Poor youtube playback - UPC

PixelTrawler

I have a 20 meg line which in general works great except for youtube.

I get a lot of stutter, especially in 720/1080 videos. Every other video service runs great.

Whats odd is if I use a VPN such as expat shield, the problem goes away. I can stream youtube high res videos.

I checked the window 7 network resource monitor and I can see chrome downloading at about 4-500k/s but as soon as I drop out of expat shield, it drops back to about 100k/s and the video stutters.

So it doesnt appear to be my connection speed. So is UPC rate limiting youtube as part of network management - anyone else getting this? (on a VPN connection they can't tell what you are accessing and so can't traffic manage)

Awful_Bliss

I'm getting the same mate. I'm with UPC and recently got a letter to say my speed's been upped to 25mb (even though I didn't ask for that). I won't go into the tech specs but yeah - Youtube stalls every so often.

PixelTrawler

Awful_Bliss wrote: »

I'm getting the same mate. I'm with UPC and recently got a letter to say my speed's been upped to 25mb (even though I didn't ask for that). I won't go into the tech specs but yeah - Youtube stalls every so often.

got the same letter too...

flamegrill

Youtube has been fine for me but this morning I went to watch a video and it was rubbish. It's been the same all day.

Might be a problem with UPC and Google's peering... I'm sure they'll sort it.

Im on 50Mb and it's just the same. Sometimes, videos take so long to load, they're unwatchable!

CorkMan

50MB here too and the same. It happens the odd time, it happened about a year ago too for a bit. In the past couple of days it works sometimes, but then stutters other times.

Soon it will be gone for a good while.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

same here, 50 meg
some videos load fine, others are just unwatchable

1080p/720p seem fine most of the time but anything below that can take an age to load

slave1

+1 on 100mb, buffering like crazy

rh5555

+1 25Mbit connection. We would need confirmation from users using other providers to see if it's a UPC or Youtube issue. I have no other speed issues at all and UPC is usually great for me.

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

Thor

I always blamed flash!!

I'm on UPC 100Mb and have the same issues with YouTube, But i always passed if off as Flash player sucking.

Because if i downloaded the video from YouTube with IDM, It downloads extremely fast. So i always assumed it was flash.

iMuse

I had the same problem but it was with Smart. Turned out to be a problem on their end as even google.com would struggle to load sometimes. If enough people complain to them maybe they will look into it.

PixelTrawler

For me its intermittent, I watched two long docs on photography at 720p, no issues, then the next vid just stalled...

I don't get this erratic performance on other sites and I don't see it at work for example, youtube never stalls...

Its either management or peering...

PixelTrawler

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

1080p/720p seem fine most of the time but anything below that can take an age to load

Now thats odd... can't be your line speed there

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Solyad wrote: »

Now thats odd... can't be your line speed there

aye, it's not always though. it seems to come and go.. there can be a couple of hours where no videos will buffer at all or will buffer incredibly slowly but when it's working fine it's usually only working fine for hd vids. anything below 480p is a pain.

mrquiteaguy

I am with Upc 20mb on a netbook and i have noticed since i switched from Firefox to Opera,
Youtube videos stutter a hell of a lot less for me.
Obviously being on a netbook i cant play 720p but i have tried 480p and apart from a few scan lines,its not bad.
Opera have a few youtube extensions like Extendtube which removes ads from the Youtube page and player.For that alone its worth a try.

PixelTrawler

Good tip... I run chrome with adblock myself... might be worth trying...

Edit: Tried opera & extend tube - so far promising. I'll need to give it a few days as sometimes chrome is fine too

PixelTrawler

Update on this... its been really solid the last few days. 720p streams working well all weekend.

Anyone else notice an improvement recently

Trevor451

Solyad wrote: »

Update on this... its been really solid the last few days. 720p streams working well all weekend.

Anyone else notice an improvement recently

Yep. It must have been due to youtubes servers.

vibe666

if you think about it, youtube must have thousands of servers globally, hosting billions of video's through hundreds of connections to the net, all working together to bring the people what they want to watch, when they want to watch it, along with millions of video's that will only ever be watched a few times, and i imagine that it's next to impossible to make sure all the right video's are available to all the right people in the right places at the right time without some of them getting caught buffering either due to not being immediately available to someone who wants it on a fast server with a good net connection that isn't over-utilised.

the solution? tabbed browsing.

oh, and get yourself a nice browser like firefox or chrome and an addon or two like "Stop Autoplay for YouTube" or "SmartVideo For YouTube" that will allow you to customise how your video's are buffered and/or automatically choose your preferred resolution and notify you when a video is buffered and other options to minimise your viewing disruption.

lucernarian

I would suspect much of the issues UPC customers had with Youtube involved the fact that UPC don't actually peer with Google in the INEX, the internet data "exchange" for Ireland.

https://www.inex.ie/technical/peeringmatrix

Youtube is hosted on google's servers by the looks of tracerts I've done from other ISPs to google. When a UPC customer has to send data to some other company/place to then send it on to google's servers (and vice versa), there's more of an opportunity for slowdowns and problems to crop up.

