What makes videos buffer

In the context of streaming video or audio , buffering is when the software downloads a certain amount of data before it begins playing the video or music. You can watch the data stored in the buffer while the next portion of the file downloads in the background. This preloading process ensures a smooth playback process without interruption — at least in theory, and most of the time in practice.

Buffering messages often display progress as a percentage. There are many reasons why you might encounter excessive buffering while streaming video. This can be due to:. The last reason does happen. Even the top streaming platforms may get overwhelmed during prime time or when a popular new show is released. In that case, there is nothing you can do except wait for the provider to catch up with requests. But this situation is rare. Want more tips on how to make your computer and phone work better?

See all our performance advice to make all your devices work harder, better, faster, stronger for you. Avast Cleanup for Windows speeds up your internet connection and reduces buffering by automatically deactivating bandwidth-hungry background programs. Avast Cleanup Pro for Mac speeds up your internet connection and reduces buffering by automatically deactivating bandwidth-hungry background programs. Get it for Android , PC. Avast Cleanup for Android speeds up your internet connection and reduces buffering by automatically deactivating bandwidth-hungry background programs.

Other Threats. Internet of Things. See all Security articles. IP Address. See all Privacy articles. See all Performance articles. Select language. How to Stop Video Buffering. Link Copied. This article contains:. How to stop buffering The best way to stop buffering when streaming is to reduce anything that impedes the stream.

Close other applications and programs If your computer is performing a bunch of other tasks or running many programs at the same time, it might not have the capacity to stream video flawlessly. Stop Buffering with Faster Internet Avast Cleanup for Windows speeds up your internet connection and reduces buffering by automatically deactivating bandwidth-hungry background programs.

Stop Buffering with Faster Internet Avast Cleanup Pro for Mac speeds up your internet connection and reduces buffering by automatically deactivating bandwidth-hungry background programs.

Stop Buffering with Faster Internet Avast Cleanup for Android speeds up your internet connection and reduces buffering by automatically deactivating bandwidth-hungry background programs. What Is a Web Browser? What Is Ad Tracking? Public vs. IPv4 vs. What is an IP Address? You might also like How to Watch TV Online. Optimize your Android with free Avast Cleanup. If you have high internet speed, but you still encounter buffering, you should try a networking cable.

Nearly everyone tends to set up a Wi-Fi router and then forget about it. However, routers need regular maintenance as well to help tackle video buffering issues.

Check with your manufacturer for firmware updates. What's more, it might come handy to hard-reset your Wi-Fi once in a while. If the reset process does not significantly improve, you might want to upgrade your Wi-Fi device. When your computer executes many tasks at a go, it might have limited capacity to stream videos without a flaw. Even when you minimize the running application-they still consume system resources. However, it isn't easy to know all the programs running in the background-especially those that are not open-or those that start right as soon as you reboot your computer.

If you're on a Windows platform, here's a step-by-step guide to stop all the background programs:. You might know that the longer the video files, the longer it takes to transmit to your computer or mobile device. And if you can make the files smaller, you won't have to wait for long.

The easiest fix would be to watch your video at a lower resolution. On the small pop-up screen, navigate the Quality tab and click on it to display the available resolution then pick on a lower quality. Sometimes all you need to solve slow buffering is to take a break. Pausing allows the video to build up a bigger buffer to reducing buffering when you resume the play. It is tempting to restart the video playback after every buffering pause immediately. But it works great if you pause the stream for a few minutes to save you video streaming buffering.

If you're demanding a lot from video streaming-and playing videos does-it calls for up-to-date hardware and drives support. Intel, Nvidia, and Amd are continually refining and optimizing graphic driver performance, and some driver updates can make a significant difference.

While new drivers are typically faster than the previous models, a version with flaws might slip through but are usually quickly rectified. So, it is essential to have the latest driver. Multiple devices on the same network consume the bandwidth of the network and cause buffering, primarily when the router cannot support a heavy traffic load. Therefore, when streaming videos, make sure your internet usage is limited across devices.

So power off any internet-connected device that you're not using. Live streaming has a charm to it. Everyone sticks to watching-for long without breaking eyelids-until the video buffering fades in. And suppose your video problems exceed prime video buffering, and have a corrupt or not-playing-video file on your local storage, you can fix that too.

In fact, you can repair videos that got corrupt while shooting, recording, transferring, converting, and processing. Well, Wondershare Repairit is quite a good choice. There're two versions you could have a try. If your corrupted video is less than MB, then you could go to the Wondershare Repairit online video repair website because it's totally free and requires no download. Besides, it's super easy to use. Just simply upload the corrupted video files, then wait for the repair process finished.

If you want the more perfect quality of the repaired videos, then you can go to download Wondershare Repairit Video Repair software to your computer.

It has proved appropriate-on for any platform-from different storage devices. Mac or Windows are both available. Head over to Wondershare official site and download the correct version of the video repair tool for your pc. There are Mac and Windows versions. Download and install. To execute the repair, you'll first add the corrupted video on the software interface.

And there are two ways:. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Barb Gonzalez.

Barb Gonzalez is a former freelance contributor to Lifewire and the Simple Tech Guru, an advocate for simple, understandable technology. Updated on September 18, Michael Barton Heine Jr. Lifewire Technology Review Board Member.

Article reviewed on Mar 07, Tweet Share Email. In This Article. How Streaming Video and Buffering Work. What Internet Speed Means. How to Connect Using an Ethernet Cable. How to Stop Buffering on Fire Stick. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know!