There have been many questions about the Streaming Video offered by TSPN. So below are a list of questions and answers for the general user of the Live Broadcast.
1. Why does the video pause?
a. Many times your windows media player will see that you have a higher connection to properly stream the video to you. So it may require some changes to the plug-in settings to help fix the problem. Below all the questions is a small tutorial on how to change your connection speed with-in the plug-in to remove the buffering.
2. Why is there usually 5 to 10 seconds worth of black when the player first comes up?
a. The Plug-in needs some time to gather a bit of the information from the server. This is called buffering. So there is usually a 5 to 10 second buffer rate that is the default setting for Windows Media Player Plug-in. You can also increase this buffer amount to help with the short term buffering that can happen at having the higher connection rate.
3. Why do I have to have Windows Media Player Plug-in to watch the Live Broadcast?
a. Currently the only format that we currently feed to the net is a window media streaming feed. So the makes it a requirement that you have windows media player plug-in. If you are running a Microsoft Windows Operating System, then you most likely have all that you need. If you are running a Mac or Linux you can download the Plug-in from microsoft.com or from other locations through-out the internet. Just do a search for windows media player for Mac or Linux.
4. My television looks really good but it seems that the live broadcast is of lower quality, why?
a. TV and Internet are two different worlds when it comes to video and how it is handled. Streaming Live Video on the internet, requires a lot of power and a good connections. Our Live broadcast is pumped out from 748K down to 320K for the different bandwidths out there. 748K will be far better quality then the 320K but still good quality in the normal size window. If you run full screen quality will drop due to the fact that the video is compressed and fed to you at a smaller size then TV. But is still being run at a full NTSC format or also known as 30 frames a second. So if you have a good connection and the quality seems to be lacking please check your plug-in settings described below and select what is best going to work for you.
** Please remember that not everything is on our server end that a great deal of how thing work and feel is due to the personal computer that is receiving the Live Broadcast.**
*Tutorial*
If you are having issues with your viewer constantly buffering or hanging up please try the below tutorial it should solve most of your problems with the buffering.
1. Start the Live broadcast.
2. Right Click the video and select Plug-is > Options.
3. Then select the Performance Tab at the top.
4. Go down to the section that says Connection Speed and select the Choose Connection Speed.
5. Select the connection that best suits your connection speed provided by your ISP. ( If you select what is closest to your listed speed and you continue to get buffering often. Then set it to the next lower setting.)
6. Then select the OK button.
Now you are done.
If you don't like the quality of the lower connection rates. Then you have one more thing that you can do. By increasing your Buffer rate, your computer actually downloads more of the video before showing anything so it gives the player more time to download. Do realize that this will put further away from real-time feed from the Television Station. Try different settings anywhere from 15 to 30 secs should do the trick. See the images below for how to do it.
