Video Help....please

O.K., whenever I view video's such as Google video or youTube, etc., I get constant interruptions. Almost to the point that I can't watch them....other times it is just fine.
Is this a common problem or is there something I need to install to make it run smoother?
FYI, I'm running with XP and Firefox......thanks for any help!

What is you connection speed ?
If its slow then this will cause the movie to "jitter"

I take it that you have a dialup connection?

I do, and for me at least, it usually depends on the length of the video.

Longer videos take longer to load, hence longer load times.

Notice that when this happens, there is text displayed along the lines of "buffering", or "loading".

Hope this info helps.


btw - I usually let the video load first, and while it's loading I come back to ATS in another tab, in the mean time.

[edit on 7/13/2006 by Mechanic 32]

Nope....I don't have dialup...cable connection. Any suggestions?
Thanks for the reply Mechanic...

Okay so you have firefox. There is an extension called fasterfox. click on tools >> extensions >> get more extensions

You will be taken to Mozilla's addon page.

towards the bottom, where it says Top Extensions, there is an extension called

Faster Fox.

Click on it, it will automatically download and install.

Installation will be finished the next time you open Firefox.

You could try that. I noticed a bit of a performance bump after I installed it here.






But it could be something entirely different that I don't know about.

Has it always been this way?

And have you tried Internet Explorer instead, to determine if it has to do with Fox?

[edit on 7/13/2006 by Mechanic 32]

I'll try the extension first and see if that helps......could I be missing any type of driver possibly?

With google video, and I'm sure youtube as well, when you first use either of them, everything you need is downloaded first.

AT least that's the way I think it goes.

Was it always slow, or did this just start happening?

It could be that the sending rate is very slow, regardless of your connection speed.

But I'm not 100% about this either way, so don't quote me on it.

Perhaps one of the other wiz's here will have a solution, or at least an answer for you.

Take this speed test at Broadband Reports. Post both the speed it reports you curently have, and the speed your ISP says you are supposed to have.

This will help determine it being your PC, or the net, or site.

You say "at other times it is fine", I would suspect these other times are Internet off-peak times, when those servers are not bogged down. Sometimes I simply save the link to view it later.

I would suspect this is the problem you are experiencing, that there is, in fact, no problem, just net congestion.

NN