YouTube buffering

[Doz007]

Why does it take my 50mb connection so long to buffer YouTube videos?

Sometimes I'm left waiting several minutes whilst a 3 minute 720p video loads enough to watch without stopping. :shocked:

This was a speedtest result from yesterday:
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2012/03/19.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[Zee]

same here on my 30Mb connection, same on my friends 30Mb connection.

VM are not admitting there is an issue here. I've been battling with them since April 2011 over this and have yet to get anything fixed.

On the other hand on my Infinity connection 1080p videos load within about 2-3 minutes and have never seen a video buffer.

[Skie]

Take a look at http://www.youtube.com/my_speed My average is 32.17. VM average is 7.24

I think the issue is youtubes videos are hosted on a massive cluster of servers, if one is having problems then some videos will randomly be slow. You can normally see if its this by picking a popular video, usually they are fine speed wise. If every video is slow, then its most likely your connection.

[Doz007]

Take a look at http://www.youtube.com/my_speed My average is 32.17. VM average is 7.24

I think the issue is youtubes videos are hosted on a massive cluster of servers, if one is having problems then some videos will randomly be slow. You can normally see if its this by picking a popular video, usually they are fine speed wise. If every video is slow, then its most likely your connection.

Thanks for that link, very interesting. :)

My average speed over the last 30 days is 14.68mbps which seems a little low when I'm able to consistently download at 6.1MB/s from Steam. Even so, this should be more than enough for faultless 720p playback and even 1080p!

[qasdfdsaq]

Funny how BT, unlike the rest of the world, doesn't show any obvious dips at the weekends:

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2012/03/22.jpg

---------- Post added at 15:04 ---------- Previous post was at 14:22 ----------

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33686317-poor-streaming-downloading-and-uploading.html

[General Maximus]

we were having this discussion in another thread a few days ago and I said it hardly happens to me but I think I jinxed myself because I tried watching a 6 minute 720p video last night and it took over 15 minutes to load.

[Doz007]

I notice that you're on 100Mb General Maximus, that connection should eat 720p for breakfast!!

Anybody have any idea what's going on here? As I stated earlier, I can download from Steam at 6.1MB/s so do VM treat YouTube traffic differently?

[vmfriend]

Personally i think it is a youtube problem, some videos will be fine, others not, its not a consistent enough issue for me to point the blame at VM.

[Zee]

according to VM they don't shape youtube in any way, they cameup to a conclusion after an investigation that there is nothing wrong with youtube or streaming on their network, according to this thread which they created: http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-50Mb-broadband/Possible-you-tube-issue/td-p/655227

every since, customers have been reporting problems with youtube on the VM network, but not experiencing the same with other ISPs.

Personally i think it is a youtube problem, some videos will be fine, others not, its not a consistent enough issue for me to point the blame at VM.

i have to say you are wrong.

Been testing the same videos with youtube on Infinity and on Virgin, the problem is with Virgin not youtube. Its also an issue with iPlayer and 4od only on Virgin Media, not other ISPs.

[muppetman11]

I found YT a real pain with my VM 30mb connection , I switched providers and my 9mb ADSL line handles it no problem. I'm at a loss as to why.

[Zee]

I found YT a real pain with my VM 30mb connection , I switched providers and my 9mb ADSL line handles it no problem. I'm at a loss as to why.

when i used to have Sky, usually got 11-12Mb and it handled everything fine.

As i've said so many times after testing, this is an issue with virgin media, not youtube or other services.

[vmfriend]

according to VM they don't shape youtube in any way, they cameup to a conclusion after an investigation that there is nothing wrong with youtube or streaming on their network, according to this thread which they created: http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-50Mb-broadband/Possible-you-tube-issue/td-p/655227

every since, customers have been reporting problems with youtube on the VM network, but not experiencing the same with other ISPs.



i have to say you are wrong.

Been testing the same videos with youtube on Infinity and on Virgin, the problem is with Virgin not youtube. Its also an issue with iPlayer and 4od only on Virgin Media, not other ISPs.

Not wrong, i just have a different opinion to you based on my own experiences ;)

[Doz007]

As others have said, when I go around to friends houses on ADSL connections the difference is staggering. The whole video loads smoothly and quickly rather than the stop, starting I get on VM.

Very strange indeed, I'm surprised that VM don't have the answer though. :(

[qasdfdsaq]

Three things have been suggested:
1) Local loop/last mile congestion
2) Transit/peering congestion
3) Bad DNS routing.

