Nearly One-Fifth of the U.S. Can’t Watch Online HD Video

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Wistia has published a report on the state of streaming HD video in the US. The report finds that approximately 18% of all consumers can’t watch streaming videos due to low bandwidth and the constant distraction of buffering.

People that fall into this category could include anyone from consumers that live in rural areas without broadband to employees working in a metropolitan area, but the company’s network is stretched too thin for high definition video streaming.
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What about those with bandwidth caps? Some places can watch like 100 minutes of HD video, but that's about it.
 
I can barely manage it on a good day. It used to be easier to preload online video until Google decided to dramatically change the way that works on YouTube and for HTML5 video in Chrome.
 
Must be mostly the population of Houston. I swear I've never seen so many video stores in one city.
 
Time2Kill said:
18% doesn't seem nearly high enough
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Agreed. Most of these so called broadband internet connections can't stream properly. I have 50 Mbps service from Time Warner Cable and I can't stream 1080p from Youtube even at 5am when I know most people are asleep. Pretty sad the state of broadband in America. Caps, overpriced, not available everywhere, etc. Would be nice if we could actually use what we invent.
 
cageymaru said:
Agreed. Most of these so called broadband internet connections can't stream properly. I have 50 Mbps service from Time Warner Cable and I can't stream 1080p from Youtube even at 5am when I know most people are asleep. Pretty sad the state of broadband in America. Caps, overpriced, not available everywhere, etc. Would be nice if we could actually use what we invent.
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hum, strange, i've 12Mbps connection and while sharing with 3 other students, we all can see 1080p fine including youtube/netflix and other network channels. and even while streaming download goes fast(somewhere like 1mb/s min)
 
MajorDomo said:
to employees working in a metropolitan area, but the company’s network is stretched too thin for high definition
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Maybe people shouldn't be streaming video at work... :rolleyes:

It's more like "all the idiots not doing their work and streaming videos of kittens and online radio are using up all the bandwidth that the employees not about to get fired are trying to use for legitimate business purposes" :p
 
If you guys think streaming 1080p is bad, then how is it going to go with 4k and 8k?
 
If I ran my own business anything streaming would be blocked by firewall rules and any type of tunnelling or proxy connections would be immediately terminated using some sort of packet sniffing.
(Not sure how this works, but I have seen it implemented)
 
I've got Centurylink and can't watch Youtube in HD at all. Even 720P I get a constant buffering. In fact we got our connection temporarily suspended last month because we went over the average use of 250GB.

I mean come on, we live in a digital age now where nearly every video on the internet is streaming in HD and 250GB is the average cap? They wanted me to upgrade to a business plan!! Upgrade your dang networks to the level of South Korea, they are gonna be getting 1 gigabit connections really soon at a low price. I mean this is the United States for goodness sakes get with the times.
 
Been saying it the whole time, we're progressing towards HD streaming and then ISP's put usage caps on everyone. Totally backwards. ISP's need to get their act together
 
I refuse to run Windows and there are many streaming video apps (especially Silverlight and some Flash) that won't work on Linux. Vimeo is one example.
 
if you read the report there are 2 things that kind of jump out and slap you upside the head with the Trout of Logic:

1. the definition of HD video being 2Mbps or greater. any low end DSL is going to have a problem right there. in locations where there is an option for higher speeds, it doesnt mean they CANT stream HD. it means they have opted for a service which is not suitable for it. a point that is not mentioned in any way in the report.

2. they {wista.com} gathered the numbers by looking at their own hosted video content. granted thats what they do, but its a very narrowly defined data set that is going to give a skewed result no matter what. all they have proven is that 18% of their content viewers have problems with full HD streaming. not 18% of all broadband users. thats kind of an important thing.
 
Lack of bandwidth is one issue. But this isn't even taking into consideration all of the people running ancient single core XP shitboxes that don't have the processing power to handle HD.
 
digitalmango said:
I've got Centurylink and can't watch Youtube in HD at all. Even 720P I get a constant buffering.
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Same problem here, but with Verizon FiOS 85 Mbit down...

