Online-Streaming

Achieving a Seamless Online Streaming Experience

At its inception, online streaming services were mainly an extra feature that came with DVD and digital downloads to show movies and TV shows after they had been aired in cinemas. Soon enough, the prevalence of Internet capabilities on several digital devices, coupled with faster internet speeds, gave rise to the development of online streaming.

Shortly after, cord-cutting became a thing as users were fast moving away from traditional cable TV subscriptions to different streaming services in order to enjoy their favorite TV shows, movies, and sporting events.

Of all the factors behind the success of online streaming, including discovery tools, stellar content, etc., industry leaders believe that the ability to achieve a high subscriber satisfaction percentage is vital. This metric is believed to increase with respect to the rate of personalization afforded to every user.

Tips to Enjoy a Seamless Streaming Experience

Despite this fantastic feature provided by these OTT providers, some users still face challenges while attempting to stream content online. Explained below are some ways by which subscribers can overcome such challenges:

  1. Use a dedicated network: The prevalence of the Internet of Things technology has made it possible to connect some household items to the Internet. When these items are connected to the same home network that the subscriber intends to stream with, they may experience lags because the bandwidth is being shared with other devices.

To solve this, disable network sharing with all these other devices or web applications and let your streaming device have a sole connection. This way, you get a better streaming experience.

  1. Delete cache and cookies: While using the Internet, your browser saves a lot of small files that help display content and serve ads to users. In the event where you don’t exit your browser the proper way, these files get stored on local memory and can slow down your browser, thereby causing restraint on your streaming experience. Delete these cache and cookies from the browser through its settings in order to enjoy a hitch-free experience.
  1. Use a VPN: In some cases, video lags might be the least of your problems as geo-restrictions to some services may not even allow you to access the streaming service at all. This issue can be solved by using a VPN linking to a server of your choice in the location where the streaming service is hosted. Once connected, you can access the streaming content as if you are located in that country.
  1. Use Ethernet Connection: Despite the many benefits of a WiFi connection, it is possible that your WiFi connection might be slowing down your media streaming. This is because devices that are connected wirelessly do not receive data from the router as fast as those that are connected with an Ethernet cable.

In some scenarios, devices connected wirelessly might only be receiving half of the bandwidth that the router actually delivers. Most mobile devices do not support Ethernet connection directly so this tip can majorly be used by those streaming with a computer.

  1. Reduce Video Quality: One of the many tricks to achieve a smooth streaming experience is to lower the video quality being rendered in order to allow smooth rendering. Many video players reduce video quality by default based on the available bandwidth but if yours does not do this, you can easily do this in your video player settings.
  1. Exit all RAM-intensive applications: Asides the concern of bandwidth consumption, applications that are heavily dependent on RAM and are run along-side the video player could cause the device as a whole to lag. A best practice is to exit all other applications, leaving just the media player open in order to enjoy your streaming experience.

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