[General Maximus]

I notice that you're on 100Mb General Maximus, that connection should eat 720p for breakfast!!

Anybody have any idea what's going on here? As I stated earlier, I can download from Steam at 6.1MB/s so do VM treat YouTube traffic differently?

you have hit the nail on the head and there is an ongoing debate about this. My connection is great and i can max it out no probs on downloads no probs whether it is torrents, http or steam. Yet as soon as I try to load a piddly youtube video it takes ages. It is very annoying and something you would think VM would be keen to fix given the demand and popularity of the service.

[muppetman11]

Will this be a problem for users of Sky TV once Anytime+ is opened up to all ISP's , or is it unique to YT HD videos ?

[Blackened]

we were having this discussion in another thread a few days ago http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33686317-poor-streaming-downloading-and-uploading.html
Might be worth a merge.

No way it is YT's problem. If a service as massive as YT was failing this badly, you'd hear a LOT more about it. I sometimes switch to 3G to stream when VM lets me down, it's literally that bad sometimes.

As I mentioned in the other thread, playing with DNS sometimes helps.

[Doz007]

Will this be a problem for users of Sky TV once Anytime+ is opened up to all ISP's , or is it unique to YT HD videos ?

It's unique to YouTube MM, like I can download at full speed from iTunes, Steam, Xbox Live etc. :)

[Skie]

Youtube uses a massive CDN with many servers/locations hosting videos. Some videos may be hosted by different servers and its usually when you hit a video on a server that is being hammered (usually when a popular new video is also on it, before it can be replicated to other servers) you will see slow buffering.

Different ISP's peer differently too so they may even hit different servers for the same video at the same time. If you find a slow video, trawl around and see if every other video is slow. Most of the times its just that one video. If its all of them, then you are looking at a network issue.

[Zee]

for me its all videos on vm, on Infinity its no videos

[Doz007]

It's definately not a problem with every single video my side but equally I've not had this problem with any other ISP.......

[qasdfdsaq]

Just came across a slow Youtube video on my VM connection - interestingly it is virtually directly on VM's network:

C:\Users\Administrator>tracert 64.15.115.87

Tracing route to 64.15.115.87 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms n1.lan [10.1.0.11]
2 7 ms 7 ms 6 ms cpc5-sgyl34-2-0-gw.sgyl.cable.virginmedia.com [92.235.188.1]
3 11 ms 6 ms 7 ms sgyl-core-1a-ge225.network.virginmedia.net [81.97.49.149]
4 9 ms 11 ms 10 ms sgyl-core-2a-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.178.90]
5 18 ms 14 ms 14 ms manc-bb-1c-ae6-0.network.virginmedia.net [81.97.48.77]
6 14 ms 16 ms 18 ms manc-bb-1a-ae11-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.159.85]
7 15 ms 17 ms 15 ms tcma-ic-1-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43.163.226]
8 15 ms 22 ms 17 ms 182-14-250-212.static.virginmedia.com [212.250.14.182]
9 21 ms 22 ms 24 ms 64.15.115.87

Trace complete.

This video was constantly stuttering and pausing to buffer - despite loading directly from within VM's network by the looks of things.

Ironically, refreshing the *same* video at the same quality routed me to a different server, this time off VM's network:

C:\Users\Administrator>tracert 208.65.155.92

Tracing route to 208.65.155.92 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms n1.lan [10.1.0.11]
2 13 ms 8 ms 16 ms cpc5-sgyl34-2-0-gw.sgyl.cable.virginmedia.com [92.235.188.1]
3 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms sgyl-core-1a-ge133.network.virginmedia.net [81.97.48.37]
4 7 ms 10 ms 14 ms sgyl-core-2a-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.178.90]
5 13 ms 13 ms 12 ms manc-bb-1c-ae6-0.network.virginmedia.net [81.97.48.77]
6 12 ms 27 ms 17 ms manc-bb-1a-ae11-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.159.85]
7 20 ms 21 ms 23 ms brnt-bb-1b-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43.163.86]
8 19 ms 20 ms 19 ms brnt-tmr-1-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.159.50]
9 20 ms 20 ms 21 ms telc-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.185.74]
10 22 ms 19 ms 20 ms te1-3.ccr01.lon04.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.15.69]
11 22 ms 21 ms 21 ms te7-7.mpd02.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.38.69]
12 29 ms 26 ms 30 ms te0-0-0-4.mpd22.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.57.157]
13 29 ms 25 ms 28 ms te0-2-0-0.mpd22.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.28.154]
14 33 ms 53 ms 34 ms te2-1.mpd01.ams04.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.49.10]
15 27 ms 27 ms 32 ms 149.11.38.62
16 40 ms 39 ms 36 ms 208.65.155.92

Trace complete.

