Using Anti-buffering Software to Enhance Your Streaming Experiences
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Many consumers know how frustrating video buffering can be. Their streaming session is constantly interrupted by stoppages and loading symbols, causing them to miss critical information and creating serious viewership headaches — which makes them exit the screen and look for that information elsewhere.
These problems are pronounced in an enterprise setting, where poor-quality streaming during a single broadcast can frustrate thousands, even tens of thousands of viewers at once. For hybrid and remote enterprises, where video quality is essential to facilitating team communications and distributing important information, this can have serious downstream consequences for the entire enterprise.
Fortunately, there are numerous anti-buffering software solutions now available to enterprises that enable them to combat buffering and ensure users have access to clean, smooth video communications at all times. These are among the most advanced, essential tools at the disposal of enterprises that want to create great viewing experiences for their employees.
The enterprise challenges caused by buffering
The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed consumer video habits, making streaming and other forms of video communication a mainstay in their private lives. Many consumers took those newfound habits to work with them, and now they expect the same crisp and convenient video experiences on their work platforms that they get from their consumer outlets.
This is happening against the backdrop of enterprises increasingly transitioning to hybrid and fully remote work models.
Now, as employees rely more on video to communicate and share information, hybrid enterprises in particular are learning that they often don’t have the bandwidth capacity to handle fluctuating traffic, creating serious network management challenges.
Enterprises are quickly realizing that their infrastructure has to support an unprecedented number of users streaming video over their networks no matter how many people want to stream video. Failing to do so can cause employee streaming habits to overwhelm networks and create significant performance issues, which can have negative consequences for the enterprise, including:
- Employees might not be able to access important video communications, meaning they won’t have the information they need to complete critical job functions. This might also cause them to miss important company updates and announcements.
- Employees are unable to participate in event live streams, meaning they struggle to engage with leaders and colleagues in a company-wide setting. This can make employees feel marginalized from the wider organization, hurting engagement and satisfaction.
- Hiring and onboarding processes can be hindered in a remote setting, meaning employees are unprepared to begin the jobs and undertake the responsibilities they are assigned to. Combined with low engagement due to poor streaming experiences, this can cause retention rates to take a hit and hiring budgets to balloon.
- Networks that are unable to handle the enormous increase in traffic can lead live events to overwhelm bandwidth and crash connections. This can have serious downstream consequences for the rest of the network, which can damage other connections and make it difficult for employees to access other videos.
The causes of video streaming buffering
Video streaming buffering can have a number of causes, but it typically comes down to an unsustainably large number of users trying to stream a single video while being on a network not equipped to handle such high demand.
Hybrid and remote enterprises often have large volumes of video and audio data being sent over their networks as users are constantly trying to access the same audio or video file using the same network connections as others are using them to conduct video communications.
If the enterprise’s internet connection is unable to handle this transfer of data, video streams will lag and users will be unable to access the video content they need when they need it. This can be especially problematic in enterprise settings where users are trying to make real-time video connections — like video conferencing sessions or live streaming events. Users might miss important details, making it difficult to hold continuous conversations or video sessions and causing serious frustration.
How anti-buffering software creates better video experiences at scale
Enterprises are especially vulnerable when it comes to buffering, and bad video streaming experiences can have serious consequences that negatively impact both the individual viewer and the organization at large.
Due to the limitations around hybrid work models, many enterprises simply can’t know how many people are going to be in the office using enterprise networks at any given time. Moreover, a distributed workforce makes it difficult to distribute live streaming events to the entire organization, potentially causing bandwidth issues that crash networks.
Old video tools are no longer a good fit for the modern needs of today’s enterprise. Vbrick’s robust suite of anti-buffering software is designed for the enterprise: Our solutions enable companies to create smooth video experiences that are fast, seamless, and convenient, ensuring all employees have access to high-quality video data that empowers them to do their jobs and engage with their colleagues.
Our anti-buffering solutions include flexible options, from the most basic to more complex, that can meet any network requirements.
Peer-to-peer
Normally, video and audio data must be exchanged between an individual client device and a server typically located somewhere on the public internet.. While this networking model helps to ensure secure and reliable streaming experiences, it can take a heavy toll on the public internet connection (as well as being costly for network administrators), making it unsuitable for the real-time video communication needs of large enterprises.
