Imagine you are streaming your favorite movie or TV show and suddenly experience glitches and frequent disconnections. Now we wouldn’t fancy that and so will you. But, with the staggering growth in video streaming traffic, signal dropouts and disconnections are not new.
Whether streaming for educational purposes, entertainment, or professional purposes, everyone wants a smoother experience.
In this post, we have mentioned Top 7 tips for a better streaming experience:
- Check The Number of Devices Connected Simultaneously:
If you are experiencing buffering issues, check how many devices are connected to the internet. The higher the number of devices connected to your internet, the higher the connectivity issues. This is because every device takes up bandwidth, resulting in streaming problems, especially with platforms like Disney Plus, Netflix, and others.
It is quite common to have a few smartphones, smart TVs, and other smart devices in a household. Even if some or all of these devices may not be used simultaneously, they may have apps running in the background.
The background apps also play their part in connectivity issues.
The best thing to do is switch off any of these devices or close the apps running in the background.
- Check Your Home Network for Unauthorised Connections:
If your Wi-Fi connection isn’t secured, always check for intruders. Someone might be stealing your bandwidth by connecting to your network unauthorized.
What you can do is to make sure your network is secured with a password and that your password must be strong enough not to be guessed by a stranger easily.
- Bring Your Router Closer to Your Device:
Often, a person like me will be streaming on Smart TV in the bedroom while the Wi-Fi router will be placed in the hallway. Not only the brick walls but also the distance of the router from your device matters.
Bringing your router closer to your device will provide uninterrupted signal connectivity, and your streaming experience will be enhanced.
- Try Connecting an Ethernet Cable to Your Device
If bringing your router close to your device didn’t work, try connecting an Ethernet cable to your device. We understand that cables don’t look neat, but they provide better connectivity than a wireless connection.
For instance, a CAT8 Ethernet cable supports up to a whopping 40 Gbps of data transfer. That is surely massive indeed! With such speed compatibility, you are never going to have any connectivity issues for sure.
- Clear Your Cache:
Temporary files in your device can take up a good amount of storage space. The lower the storage space, the slower your device gets resulting in a bad streaming experience.
Most devices clear out these temporary files from your directory once you switch off your device properly. So if you notice your device has slowed down considerably, try shutting it down for a bit and then switch it back on.
- Switch to Lower Resolution:
There’s rocket science that the higher the resolution, the higher the data consumption resulting in slower streams. Besides that, consistent connectivity plays an important role in smoother streaming.
For instance, streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney Plus require a minimum of 5 Mbps connection for standard streaming. Whereas streaming 4K content of the same platforms requires at least 25 Mbps connection.
Once you switch to a lower resolution, the requirement of the connection speed narrows down too naturally.
- Run a Speed Test:
Running a speed test will help you determine if you are getting the desired connectivity speed for streaming. If the speed test results are not satisfactory, try restarting your router and perform the speed test again.
If the speed turns out to be satisfactory, there could be a slight chance you have not updated for firmware. Check for updates on your device, and you will be sorted.
Conclusion:
Numerous reasons may be affecting your streaming experience. With the video streaming market forecasted to grow by $223.98 billion by 2028, you are bound to face streaming issues. However, by following the quick solutions mentioned in this blog post, most issues can be resolved.