While YouTube and other sites have opened the door to unbelievable amounts of video for our viewing, it does come at a price.

Whether viewing on this site or on YouTube, you will encounter the dread 'buffering problem'. This is when the video alternately plays and then stops. This is of course made worse with slower connections and at busy times of the day. Also, you will notice more problem with this when using a wireless connection as with a laptop or notebook computer.

However, even with the fastest of computers and connections, the problem is still often encountered. There are some software products offered up as solutions, such as
SpeedBit Video Accelerator that provides what the company calls multiconnection streaming to help with the problem.

Let us offer another approach to this problem that does not require any software installation. It does, however, require a little time (we think the wonderful blues videos we present on this site are well worth a short wait!).

What Youtube and others do is serve up the videos in small chunks. It doesn't take much to slow down any of these small pieces and they really need a steady connection to prevent the start/stop problem.

So here's the workaround. Just implement the following four steps.

Step 1. Pause- As soon the video begins to play, immediately pause it.

Step 2. Wait- Let the status bar go all the way to the right to indicate that the video transfer is complete. This is indicated when the red status bar in the video player has been completely filled, left to right.

Step 3. Play- When the status bar indicates the transfer is complete, play the video using the controls on the player.

Step 4. Plan Ahead- If you will be looking at several videos, there is a way to reduce your waiting time. Before you begin watching the video that has completed the transfer, go ahead and start and pause (Step 1), one or more additional videos. You may find that your system will only handle one more transfer at a reasonable speed while you are watching one. Your first thought might be to start and pause a dozen videos, expecting each one to transfer at full speed. Unfortunately, the added processor overhead sometimes makes it slower to download, say three videos at once, than if they were done one at a time.

Try this method and with a little patience, you will be able to watch your videos all the way through without frustration setting in.