Hi, I'm thinking of getting 5mb broadband from upc and was wondering if anybody has experience of it.. Will it be ok for watching streams ?( you tube etc .. I'm not looking for crazy speeds here > Im using 3 broadband at the moment and it's a complete joke! Thanks for any help or advise regarding this!
The only package i can afford is the 5 mb .. Dont need router as i can work with ethernet cable plugged into laptop. Just wanted to know if it's suitable for watching streams , Thanks anyway!
you could always try with the 5mb (it should be enough) it may pause bit's here and there its just you can only download so much on that package and if its not enough you can always upgrade also as e45 said try purchase it online
I have 5mb with UPC and it streams fine for movie's and video's, sopcast can be hit and miss but I don;t think this is to do with broadband as most weeks its perfect when using a 500-700kb feed, anything higher and it will be un-watchable with all the pauses.. won;t try using HD with it but regular streams are fine.. only thing I;d say is UPC use the term 'up to' so you might not get 5mb, I,m lucky as no one in my area seems to have upc and my broadband is normally higher than 5mb when i test it (about 5.2MB-5.4MB). My parents live on the otherside of city and have the 15mb and usually only ever get about 7mb at peak times.. so it all depends where you live.. turn your wireless on and see which networks you can see.. if they are mostly eircom then your probably in luck.....
i use a few different sites, the speed can vary depending where the test sever is based but i,ve never had any issues using them as a rough guide... speedtest.pl seems pretty good.. when i had 3mb it always came up as 3mb and the day i upgraded t0 5mb it came up 5mb so would seem fairly reliable...
you can change yer settings in SOPCAST to increase the buffer, cuts out the dropping, but you are relying on someone giving good speeds from the off, but have found if you increase the buffer to 30 seconds, it helps alot. Most streams over 700kbps can be helped by doing the above
Hey Mickah. Was playing around with sopcast and couldn;t see an option for increasing the buffer, where abouts should I look??? great tip...
I won;t be an expert by any means, was only telling my experience but just googled it and found the below. http://broadbandireland.blogs.ie/category/upc/
@ Balrock, when you start a stream and its loading up, click the middle of the SPOCAST screen, right click, then Options and then you will see Buffer option, change this to 20 or 30 seconds, secondly you can connect the laptop to the TV using either a HDMI if your lappy has one or using a standard monitor cable, once connected you change the quality of the picture via the laptop, via the properties tab, right click the midle of yer desktop and then properties and then settings, slide the resolution slide upwards, until your screen on the TV goes blank, this indicates the highest your TV can go, slide it back until comes back on, now you have the best res on your TV for watching a game. Once last tip, click the Advanced tab when in settings and change the screen refrash rate to the higest it will go, you should see a vast improvement to your Picture your watching
Hey Mickah... Just tried all your tips out there, huge improvement alright... thanks for the advise...
no worries, SOPCAST is the best player out there, stay away from those webpages with embedded shite on em, loaded with virus's