And in the latter case, the video loaded six times faster (though still only using ~6mb out of my 50mb connection).

A third try of the same video, this time on my Infinity connection, loaded up six times faster again, using up the full speed of my 38.5mbps Infinity line:

C:\Users\Administrator>tracert 173.194.5.204

Tracing route to 173.194.5.204 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms gateway.lan [10.0.0.1]
2 21 ms 21 ms 22 ms gateway.bt [217.32.142.104]
3 22 ms 22 ms 22 ms route-1.dc0-h1.bt [217.32.142.158]
4 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms route-0.dc1-h2.bt [213.120.163.18]
5 27 ms 28 ms 28 ms 217.32.27.14
6 28 ms 27 ms 28 ms route-0.dc1-h4.bt [217.32.27.178]
7 28 ms 28 ms 27 ms acc1-10GigE-0-2-0.mr.21cn-ipp.bt.net [109.159.250.66]
8 34 ms 35 ms 35 ms core1-te0-12-0-1.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.250.22]
9 35 ms 35 ms 34 ms peer1-xe2-0-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.254.100]
10 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms 195.99.126.113
11 35 ms 35 ms 36 ms 209.85.252.186
12 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms 209.85.240.60
13 36 ms 36 ms 36 ms 209.85.249.95
14 35 ms 35 ms 35 ms 173.194.5.204

Trace complete.

So, the quick spot test above shows:
1) UK Youtube server directly connected to VM - ultra slow
2) NL Youtube server 6 hops from VM - much faster but still slow
3) UK Youtube server 4 hops from BT - super fast.

I picked another two videos with similar results - VM's own server(s) performed the slowest on all three videos, whereas Dutch/French servers over transit were a lot faster, but UK servers on other ISPs were much much faster still. Interestingly I'm yet to see my VM connection using any UK servers other than their own, ultra-slow ones.

It looks like VM run their own (local cache?) Youtube servers in Manchester somewhere and these are the slowest of the lot.

Now if only I could figure out how to override Youtube's server picker thing...

[hjf288]

It was like this all the time on BE ADSL2+

Virgin media hasnt been too bad but tonight 1080p and 720p is horrible on some videos...

[qasdfdsaq]

If anyone wants to actually be useful, download Media Sniffer (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mediasniffer/) and list the exact server(s) that are slow. You may need winpcap as well.

[qasdfdsaq]

Oh and scheduled maintenance at Telecity Manchester a fortnight from now. Which means VM/Google's local Youtube servers will be even slower/unreachable for a little while.

Excellent!

---------- Post added at 22:50 ---------- Previous post was at 22:47 ----------

Will this be a problem for users of Sky TV once Anytime+ is opened up to all ISP's , or is it unique to YT HD videos ?
Based on what I've found (and nobody has claimed anything to the contrary as yet) it's the Manchester Youtube servers that are the problem, and far as I can tell VM are the only ones to use them.

[Zee]

Oh and scheduled maintenance at Telecity Manchester a fortnight from now. Which means VM/Google's local Youtube servers will be even slower/unreachable for a little while.

Excellent!

---------- Post added at 22:50 ---------- Previous post was at 22:47 ----------


Based on what I've found (and nobody has claimed anything to the contrary as yet) it's the Manchester Youtube servers that are the problem, and far as I can tell VM are the only ones to use them.

What does that mean exactly, the problem may be resolved 2 weeks from now or.....?

[qasdfdsaq]

No it means the problem will get worse for a little while. To be honest I doubt anyone would notice.

[Zee]

No it means the problem will get worse for a little while. To be honest I doubt anyone would notice.

but surely, after the maintanance it'll be better? we can only hope...

[qasdfdsaq]

The maintenance is maintenance of the datacentre's main routers, not of VM's Youtube partner servers.

[One Pound]

It looks like when a YouTube video loads it buffers the first 40 seconds or so and from there it only buffers 1 second per second. I just had a look at a video and it does this perfectly, first 40 seconds were buffered in a couple of seconds then from then on 1 second buffered each second!

In theory this is OK since the video should always play smoothly as it would always buffer 40 seconds ahead. This would also reduce wasted bandwidth where people load a whole video but only watch a few seconds. In practice though, I've found the video often stops loading and I need to skip forward 1 second to get it loading again, also I might want to skip to somewhere else in the video without waiting for it to buffer.