Whenever I play a video I have to pause it and wait for it to preload almost the whole thing in order to watch straight through without buffering. A lot of the time this doesn't even work though as it just stops preloading...

I think it's a YouTube problem though. (Unless there is some type of filtering going on)

Both Netflix and streaming from ABC's webpage work just fine, and when I download from Steam at 10MB/s and saturate the bandwidth every time I torrent something with a large swarm...
 
Zarathustra[H];1039121147 said:
Same problem here, but with Verizon FiOS 85 Mbit down...

Whenever I play a video I have to pause it and wait for it to preload almost the whole thing in order to watch straight through without buffering. A lot of the time this doesn't even work though as it just stops preloading...

I think it's a YouTube problem though. (Unless there is some type of filtering going on)

Both Netflix and streaming from ABC's webpage work just fine, and when I download from Steam at 10MB/s and saturate the bandwidth every time I torrent something with a large swarm...
Click to expand...

Yea that is what I am beginning to think because sometimes I cannot even stream 480p video through youtube, while other websites allow me to stream hd video seamlessly.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039121147 said:
Same problem here, but with Verizon FiOS 85 Mbit down...

Whenever I play a video I have to pause it and wait for it to preload almost the whole thing in order to watch straight through without buffering. A lot of the time this doesn't even work though as it just stops preloading...

I think it's a YouTube problem though. (Unless there is some type of filtering going on)

Both Netflix and streaming from ABC's webpage work just fine, and when I download from Steam at 10MB/s and saturate the bandwidth every time I torrent something with a large swarm...
Click to expand...

Have you tried clearing your temporary Internet files/ cache or switching browsers? Fixes that issue for me.
 
Some of us just don't really care if we can or can't stream HD video or stream video at all because we mostly move text around.
 
rrohbeck said:
I refuse to run Windows and there are many streaming video apps (especially Silverlight and some Flash) that won't work on Linux. Vimeo is one example.
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Someone has to take a stand, glad it's you my friend!!!!!!!! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
 
cageymaru said:
Agreed. Most of these so called broadband internet connections can't stream properly. I have 50 Mbps service from Time Warner Cable and I can't stream 1080p from Youtube even at 5am when I know most people are asleep. Pretty sad the state of broadband in America. Caps, overpriced, not available everywhere, etc. Would be nice if we could actually use what we invent.
Click to expand...

cageymaru, you should call TWC and check your connection. You're signal might be bad or your modem may not be able to handle that load. I had TMC at 30Mbps and could stream MLB.com at 1080p while watching a movie on Amazon prime. I dumped TMC for their shit service and went to AT&T at 12Mbps and can still stream MLB.com with no interruptions.

You have a problem with your signal somewhere. Check your modem signal and call the tech center too see if the signal is dropping.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039121147 said:
Same problem here, but with Verizon FiOS 85 Mbit down...

Whenever I play a video I have to pause it and wait for it to preload almost the whole thing in order to watch straight through without buffering. A lot of the time this doesn't even work though as it just stops preloading...

I think it's a YouTube problem though. (Unless there is some type of filtering going on)

Both Netflix and streaming from ABC's webpage work just fine, and when I download from Steam at 10MB/s and saturate the bandwidth every time I torrent something with a large swarm...
Click to expand...

You have to consider that many streaming sites only use a certain percentage of your total bandwidth available. If you are torrenting or something else while your connection is tested, you may only get 85% of the current connection. I'm not saying your connection is perfect, but first make sure YOU aren't the problem.

If you're torrenting, with multiple streaming sites open, all the while surfing the internet and then trying to stream something, you just might be the problem. I know, I know, it's fucked up, but realize the limitations of the system too.

Once again, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying you should factor out the YOU factor.
 