I don't know of any problem reports involving Youtube with other companies recently. It does look like peering with google would have prevented any issues. UPC really could improve on their peering within Ireland by the looks of the matrix I linked above.

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

lucernarian

Bad form of eircom too, I didn't spot that. I've tried Vodafone DSL, O2 and someone I know with Magnet and none of them had issues with Youtube lately.

blaz

All the above mentioned ISPs have private peering with Google in Dublin.

wallym

I'm on 50mb and cant watch youtube, was on vodafone and even with less than 1mb( faulty exchange according to them!) it was fine, expected a lot more from UPC. Finish this contract and then try next service provider... a real pain!

vibe666

wallym wrote: »

I'm on 50mb and cant watch youtube, was on vodafone and even with less than 1mb( faulty exchange according to them!) it was fine, expected a lot more from UPC. Finish this contract and then try next service provider... a real pain!

you'd rather go through the hassle of upping sticks to another provider than actually contacting someone who might be able to do something about it and seeing if it's something simple that can be fixed?

mark17j

Youtube working fine here for me on UPC, no slow ups even on 720p

ethernet

My 3 Mbps Eircom connection performed better for YouTube than this 25 Mbps UPC connection! Very hit and miss.

mark17j

ethernet wrote: »

My 3 Mbps Eircom connection performed better for YouTube than this 25 Mbps UPC connection! Very hit and miss.

How can you load 720P vids on 3mb eircom ? must take forever.
720p vids load in seconds for me on UPC.

CGI_3

Switched to UPC from Vodafone just last week. Thought it was a no brainer. 25mb vs 8mb for the same price.

Regretting it now. Youtube completely unwatchable, constantly buffering.

Have tried with Chrome. No better.

Had absolutely no problems whatsoever with vodafone...

mark17j

CGI_3 wrote: »

Switched to UPC from Vodafone just last week. Thought it was a no brainer. 25mb vs 8mb for the same price.

Regretting it now. Youtube completely unwatchable, constantly buffering.

Have tried with Chrome. No better.

Had absolutely no problems whatsoever with vodafone...

what's your set up? are u using wireless? if so, you may need to switch channels,if you're connected via Ethernet and experiencing these slow ups, u obviously have a fault on the line, check your power levels! I have 25mb in Dublin and use wireless. and it's great, 1080p vids load up fast with no buffering stoppages whatsoever.

CGI_3

Wireless

Limerick

Channels changed on router by UPC remotely.

Same issues

mark17j

CGI_3 wrote: »

Wireless

Limerick

Channels changed on router by UPC remotely.

Same issues

your problem is wireless interference from neighboring routers.
Assuming u have the cisco ep2425 [url]Http://192.168.1.1[/url] "Set Up" under wireless click "Basic" change to channel 11, that's the one I use with no issues.

vibe666

mark17j wrote: »

your problem is wireless interference from neighboring routers.
Assuming u have the cisco ep2425 [url]Http://192.168.1.1[/url] "Set Up" under wireless click "Basic" change to channel 11, that's the one I use with no issues.

not necessarily, it could be more or less anything and how do you know that his next door neighbours either side of him aren't already using channel 11?

do a speedtest on www.speedtest.net and if you can get a decent speed there, youtube shouldn't be buffering.

as a (very) rough guide, 3mbps should comfortably get you 720p video on youtube without any issues. you can right click on any youtube video and choose "show video info" to see what the transfer rate is and other relevant statistics about the stream.

also, you can check your youtube speed history here: http://www.youtube.com/my_speed

if you are having speed issues on speed tests as well, then it *could* be wireless interference. the only way to rule it out completely is to test again via a wired connection.

if that sorts the problem THEN it's time to change your wireless channel, but randomly changing it to various arbitrary channels and hoping it works, then re-testing each time is going to take quite a bit of time if you live in a busy residential area.

download and install inSSIDer and do a walkaround your house with your laptop running it and you will see a graph showing you all the wireless networks in your vecinity, which channels they are using and which of those channels overlap with yours. any overlap is going to be eating into your own wireless signal to some extent, the more there are, the worse it could be.

the solution is to find a wireless channel with the least interference from neighbouring channels, which you will be able to see from your wireless survey with inSSIDer. i'd recommend walking round your place and going to every window (upstairs and down if you have them) and hanging there for a minute or two just to see what pops up.

once you've done that, you should hopefully be sorted.

if you're still not sorted then it's time to call UPC. collect as much info as you can to send off to them. reboot your router, do lots of testing at various times of the day and night and make a log of the tests you do to give them a clearer picture of the issues. the more they know about the issue, the more likely they are to be able to find a solution.

