Vodacom Business, Altec and now DSL Heaven. I don't currently have any other accounts to test on, but I think I'll grab an Afrihost 1GB account as a backup soon.

Anyway I'd like to know what others experience, whether on Openweb or another ISP and backbone, please share your results and experiences.

The issue for me is, at least 70% of the time, I have to wait for videos to buffer or download videos using a Firefox plugin to get full speed. Most of the time I cannot stream 720p videos, and a lot of the time I can't even stream 480p and fairly often, 360/240p is crap.

I can totally saturate my line on HTTP, FTP downloads and other means, a nice brisk 420kb/s is easily possible. Basically any time during the day during work hours or after hours I can max out my line. Except for Youtube and some other video streaming sites.

Monitoring my Firewall/Gateway box (IpFire) I can see I get 30-60KB/s from Youtube while streaming a video. If I use a download manager (Firefox Easy Youtube Downloader plugin + Downthemall) I can hit 420KB/s. Are ISPs throttling streaming on a per-connection basis?

This isn't a recent thing either, it's been going on for ages now.

Just for pedantic's sake I've done the following to make sure it's not a problem with my setup:
1) bought a new router (wanted a spare anyway)
2) bypassed my linux firewall/proxy and gone straight through the router
3) used another PC
4) tried various browsers
5) have used various backbones on offer from Openweb
6) sprinkled the blood of a thousand virgins on my PC

Anyway, please share your results and experiences.
 
Last edited:
I have an Axxess Just Uncapped.... they unshape youtube, ftp and local traffic. Works great for me, since that is all I use. (Steam and origin are local, other things I download are on ftp and the rest is youtube).
 
This has always bugged me. If I use a download manager, it always flies. But should you require adequate HD streaming, a big no no. It baffles me. I'll get blazing 500KB/s using IDM, finish download, go to Youtube, feels like I'm on a 384K line. But at times though, it buffers very very quick. I've accepted it. Most times though I download the videos using RealPlayer or IDM.
 
Hmm, yep having the same issue it seems. I haven't really tried watching 720p youtube videos lately, but they always used to stream perfectly and most of the time could stream 1080p without buffering. At the moment 720p youtube videos keep buffering, very annoying. Will try on a another account and report back.

UPDATE: My afrihost account is also buffering, weird.
 
Last edited:
The only ISP I didnt have this problem with was MWeb, but then they closed my account for "too much data from streaming sites"... cannot win -.-'
 
I could be totally wrong and could have had other issues, but setting my MTU to something lower than 1500 (1454) made a world of difference to Youtube, Twitter and a few other sites.

YMMV

Edit: This was with my OpenWeb account.
 
Last edited:
This has always bugged me. If I use a download manager, it always flies. But should you require adequate HD streaming, a big no no. It baffles me. I'll get blazing 500KB/s using IDM, finish download, go to Youtube, feels like I'm on a 384K line. But at times though, it buffers very very quick. I've accepted it. Most times though I download the videos using RealPlayer or IDM.
 
Have you tried a video streaming site besides Youtube? Such as Vimeo?

One of the guys in the office here who has 4Mbps ADSL, reports that he can easily stream 720p from Vimeo, but can' stream 360p from Youtube.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X