Sometimes YouTube and Dailymotion videos in Google Android App for YouTube and Dailymotion sometimes slow down where I need to wait a few seconds for them to play without any freezing, buffering, not playing, and having connection+playback errors. There are simple things you can do like Turning off HD in the Mobile App for YouTube and Dailymotion when playing video, and turning off HQ in YouTube mobile site will make videos download/stream faster. All you need is tap on the HD shortcut in the YouTube App, and Tap on the HQ shortcut to switch to a lower video quality to increase the speed of video downloads.
The playback errors are mostly related to a slow Wi-Fi wireless signal and slow Internet connection from my ISP in my experience.
The mobile website at http://m.youtube.com/ seem to load video pages faster than the YouTube App, and videos don’t buffer as much when I use a mobile web browser like Chrome. I notice certain mobile web browsers like UCWeb, Lightning, Now Browser, Opera, and Puffin Browser load videos faster than Chrome sometimes. Turning off HQ/High Quality mode on video on YouTube’s mobile site will make it possible to load video faster, and play video faster on slower mobile devices like smartphones, and tablets. Non-HQ mode plays a lower quality smaller file size version of the video from YouTube mobile site, so your mobile device use less bandwidth/data, CPU, RAM, and video chip GPU resources because of a smaller lower quality video.
You can try a lightweight web browser like Naked Browser for browsing online video sites to see if sites like YouTube and Dailymotion loads faster on a lightweight browser.
Read my article on Lightweight Fast web browsers for Google Android.
Puffin Browser Free load video the smoothest compared to other free browsers because its video player is very lightweight, and it also use cloud/online technology to make the website load items like javascript, images, and scripts faster as well. Online YouTube videos load in a few seconds, and I don’t experience web browser crashes on YouTube, and video slowdown problems with Puffin running on my Asus Nexus 7 2012 tablet connected to my home wifi network. I can also now use Puffin Free on YouTube’s desktop site without having to pay for the paid version of Puffin with All day Flash support instead of 6AM-6PM flash support on the free version of Puffin browser because YouTube now plays all video on a HTML5 video player instead of Flash by default on the desktop version of YouTube’s website, and Puffin is compatible with HTML5 websites like YouTube.
The newest version of the Official YouTube App as of June 12 2014 made by Google/YouTube in Google Play now lets you change the quality of the video to very lower quality settings like 144P, 240P, and 360P when you tap on the settings icon on the top right corner of the video, and click on the Round Gears icon which will launch the settings video changer. 144P will load the fastest, but has the less sharp video quality, and the audio may be less clear. 144P would be good for watching video on a very slow wi-fi or data service, and to save the most bandwidth/data. 240P videos are pretty good for watching videos on a slower wifi signal, and have okay video and sound quality. 360P is the same resolution and quality as playing YouTube on a laptop or desktop web browser where non-HD video usually play at 360P in my experience. There is also a 720P setting which let you stream videos at HD resolution which will load the slowest, and use up the most bandwidth on a slower connection.
The Dailymotion App for Google Android, and Dailymotion.com also lets you adjust the video settings for the video quality when watching video by clicking the Gears icon on the app, or the video quality setting on its site and picking a lower quality video resolution like 240P for faster download speeds when streaming video on its site because you are downloading a lower quality smaller file size video.
Sitting closer to your Wi-Fi router/modem, or connecting to a faster Wi-Fi network signal with a stronger signal if there is a open wi-fi connection. You can also buy a new wireless router, or Wi-Fi extender/booster for boosting your Wi-Fi router’s wireless signal.
Changing the broadcast wi-fi channel of your Wi-Fi router could help as well. I notice Channel 1 and 6 are usually the best wireless channels in my home, but 11-13 are not as good. Channel 1 and 6 are lower frequency channels, so they can go farther, and pass through walls easier than high frequency channels for Wi-Fi. Making sure your other computers, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones connected to the same network/internet connections are not downloading and uploading big files will help speed up your internet connection when streaming video, and turning off Apps which you are not using can help make your internet connection has more free bandwidth to stream online videos.
In some routers, there is a WMM multimedia, gaming mode, QoS/Quality Of Service service, and high power antennae mode which could help with Wi-Fi speeds by optimizing your wireless signal strength, and networking settings inside your router.
In YouTube Official App setting, there is a preloading function which you can turn on to preload videos on your phone’s storage when your phone is charging, Your device is ON, and Wi-Fi or Internet is ON. However, it preloading may make your phone take longer to charge, use more battery life, and slow down your phone’s performance.
You can also pause the video for a few seconds, and wait for the status bar to fill up before playing the video, so you don’t experiences freezes and buffering when watching video on YouTube.
Try holding your phone or tablet higher, or in different positions to see if it helps. I notice when my tablet is laying on its back on a table, the Wi-Fi signal speed, and strength are lower than when I hold it higher pointing toward my head while holding it with one hand.
If you use a metal or thick case for your phone or tablet, remove them to see if the case is causing problems with Wi-fi wireless Internet being slow or the signal not very strong. [continue reading…]