CGI_3

Used inSSIDer.

Am on channel 8.

The RSSI (whatever this is) shows green and -50

No one else on this channel.

Results on speedtest.net are very jagged on the graph...

UPDATE:

Sorry UPC, it might not be you!!

Tried an older Windows XP laptop and the results were good and consistent. About 25mb with ethernet and 20 with wifi.

The problem PC works fine on ethernet. Seems to be the WIFI on it that's at fault. BUT, then again, was never a problem with my vodafone connection

What should I check on this? Its a 6 month old DELL with windows 7.

Actually most of the time upload on speedtest just times out.. (WIFI only)

Any ideas?

And, strangely enough, I'm also having poor youtube playback on my Samsung Galaxy S phone. Hence one of my other reasons for blaming UPC as it only started getting problematic at the same time....

Could they be related? Can't see how myself.

Ben D Bus

I'm having the same problem with Youtube and UPC the last few days.

It's really odd as I can stream HD video from Netflix perfectly.

Im_No_Superman

Ben D Bus wrote: »

I'm having the same problem with Youtube and UPC the last few days.

It's really odd as I can stream HD video from Netflix perfectly.

Also having the same issue with UPC, very annoying! :mad:

Kensington

Absolutely terrible tonight, twenty minutes to load three minutes of relatively poor SD video.

Netflix is flying along at X-High HD so I don't know what UPC/Google are at.

Nollog

Lately, all google sites have been slow as poop for me.
100mbit and I'm buffering a 720p video right now for the past 5 minutes and it's done...1/15th of the video.

Connected by ethernet, gigabit ethernet, so it isn't my own network here that's the problem, it's UPC's.

Ranicand

Have any of you contacted UPC about this?

Ben D Bus

Ranicand wrote: »

Have any of you contacted UPC about this?

Yes

The problem seemed to go away but it's back with a vengance I've submitted a tech support message via the UPC website. I agree it would be good if others did the same.

Kensington

Ranicand wrote: »

Have any of you contacted UPC about this?

Yes - and it looks like their e-mail response is on par with youtube loading speed :mad:

Tazzle

Continually awful youtube performance for me also. Anyone hear anything back from UPC? 100mb/Cork

CGI_3

Hi, I finally seem to have gotten to the bottom of my particular woes with poor youtube playback and a windows 7 laptop.

I disabled wireless N and now everything works perfectly. Strange, though that it didn't seem to matter on my Linksys N enabled DSL router.

The thomson UPC router is N also.

Obviously some other setting somewhere is in conflict.

Lennyboy

CGI_3 wrote: »

Hi, I finally seem to have gotten to the bottom of my particular woes with poor youtube playback and a windows 7 laptop.

I disabled wireless N and now everything works perfectly. Strange, though that it didn't seem to matter on my Linksys N enabled DSL router.

The thomson UPC router is N also.

Obviously some other setting somewhere is in conflict.

how did you do this mate?

CGI_3

Mine is windows 7.

Start, Control panel, Network and Internet, Network and sharing centre, change adapter settings.

Right click on the appropriate wireless connection and select properties.

On the networking tab click the configure button.

This brings you into the settings for the wireless card in the pc.

Click on the advanced tab.

Look for the 802.11n mode

Select this and then select disabled from a pull down.

Click ok.

You'll loose connection straight away while the changes take effect.

No need to reboot.

Hopefully this will work for someone....

Lennyboy

CGI_3 wrote: »

Mine is windows 7.

Start, Control panel, Network and Internet, Network and sharing centre, change adapter settings.

Right click on the appropriate wireless connection and select properties.

On the networking tab click the configure button.

This brings you into the settings for the wireless card in the pc.

Click on the advanced tab.

Look for the 802.11n mode

Select this and then select disabled from a pull down.

Click ok.

You'll loose connection straight away while the changes take effect.

No need to reboot.

Hopefully this will work for someone....

First look and this seems to of improved things

Much appreciated mate!

Lennyboy

first look my internet hasnt worked like this in weeks!

Very happy right now!

mark17j

youtube issues here the last few days on (UPC broadband), constant buffering with 720p and 1080p vids - checked my download speeds and all seems good, all other sites running fine for me.
Anybody experiencing similar lately with youtube?

Captain Chaos

mark17j wrote: »

youtube issues here the last few days on (UPC broadband), constant buffering with 720p and 1080p vids - checked my download speeds and all seems good, all other sites running fine for me.
Anybody experiencing similar lately with youtube?

Yep, mine is the same for the past few weeks. Vids won't buffer more than a few seconds ahead no matter how long I leave them even on standard quality. If I try and skip ahead it takes a while to buffer and start. Very annoying and only youtube. Also can't watch any embedded vids on sites, have to go to the full site for the vid to load up.

twinsen

mine would be the same
especially for 720 and 1080p vids