Audio playback stutters when downloading - what's problem?

[inshaala]

I'm on WM10 but am fairly sure this is a general problem as it happens in
application based playback online as well.

The first time i noticed it was watching a music video online - the music
would stutter continuously until the whole song was buffered and then it
would be ok after that.

Just now i was downloading a rather big game patch and my windows media
player was stuttering while the downloading was taking place. When it
finished it was fine.

Thinking about things i expect if i were to tell you now that it isnt a
problem with system resources as i have checked that - i can play music while
playing on resource hog games - so it must be something messing up on
download.

Can anyone help?

 

[Orange]

I'm on WM10 but am fairly sure this is a general problem as it happens in
application based playback online as well.

The first time i noticed it was watching a music video online - the music
would stutter continuously until the whole song was buffered and then it
would be ok after that.

Just now i was downloading a rather big game patch and my windows media
player was stuttering while the downloading was taking place. When it
finished it was fine.

Thinking about things i expect if i were to tell you now that it isnt a
problem with system resources as i have checked that - i can play music
while
playing on resource hog games - so it must be something messing up on
download.

Can anyone help?

Bandwidth problem ::

a) the connection with the video site is lousy, so your phrase "The first
time .... " makes sense, it can be quite normal especially at peak times.
Use one that has a better download speed.

b) your downloading bandwidth is bad - you have dial up or ADSL ? Check with
your provider what speeds you should be getting.

Run Spybot and your antivirus to make sure you haven't "caught" anything
nasty that takes up bandwidth.

Cheers,
Jerry
Jerry

 

[inshaala]

Bandwidth problem ::

a) the connection with the video site is lousy, so your phrase "The first
time .... " makes sense, it can be quite normal especially at peak times.
Use one that has a better download speed.

b) your downloading bandwidth is bad - you have dial up or ADSL ? Check with
your provider what speeds you should be getting.

Run Spybot and your antivirus to make sure you haven't "caught" anything
nasty that takes up bandwidth.

Cheers,
Jerry
Jerry

Hey - thanks for the reply but that isnt the problem either. The game patch
is completely unrelated to what i am playing. If i play music from my media
player (hard drive) with no downloads running then it is stutter free, add an
unrelated download and it isnt. Does it matter that the music is on a
separate drive to where the download is going to? could that be a problem?

So it cant be a bandwidth problem as the two arent competing in terms of
bandwidth - which is why i was preempting the system resources bit...

(remember it is also the same for playback while downloading - it stutters
when it is downloading but stops stuttering when the video/mp3 is completely
cached - i could see the potential as a bandwidth problem but this happens
even if the cache level is further on from where i am in playing it)

Any other ideas?

 

[Orange]

Hey - thanks for the reply but that isnt the problem either. The game
patch
is completely unrelated to what i am playing. If i play music from my
media
player (hard drive) with no downloads running then it is stutter free, add
an
unrelated download and it isnt. Does it matter that the music is on a
separate drive to where the download is going to? could that be a problem?
No.


So it cant be a bandwidth problem as the two arent competing in terms of
bandwidth - which is why i was preempting the system resources bit...

(remember it is also the same for playback while downloading - it stutters
when it is downloading but stops stuttering when the video/mp3 is
completely
cached - i could see the potential as a bandwidth problem but this happens
even if the cache level is further on from where i am in playing it)

Any other ideas?

You're correct, system resources are not the key.

If you're downloading a big file, its probably taking up most of the
bandwidth that your ISP provides you with, especially if it comes from a
super fast server. If then you downloading a video/mp3, whats happening is
that WMP is "reading" (or playing) the video/mp3 faster than you're
downloading it. Hence the stuttering. It has to pause whilst it waits for
the caching to catch up.

I get this sometimes when listening to something on YouTube even without
adding an extra download from elsewhere, for example. It just happens,
possibly because the file I want to see/listen to is being used by somebody
else (or even several people), or the server is ultra busy. It can also
happen because I may be downloading something else which is taking up
bandwidth provided by my ISP. Is that clear ?.

Cheers,
Jerry

 

[inshaala]

Thanks Jerry you are being helpful and i appreciate that. Unfortunately you
arent telling me anything i dont already know. I still have the problem
outlined in the first part of my last post, that a file played from my hard
drive is affected by an unrelated download of a non media file!

Do you know what might be causing the conflict at all?

And as for the stuttering while playing a streaming file - the play level
never catches up with the cache level (according to the bar at the bottom),
in fact the cache level is normally well ahead of the play level, and as i
said earlier, the stuttering stops when the file is completely cached (the
bar all the way to the right)... so to me it looks like it isnt a bandwidth
problem there either...

Any suggestions?

 

[Chuck]

Think a minute--
The downloading file is "buffered" by storing it on the hard drive.
The network connection is interruptible in that hard drive operations can
get precedence. Both likely get preference to the app used to play the
streaming file.

 

[inshaala]

Ok - so what exactly are you saying - that because of the download speeds i
am getting the harddrive cant keep up read/write capabilities enough to play
a song without the stutter?

Because the harddrive i am writing to is different from the harddrive i am
reading from for the song...

So are you saying that my 3GHz p4 is too slow to process both?

I thought of both options but thought it inconceivable that that was the
reason considering i get completely normal use out of any other program i
run while downloading.

I'd love to be told otherwise so i can rest in peace with this.

 

[snyderwill]

inshaala,

I have exactly the same problem. No one seems to understand me correctly
when I say the audio only stutters when I am downloading something; even
audio from my hard drive. Streaming video stutters, even though there is
adequate buffer. It will stop stuttering when the video is completely
downloaded. I have updated all audio drivers for my Dell Inspiron 530, to no
avail.

One thing I have noticed. If I reboot, the problem goes away for a while. It
is almost like my system resources are depleted and cannot keep up with
simultaneous downloading (read/write) and the playing of independent audio.
In fact, during the stuttering and when I look at my performance tab (under
task manager), I notice that free physical memory is almost zero out of 3mb.
Most of it is "cached."

Please help

 

[woodchopper88]

I also have this exact same problem on a Dell Inspiron 1525. It's driving me
mad!

I'm wondering if the WiFi card is conflicting with the Audio card or
something like that. Maybe a HDD problem otherwise.

Any help would be much appreciated.