SkribbelKat said:
Some of us just don't really care if we can or can't stream HD video or stream video at all because we mostly move text around.
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I'm just amazed you can even run a 240p youtube video, considering your boss house cat eats and needs, no, requires, all of your bandwidth. :D
 
Zarathustra[H];1039121147 said:
Whenever I play a video I have to pause it and wait for it to preload almost the whole thing in order to watch straight through without buffering. A lot of the time this doesn't even work though as it just stops preloading...I think it's a YouTube problem though. (Unless there is some type of filtering going on)
Click to expand...
This by design. Google doesn't want users to preload entire videos any longer, assumably to save bandwidth. Like I said, Chrome's HTML5 media components work the same way, only preloading small chunks.

If you use a non-Chrome browser and opt in to HTML5 video on YouTube, you should be able to bypass this and preload the entire video.
 
I have no trouble with time warner 20mbps streaming hd video and playing cod at the same time.
 
metalsmart said:
cageymaru, you should call TWC and check your connection. You're signal might be bad or your modem may not be able to handle that load. I had TMC at 30Mbps and could stream MLB.com at 1080p while watching a movie on Amazon prime. I dumped TMC for their shit service and went to AT&T at 12Mbps and can still stream MLB.com with no interruptions.

You have a problem with your signal somewhere. Check your modem signal and call the tech center too see if the signal is dropping.
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Yea, he definitely has something wrong. I stream 1080p videos just fine on my 10Mbit TWC connection.
 
Hilarious...

The problem I have with HD YouTube is that it loads too fast!

My computer locks up while it buffers the entire movie in a few seconds due to the network overloading my CPU.

Guess that's what happens when your ISP has a fibre connection direct to Google.
 
Simple solution. Spend the extra $15 and dump Centurylink 1 down/256k up.

Back when it was Qwest a friend of mine ordered the 10 down service only to find out after a few days of frustration (and not running speedtest) that they gave him 1 down. Luckily a 30 day window so he could be smart and move to Comcast.
 
I have a hard time watching HD streaming...I really hate buffering.
 
haste. said:
Simple solution. Spend the extra $15 and dump Centurylink 1 down/256k up.

Back when it was Qwest a friend of mine ordered the 10 down service only to find out after a few days of frustration (and not running speedtest) that they gave him 1 down. Luckily a 30 day window so he could be smart and move to Comcast.
Click to expand...

LOL...comcrap doesn't even work in my neighborhood. We are lucky if On Demand works once a week.
 
rrohbeck said:
I refuse to run Windows and there are many streaming video apps (especially Silverlight and some Flash) that won't work on Linux. Vimeo is one example.
Click to expand...

++

Add to this that I am hard of hearing impaired and need captions on ALL my movies.

Goodbye Netflix
Goodbye Amazon Video.

On the other hand I can snag a blu-ray once or twice a month on the way home from work for $1.50 that typically streams at 10-40Mbit/s (my internet connection is 12Mbit/s)....and the quality is FAR superior on a 73" tv. Youtube is basically unwatchable on such a large screen.
 
I never thought I would be defending the internet providers like the cable companies....

South Korea is a relatively tiny country with very high population density, their cost to do things like that is significantly lower. Its the price we pay for having this thing called "space". Although I still think the providers are price gouging in the cities where the density does exist, but they will rationalize this by saying they are using that money to subsidize the folks who live out in the suburbs and such. Whatever...
 
Terrible internet limited by shotty apartment living these days. I can't watch HD video and i pay out the ass for this terrible internet. You know i used to hate comcast but i'd kill for my old 12mbps i had in my last place just so i can enjoy HD.
 
The report finds that approximately 18% of all consumers can’t watch streaming videos due to low bandwidth and the constant distraction of buffering.
Click to expand...

Must be nice to be blissfully unaware of what's going on in the world. I wish I couldn't watch streaming video.........:(

youtube.com/watch?v=FXV8yVIQN44
 
I moved to a more rural area 1 1/2 yrs ago and had to downgrade to dsl.
I'm supposed to get 10/1 on my dsl but I can't watch hd content without waiting for it to download first.
Sometimes I have a hard time looking at GIFs.
 
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