Peer-to-peer streaming works by connecting individual client devices directly to each other, bypassing the server for higher quality video streaming experiences with much lower latency. Vbrick’s peer-to-peer solution redistributes video among all connected devices to optimize bandwidth without requiring clients to download any additional software to connect.
Edge caching
Vbrick’s edge caching solution uses our proprietary Distributed Media Engine (DME) to support on-demand video streaming across massive geographic spaces without overwhelming central networks. When content producers create video or audio data, that information is distributed and stored in local edge DMEs closer to the source of content consumption.
When users want to consume that content, they access the copies stored in the local edge DMEs. Not only does this relieve the pressure on central DMEs and networks (reducing buffering, latency, and other streaming issues), it also makes it much easier for users to gain access to the on-demand videos they want to consume fast.
Multicast
In a unicast video streaming protocol, the host client sends individual copies of data to all recipients in a network. While these types of protocols work in one-to-one settings (or even between a small number of viewers), it scales poorly, as enterprise video streaming needs often require hosts to send audio or video file copies to hundreds or thousands of recipients, which can easily overwhelm and crash networks.
Multicast is a type of video streaming protocol that enables content creators to send a single copy of data to multiple devices simultaneously. Local routers and servers that are equipped with multicasting capabilities make copies of that data and send it to identified recipients, preventing enterprise networks from becoming overwhelmed during broadcasts to a large audience.
Global eCDN
An enterprise content delivery network (eCDN) distributes video data across a distributed geographic space, enabling large enterprises to create video connections between employees on its corporate network who are spread across the world without causing connectivity and video quality issues.
Instead of exchanging data directly with the enterprise server, local users connect using a content deliver network (CDN) server. Not only does this drastically shorten the distance between the user’s end device and the server — reducing the amount of distance and time required to transfer data from point to point — it also takes pressure off of servers, enabling faster, more reliable, and better quality connections across multiple devices.
Real-time analytics and management
System admins can use video analytics to gain insights into live and on-demand streams so they can monitor and assess performance in real time. This gives them the information they need to evaluate both network performance and streaming experience quality at the individual user level, which they can use to pinpoint network bottlenecks with laser precision.
Armed with this information, system admins can view re-buffering rates, errors, and stream performance indicators, all of which help them resolve problems and ensure clean, seamless viewing experiences for all users tuning into live and on-demand videos.
This also ensures company-wide events like CEO town halls and company announcements operate smoothly and without issue, facilitating the sharing of critical information to the entire organization.
All of Vbrick’s anti-buffering software solutions are highly scalable, so enterprises can guarantee access to high-quality video content for all of their employees and users no matter how many people are streaming their exclusive video content.
Techniques you can use to eliminate buffering
Anti-buffering software is essential to creating high-quality video experiences at the enterprise level, but there are also steps individual users can take to eliminate buffering on their own devices that they should understand. Enterprises can take the time to share some of this information with employees to help maximize video streaming experiences across the entire organization.
Steps individual users can take to combat buffering include:
- Close other tabs and applications: Buffering can happen to users with the fastest internet connection. Every tab and application left open on the browser uses bandwidth, and an excess number of these can cause networks to crash. Users should close any tabs or applications they aren’t using when streaming video to maximize quality and performance.
- Use ethernet cables: Wi-Fi is a more convenient way to connect to the internet, but it can be unreliable and users can experience frequent interruptions. Ethernet cables let users connect directly to the internet, creating a more secure and reliable connection that helps deliver much smoother video experiences.
- Pause the video: During a video stream, the video player downloads data before playing it to ensure a continuous stream of video delivery. Videos buffer when the viewer is consuming data too fast for it to be downloaded. If you’re experiencing buffering problems, consider pausing the video for a few seconds to let the video player catch up.
Partner with Vbrick to create high-quality video experiences for all employees
High-quality video distribution is essential to success in today’s enterprise environment. Great video experiences not only increase employee engagement, they also enhance internal and external enterprise applications and online collateral for better interactions between customers and stakeholders.
Vbrick’s suite of video solutions provides enterprises with the tools they need to build highly engaging video applications capable of delivering video to large audiences spread across the entire world — without crashing their networks. Enterprise executives can rest easy knowing their user-generated video content is not only fast and convenient, but also secure and reliable.
