Video slow, stops, or stutters: Computer Question Answered in Plain English

Answering a reader's question about slow video on websites

In my last post, I shared some thoughts on the social networking website Twitter.com -- I had quite a few responses from people, which is great.

I thought I'd take a moment to address some comments & questions I got via email from a couple of people who ran into issues, just in case you had any similar problems.

First, Tom from California wrote:
>Hello Worth, Thanks you for continuing to keep me in
>"your loop" so to speak. You perhaps already know that
> there are some "bugs" in the second video by which I mean
> that the video stops abruptly and then in a second or two,
>and sometimes much longer, continues exactly where it left
>off. I doubt it has anything to do with my computer.

I have tested the video on a couple of different computers and it played perfectly for me, loading quite quickly, so there could be a couple of reasons you might have run into this.

These things apply whenever we're talking about videos on a website (my own, YouTube, etc.), so remember to think about how this applies in general, not just in this specific situation.

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 I am going to assume this is not the case with Tom, since he's been a student of mine for quite some time and never has had any problems playing any of the CDs he's ordered as I recall.

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 one of my lesson CDs for example, since that's coming from your CD 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.

Again, I don't think this is the case with Tom, but I'm just going through the main options for everyone's benefit.

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 be helpful to you.

Lastly, I will quote one more question I got in response to my last email, this one from Lynn Wilson, who wrote:

> Received your email re Twitter. I tried for several minutes
> to register at Twitter.com, but could not get past the page
> which requires a user name and password. Since I not yet
> registered, I have neither of those. I am stymied. If you can
> help, I would appreciate it very much.

Well, hopefully I can. My guess, without having seen the problem, is that you may have "gone down the wrong path" so to speak, on the website.

When you go to Twitter, you want to click the "Join" button and then type in your name, your email address, a username you'd like to use (can be your name without spaces) and the password you'd like to use.

Then you can create the account and join me and the millions of other people using Twitter.

Remember, the first of the two videos you can watch by using the links below will show you step-by-step how to sign up for a free Twitter account.

If you want to get all of the Twitter lessons, just order any of my sets of easy video lesson CDs and I'll throw in a month of free Gold Club membership, which will include all of the lessons on the basics of Twitter I recorded this month.

Here's the links to the two free video lessons again:

How to Twitter (steps to join)
and
How to follow on Twitter

Remember to say hi on Twitter when you sign up and follow me! There's a button to take you to my Twitter account page near the top right of this page.

Tomorrow I'll share a quick email about why I'm proud of my dad since it'll be Father's Day (already is for a lot of you) until next time, take care, and enjoy,

Worth Godwin
Plain English Simplicity for This Complex Modern World