What's the speed of your internet connection?
You can check it at
http://www.speedtest.net.
You're going to need at least 1 Mb/sec at a fairly consistent rate for the video to load comfortably, with the load buffer consistently preceding the play head.
When we started this website 15 years ago, our video was small, grainy and pixelated with choppy motion, and you nonetheless had to wait 1-2 minutes to download them on a 56K dial-up modem. Since then, we've been slowly upgrading our video quality to target the average user's connection speed. Right now we're using standard iPhone settings, which look quite nice and are well within the capabilities of most home connections for streaming, but sometimes still require a small wait time for 3G and older mobile connections, depending on the user's location.
Many older DSL connections are just about right on the 1Mb/sec mark, so they should work. Dial-up is way below, so expect some wait time if you're still on dial-up. Modern DSL and cable go as high as 30 Mb/sec, so if you're using that you should have no problems.
Celphone companies with data plans will be extremely inconsistent. 3G is supposed to be sufficient, but it tends to top out at about 1 Mb/sec, and in most locations it's a lot less. So if your signal isn't at a solid 4 bars you're unlikely to stream without some stutters. The newer 4G speeds can easily take the video smoothly, but again location and signal strength makes all the difference.
If you are using primarily a mobile device with 3G to access our content, and the waiting for a complete download bothers you, then my advice is to wait to upgrade your user account to premium until you've upgraded to your next mobile device, and make sure to get one that's 4G-capable. Or if you're at home or in a dance studio with WiFi, try connecting to that instead.
Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com
