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computer ? for Luke (or any other geeky brainiac)
That will do it! I now understand where you are coming from. Thank you Carl. 
Comments
I can't seem to play video clips on my computer (windows 98-yeah, i know, i inherited it from fred flintstone-i'll upgrade one of these days)
I had 'windows media player', and the clips would start playing, then freeze-i installed 'realplayer', and same thing...
-they will play if i download them but that takes forever (1/2 hour for a 15 second clip) and i dont want to save everything anyway even if i had this kind of time...i'm very frustrated...
theres GOTTA be a way of watching video w/out downlaoding it...can you help?
(if you can, i'll send $$ to Kyle's blog fund, since i never expect something for nothing...-theres incentive-he'll have you working night and day to fix it for me...)
- you might not have enough RAM (memory) and/or too many things running in the background.
- you might need to get the latest version of media player from Microsoft (free download)
- related to above, the player you're using might not be compatible with win98
- if you have a slow connection (dialup) then it will be slow/choppy and seem to freeze because a clip you watch on the net could be whats called "streaming video" meaning it downloads from the server to your PC and then the player opens and plays as much of the video as is downloaded to the computer .. this could look like it is freezing but in reality it is just waiting for more of the video to be played.
hope this helps.
bob
- Whenever you watch any video, you're downloading it. You have to. Similarly, when you view a web page, you're downloading it. The only difference is that instead of saving the file, it's being stored temporarily. But it's still being downloaded.
- Viewing a video without saving it to the hard drive is called "streaming", meaning the data is "streamed" to the PC as you're watching the video.
- If you're connection isn't fast enough to keep up with the video, you won't be able to stream it. If it takes a half-hour to download a 15-second clip (what is that clip anyway?) then that means that, to stream the content to your computer, you'll have to download what you would normally download in 30 mintues, in 15 seconds. Which is impossible. So it just won't work.
- Bottom line: I think you're computer is fine, if you can watch videos after downloading them. The problem is your connection. Rule of thumb: if it takes you longer to download the file than to watch it, you're going to have to download it (true of all large movies on slow dial-up connections).
Hope that helps. Sorry I didn't have a magic answer. Well, OK, I do, and that is to get DSL, but that's probably not what you wanted to hear. :-)-Your resident Taoist geek (one of many, probably)
I've often found that threatening to reprogramme my computer's major databanks with a very large axe has an amazing effect
What you have to remember is that computers are very stupid - if a computer had legs and you told it to lift up its' left leg then lift up its' right leg, it would fall flat on its' face because it wouldn't know to put its' left leg down first!
I have dsl-broadband, all that...
I've seen streaming video like you describe-this is not, this is just freezing like its losing a connection soon as it starts...
-i've put my problem out to several different friends and sources and seems like i'm inching closer to a solution...
bob, i tried to download the upgrade of wmp, took an hour but at the end of the 5 minute part where i have to input stuff it just said 'upgrade failed, computer shutting down'-no explantion and so, time wasted...i dl'd 'real player' and it ended up ok-though that took an hour as well-i'm so impatient...
I have some telling me real player is crap and wmp is the way to go, and some telling me the opposite-right now i'm not a fan of either, since they're both doing the same thing...
dragons idea with the axe seems like my best bet so far...
i'll keep trying and get back to ya-any other suggestions welcome
Have much RAM do you have? If you have less that 128, I would advise a serious upgrade of that.
Hope this helps!
Tao Nut
arent all video sites 'streaming' that is, so they can be played without downloading to save?
I've been trying all morning-managing to download and watch but not just watch as it loads or anything, as i've done before, even before real player (with just wmp)-there HAS to be an easier way...
experimenting here and there bit nothing helps-i'm near to cussing...
RAM is the amount of memory you have on the computer.
try going to MY COMPUTER, right click then go to properties and under the GENERAL tab it'll tell you how much RAMK you have on the computer.
as for Real Player .. I don't like it, used it ONCE andnever used it again because it takes over the computer and only lets you watch stuff using Real Player (proprietary softaware) and I don't believe the quality is as good as quick time or media player.
not all video is streaming per say. there is some that will store the video in memory and you can't save it to disk... all you get in the temp internet files is the link to the video.
I'd be willing to bet you have either 128 or 256 MB RAM
hope it helps and not Kornfuses
does that help my situation? as far as any more ideas what to do next?
i got friends all over th world working on this problem-LOL-so many working so hard just so i can see monkeys flinging poo...
-but will increasing 'ram' speed up the download time?
and if so, how does one go about increasing it?
What products or services do i need ?
Upping your ram won't increase your download speed. Probably. You never know with computers, but . . .
If you wanted to increase your ram, you would need to buy a "stick" of it. Which kind depends on your motherboard. Or you could ask a geeky friend to do it.
RealPlayer: don't recommend it. Avoid. Quicktime or Windows Media Player is the way to go.
Hey Buddy, do me a favor: go to http://www.numion.com/YourSpeed/. Make sure "Measure your speed to websites in: " is set to "The World", and then click on "Start!" Then give me the "Throughput" numbers. FYI, my numbers were:
Throughput: 58386 Bps / 467 kbps
DON'T USE REALPLAYER, run don't walk from it.
I guess I didn't understand the first posting, I thought you were talking about playing the videos.
upping ram won't make the download faster, but will help with other areas, such as playback, number of things .. etc. one thing, if the computer is older, you might have a hard time finding RAM for it.
fwiw: I went the the speed site and my numbers were
42142 BPS
337 kbps
14 BPS
2 KBPS
naw, just jokin':
44369 BPS
355 KBPS
similar to bob's...