(Flash 10.0.32.18, Mac OS 10.4.11, MacBook Intel Core 2 Duo connected via WiFi to a NetGear WGT624 v3 router with a Westell WireSpeed B90-210015-04 Rev C DSL Modem provided by my ISP, Verizon DSL)





Hi all. When I visit the specific video sites of Youtube, Hulu, and SouthParkStudios.com (needless to say, explicit animated content) I often get video that is slow to buffer in spite of my DSL broadband connection. While I can sometimes play High Definition content without a second of interruption, I'll often be unable to play content in the lowest available quality settings without repeated rebuffering throughout. It doesn't seem to matter if I'm using Safari, Opera, or Lightbrowser (http://www.xiotios.com/lightbrowser.html). I use Firefox as my main browser, but since Flash performs poorly inside it I don't use it to play video very much. Turning off PeerGuardian and Dropbox (suspects for blocking traffic and interferring in bandwith usage, respectively) have no effect.

Although I have not tested this extensively on the other machines in my network, I think I can recall some of this on/off behavior on a VAIO running XP that's connected to the same router via ethernet.

This never seems to happen when I use less popular sites like Dailymotion.com, Metacafe.com, or Fox.com. This had me assuming this was related to the high amounts of traffic hitting the servers of Youtube, etc..

Attached below is a text file from a Terminal session in which I performed ping and traceroute tests on southparkstudios.com as well as a couple on hulu.com and youtube.com in response to a period of time in which a South Park episode I was watching last night began buffering slowly little less than halfway through. I learned about these tools after being prompted to use traceroute by Hulu's Streaming Support page (http://www.hulu.com/support/streaming).

Although the said Hulu support page suggests contacting my ISP about this, I thought I'd throw it to you guys first since these forums have been extremely helpful when I used them to clean malware off the PCs in this house.

Is this indeed an issue that needs to be resolved by my ISP, or could it be on my or the services' end(s)? Thanks in advanced for all your time and help!

 South_Park_Studios_Tests.txt ( 14.78K ) Number of downloads: 61

Your test results really don't show anything other than to confirm the poor quality connection that wireless provides. Not just your wireless, but any wireless.

The first thing to try is to plug the computer directly in to the router and then see if you still have problems. The most likely culprit, until you eliminate it, is your wireless connection.