In this article, we discuss why online videos buffer and traditional TV does not. On average, mobile users aged 18 – 34 spend 105 minutes watching online videos per week. People aged 35 – 49 spend 79 minutes, while users aged 50 – 64 watch 48 minutes of video.
Streaming videos has become a daily routine. While we are streaming (watching) videos online, there are some tendencies for the video to stop a bit and then continue playing, it stops again a bit, and resumes playing. This process of stopping, and resuming is called buffering. It can be noticed greatly while watching YouTube videos. Especially those videos that are in HD.
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Contents
What exactly is buffering?
Video buffering is a delay at some point while downloading your data but it takes some time before playing your video. And a spinning, loading symbol appears on the screen. Buffering is the process of preloading video into a reserved area of memory called a buffer.
Why do online videos buffer?
a) Firstly; the video quality might be exceeding what your internet could support.
b) Secondly; your Wi-Fi network might have slowed down hence causing the buffering.
c) Thirdly; your browser might be overloaded with temporary and cache data that slows it down.
d) Fourthly; technical problems on your ISP (Internet Service Provider) side or they might be having an overload with traffic.
e) Additionally; it could be that there is not enough bandwidth speed from your internet to support the video quality that you are streaming.
f) Then, it could be that your modem or router is out-of-date, damaged, or not operating properly.
g) Lastly; the cause could be that there are too many devices on the network at one time.
Why traditional TV does not buffer?
TV Signals are divided into different frequencies and these frequencies are different for internet data and traditional TV. Each channel on your traditional TV actually has its own completely separate frequency and each frequency is dedicated to one channel only. Additionally, whatever channel you are tuned in to is showing the same thing at all times to everyone receiving the signal. “Tuning in” on cable is just changing the Radio-frequency receiver to a new channel.
Streaming service on the other hand requires one to “request” the channel, exchange parameters, the remote end to begin transmission, and the Rx end to buffer and decode, and possibly adjust the bit rate. Cable TV is always broadcasting the channels.
Internet: you only request what you want, and your stream is unique to you. They scale differently, and there are various designs and methods to optimize both. When TV broadcasting is safe for everyone all the time. But internet and streaming services work differently for everyone and there is huge traffic on request servers which can be countries away from you. And this case is not the same for TV there is no traffic. Only bad weather or a bad cable connection can affect TV content broadcasting.
Now you know why online videos buffer and traditional TV doesn’t