There's definitely some shaping going on, the question is, is it by Virgin or YouTube? I know that if I load a video at work, the video loads in a couple of seconds.

[General Maximus]

It looks like when a YouTube video loads it buffers the first 40 seconds or so and from there it only buffers 1 second per second. I just had a look at a video and it does this perfectly, first 40 seconds were buffered in a couple of seconds then from then on 1 second buffered each second!

In theory this is OK since the video should always play smoothly as it would always buffer 40 seconds ahead. This would also reduce wasted bandwidth where people load a whole video but only watch a few seconds. In practice though, I've found the video often stops loading and I need to skip forward 1 second to get it loading again, also I might want to skip to somewhere else in the video without waiting for it to buffer.

There's definitely some shaping going on, the question is, is it by Virgin or YouTube? I know that if I load a video at work, the video loads in a couple of seconds.

---------- Post added at 14:22 ---------- Previous post was at 14:16 ----------

There is no way youtube is doing any sort of traffic shaping their own content. VM technically dont do it either. They specifically say they dont manage youtube traffic on their site but i dont think they are doing anything to help it either.

[qasdfdsaq]

It looks like when a YouTube video loads it buffers the first 40 seconds or so and from there it only buffers 1 second per second. I just had a look at a video and it does this perfectly, first 40 seconds were buffered in a couple of seconds then from then on 1 second buffered each second!
This is intentional and done by Youtube on all SD videos.

It does not happen on HD videos. It is nothing to do with shaping.

[Zee]

It looks like when a YouTube video loads it buffers the first 40 seconds or so and from there it only buffers 1 second per second. I just had a look at a video and it does this perfectly, first 40 seconds were buffered in a couple of seconds then from then on 1 second buffered each second!

In theory this is OK since the video should always play smoothly as it would always buffer 40 seconds ahead. This would also reduce wasted bandwidth where people load a whole video but only watch a few seconds. In practice though, I've found the video often stops loading and I need to skip forward 1 second to get it loading again, also I might want to skip to somewhere else in the video without waiting for it to buffer.

There's definitely some shaping going on, the question is, is it by Virgin or YouTube? I know that if I load a video at work, the video loads in a couple of seconds.

This is all good, but if it is shaping, it is not by YouTube, as so many other people have stated on other ISPs (me myself on Infinity) there is not a problem. There is only a problem on Virgin Media.

People need to begin posting threads again on the VM official forum and let them know otherwise they will never do anything about it.

http://community.virginmedia.com

Please post on the above link a new thread if you face problems with youtube or streaming in general on VM so we can let them know there is an issue here.

[zantarous]

Youtube seem to be pretty unusable on my connection, makes no difference if I access via PC, ipad or 360.

[qasdfdsaq]

This is all good, but if it is shaping, it is not by YouTube, as so many other people have stated on other ISPs (me myself on Infinity) there is not a problem. There is only a problem on Virgin Media.

As above, the burst plus slow loading is deliberate on Youtube's part on ALL ISPs but also only on low-res videos.

---------- Post added at 21:03 ---------- Previous post was at 21:02 ----------

Youtube seem to be pretty unusable on my connection, makes no difference if I access via PC, ipad or 360.
And your connection is what?

[One Pound]

OK, I'm going with YouTube being responsible for this download speed oddity. As qasdfdsaq suggested, this doesn't happen on HD videos.

How strange that a 360p video takes longer to load than 1080p

[Zee]

Youtube seem to be pretty unusable on my connection, makes no difference if I access via PC, ipad or 360.

how comes i dont get that issue Infinity?

[General Maximus]

Youtube seem to be pretty unusable on my connection, makes no difference if I access via PC, ipad or 360.

it wont if it is all going through the same router on the same VM connection

[zantarous]

Ah but it does tell you it's the service or the router and not the stuff using its wireless or cabled connection.

It's a 30mb connection. YouTube has been diabolical in the last week but other streaming sites seems to be working fine.

[Chrysalis]

I had massive issues last night, videos wouldnt even start playing, until I swapped from VM dns back to google dns then they worked fine.

Since I use youtube much more often than akamai I will keep google dns my default and then switch only prior to downloading of akamai.

[qasdfdsaq]

Chrys, I'd suggest using the URL sniffer app mentioned above, it'll log exactly which server(s) you are trying to hit for the video itself, irrespective of what DNS you use.