What is Buffering?

The word ‘buffering’ is one that you may encounter quite frequently when surfing the internet. Usually you will come across it when you are attempting to stream a video from one of the many different video sharing sites that have gained popularity over recent years.

Sometimes it may appear briefly but frequently, bringing your viewing experience to a stuttering, sporadic series of jerky clips rather than the smooth television-esque state that you would prefer. Sometimes it will appear for extended periods, particularly during times of peak usage, leaving you twiddling your thumbs, perhaps indefinitely. After staring at the word for long enough, you may begin to wonder what it actually means, why it pops up to torment you and how you can start seeing it less often.

Buffering is basically the way in which online video streaming can occur without the user having to download the entire video before they begin watching. When you click play, the first few seconds of a video will be downloaded and stored in a temporary memory cache on your computer. Usually the word ‘buffering’ will appear at this point. Most download services use buffering to hold off on playback until a decent section of the video has downloaded and in theory buffering should help reduce a jerky viewing experience. The player should be able to work out how much of a video it will need to download before playback can begin, so that when you are watching it you are not viewing the video faster than it is being transferred to your PC via your internet connection.

Buffering is also partly implemented in order to compensate for the inconsistencies of your internet connection. A number of factors will affect the download speed you are getting and as a result buffering is necessary to give the impression of smooth playback by forcing the viewer to wait a few seconds or sometimes minutes until enough of a video has downloaded.

The easiest way to override buffering is to click the play button on the player of your choice again once buffering has begun. In many cases this will force the player to begin playback of whatever portion of the video it has been able to download so far. You can do this if you think that the buffering process is being implemented unnecessarily, or if you are impatient and you want to see the content of the clip. This will not improve the download speed of the video and it could mean that once playback has caught up with the amount of the video that has downloaded, you will be forced to go through the buffering process again until an adequate additional amount has been received.

The best way to avoid being faced with excessive buffering is to upgrade your internet connection. A faster download speed will mean that in many cases playback will begin instantly. And with a faster broadband connection you will be able to watch videos online without having to wait for buffering to complete even when there is a lot of other traffic floating around. Encountering buffering is something that will depend on what site you are viewing and where the site is located. Viewing content contained on international sites with servers everywhere will mean that videos can load quickly, but sourcing videos from overseas will often leave you hanging on whilst buffering occurs.