What's with this buffering?

[Will Bartell]

I've recently been visiting Rebel and Ricky's site, trying to familiarize myself with some of the older intros, turnarounds, etc. I've got a 33.6 modem, and when I click on the audio link, after an interminable wait, I get three seconds of steel, and then about fifteen seconds of "buffering", three or four seconds of steel, twenty seconds or so of "buffering" and so on. Needless to say, it makes trying to hear the groove more than a little frustrating. Is this a function of CPU, memory, lack of a high speed or broadband connection, or (d) all of the above? Thanks.
Will

[Graham]

Will:
d: All of the above. An unfortunate part of the Real Audio experience, which is why I designed the site so the clips could also be downloaded to your hard-drive. By right clicking (Netscape & IE) on the title of the clip, you can then save it to your own hard-drive. You should not then have any further buffering problems when listening to the clip.

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Rebel™
ICQ 614585
http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

[John Gretzinger]

Will -

What Rebel said. 33.6 is getting to be just too darn slow for much of anything any more. A 56K modem will make things much better, but if you are on an old machine (non-pentium system) then there is really not much you can do to make things a whole lot better.

56K modems are available around here for under $50.00. You'd be much happier is you upgrade.

John

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MSA D-10
'63 Gibson Hummingbird
16/15c Hammered Dulcimer

[Jack Stoner]

Your modem connection speed between you and your ISP is only one small part of the entire WWW. There are many servers, links, etc to take into account plus the other traffic (congestion) on the net.

Most V.90 connections are in the 42-48K range with a "56K" modem. Also even tho you connect at Xbps it doesn't mean you will always receive at that speed. Your speed will vary as the modems are constantly "handshaking" ("talking" to each other) and negotiating data transfer speeds in realtime. Your "average" data throughput is what you really have to look at and that will also vary from modem to modem brand. Some 56K modem brands many not have a throughput speed as good as a V.34 modem (33.6K modem).

[Will Bartell]

Thank you all for the input. Graham, I'll take your advice and just download the clips to my HD. Extra step, but at least I won't have to keep replacing the monitors I smash out of frustration. Thanks! Will