Making Your Computer Run Faster

Do you want to make money, gain fans, and show the world your talent by streaming on the internet? There are a lot of different factors to consider depending on the type of content you want to stream, but one thing is certain: quality matters. This isn't just an artistic issue about grainy videos, bad microphones, or shaky cameras; your computer and home network can mean the difference between getting a great video or radio show on the internet when it's relevant and missing a great time to catch a lot of viewers.

To get your video in front of the right people at the right time--or to simply avoid hours of wasted time when your video doesn't upload properly--make sure that you understand a few of these internet performance issues and fixes to keep your streaming technology as efficient and effortless as possible.

Understanding Packets And Internet Consistency

Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) boast about their fast speeds. Although speed is important when it comes to downloading big files--or more importantly for streamers, uploading video and audio--consistency needs to come first.

Unfortunately, there's no customer-friendly measurement for consistency. You need to learn a bit of networking to get a useful understanding, and the main topic to research is packet loss.

Whether you're sending or receiving information, that information is stored in small groups called packets. Think of it just like an envelope or bag of snacks or any other real life packet; it's a container, and the data is the stuff inside your container.

A big part of streaming technology is figuring out how big a packet needs to be to reach the destination quickly without being interrupted, and without being so broken apart that the small pieces are lost. It also takes computing power to break things down into packets and seal them off.

When these packets go across the internet, they need to go through traffics just like in real life, and there are different congestion issues at different parts of the trip. The problem could be your computer being too slow to send information to the network card, your home internet being too slow or having errors that slow down the transmission, your ISP's network infrastructure having issues, or the internet at large.

How To Test And Demand Consistency

The last section can be summed up like this: "your internet can be interrupted, sometimes it's not your fault." That said, to fix the problem, you'll need proof beyond just consistency complaints. With just complaints, some ISPs may be able to find the problem on their own, or they may not dig deep enough and put the responsibility on you and your streaming system.

You'll need to run a speed test and a packet loss test. The first test will make sure you're getting the speed you're getting for, and will also be delayed if there are significant consistency problems. DSLReports.com's test will even give you an alert if there's a packet loss issue.

A packet loss test is more specific and can show where the packet loss is happening, either at your computer, your ISP, or different locations or hops on the way to the testing location. Speedtest.net has that test as well.

Speak with a high speed internet service provider if you need help picking out a plan at high enough speed for streaming, and keep packet loss testing tools handy if you notice any performance issues.