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Windows Media Player 10 Misc - Inconsistent Streaming Multimedia Playback? Buffer More Content

SUMMARY: This tweak may make streaming video files on slow or inconsistent Internet connections more watchable.

If your Internet speed is inconsistent or slow, and/or when you play streaming multimedia files with Windows Media Player 10 they tend to start and stop haphazardly, you may wish to buffer additional content.

Depending on your configuration, Windows Media Player 10 buffers (stores locally) a small amount of online content before playing streaming media files. This lessens the chance that temporary breaks in the connection will cause breaks in the multimedia file. For example, if you buffer 5 seconds of content and a break occurs for 4 seconds, you will not notice the break since you buffered enough content to offset it. However, a 6 second break would cause a noticeable break in the multimedia.

Increasing the buffer size does have a couple of drawbacks:

* Multimedia files will not begin playback immediately as Windows Media Player 10 must buffer content.

* Buffering increases memory and/or disk usage.

To increase the buffer size:

1. Right-click on the Windows Media Player 10 title bar, choosing "Tools" - "Options".

2. When the "Options" multi-tabbed dialog box appears, select the "Performance" tab.

3. Underneath "Network buffering", select the "Buffer ___ seconds of content" radio button.

4. Next to this radio button, enter your desired number of seconds Windows Media Player 10 will buffer files (up to 60).

5. Click "OK" to close the dialog box.