Tech Support

[Lintyfresh85]

20mbps is more than enough to stream MLB.tv in HD.  The proxy's speed is what's killing you.

Really? When I run Netflix, it is still really blurry and I can't even watch a YouTube video in 360p without pausing it to let it load... otherwise it'll freeze up every 15 seconds.

[Nathan]

Really? When I run Netflix, it is still really blurry and I can't even watch a YouTube video in 360p without pausing it to let it load... otherwise it'll freeze up every 15 seconds.

If on wireless and at extreme range, you could experience crappier bandwidth.  Same goes if you are on an older 802.11b wireless router.  Or it could just be that your internet is advertised as being at the 20mbps tier and you aren't getting it.  Check out what you get somewhere like speedtest.net, which will test your speed in the browser (no programs to download).

Also, YouTube can be notoriously slow to load even with great internet.  Sometimes on my connection (I get around 22mbps on speedtest.net) I can't load a 360p YouTube video.  The HD advert before the video loads instantly, but the 360p video I want to watch will stutter to all hell.

[Lintyfresh85]

If on wireless and at extreme range, you could experience crappier bandwidth.  Same goes if you are on an older 802.11b wireless router.  Or it could just be that your internet is advertised as being at the 20mbps tier and you aren't getting it.  Check out what you get somewhere like speedtest.net, which will test your speed in the browser (no programs to download).

Also, YouTube can be notoriously slow to load even with great internet.  Sometimes on my connection (I get around 22mbps on speedtest.net) I can't load a 360p YouTube video.  The HD advert before the video loads instantly, but the 360p video I want to watch will stutter to all hell.

20 mbps is what I got from speedtest.net, tonight. I don't know what type of wirless router I have... but that could be a problem.

Router is from Netgear - WNDR3400v2

Not sure if that's too old, or not.

[Nathan]

Nah, if you're getting 20mbps from speedtest.net through the router then it's got to be at least a g.  Not sure what kind of device you're using to watch things streaming online, but I can assure you that 20mbps is more than enough to do it in "HD" (even though it's still not HD).  I've even streamed on 2 devices in HD on my 20-ish mbps connection.

[Nathan]

20 mbps is what I got from speedtest.net, tonight. I don't know what type of wirless router I have... but that could be a problem.

Router is from Netgear - WNDR3400v2

Not sure if that's too old, or not.

Damn ninja edit.  No, that's an n router, so you are fine.  I have a WNDR3400 (I think it is) and it SUCKS.  I get really "spiky" speeds after a few days of it being on and have to reboot it.  Try that. 

[mitlen]

Nah, if you're getting 20mbps from speedtest.net through the router then it's got to be at least a g.  Not sure what kind of device you're using to watch things streaming online, but I can assure you that 20mbps is more than enough to do it in "HD" (even though it's still not HD).  I've even streamed on 2 devices in HD on my 20-ish mbps connection.

Damn this is scientific.

[Lintyfresh85]

I'm starting to think it may just be may laptop.

I am running Mac OS X (10.5.8 ) Leopard, and I know Firefox no longer supports this OS anymore... so I'm guessing that's a large part of the problem right there.

I also can't update my Java or basically anything else on this Mac as it's all out of date.

[Slateman]

What is proxy speed?

[lastobjective]

What is proxy speed?

That's the "speed" of the proxy - how fast it uploads/downloads information to/from you. You use the same words for a fast or slow website - if the website loads slowly, it has a low "speed", if it loads quickly, a high "speed".

Think of it this way:

Say your internet has a speed of 20MBps, but your proxy only has about 5MBps speed (the "proxy speed"). If you're using that proxy, you'll only go the lowest speed of the two - 5MBps in this case. You can never go 20MBps because the proxy just doesn't go that fast. This works in reverse too; if your proxy has a speed of 5MBps and your internet is 1.5MBps, then your internet is only going to go 1.5MBps, despite the fact that the proxy is faster than that.

That's my understanding of things, hope that helps.