Why is it called buffering and not loading of videos?
In: Technology
“Buffer” is a word that roughly means “place for data waiting to be processed.”
Download rates are uneven, it’s just part of how the Internet works. If you have something like a video / audio stream that’s going to be shown to the user, how do you deal with that?
Use a buffer. Say a video has 500 kb of data per second. The user will download 5,000 kb worth of data, that’s 10 seconds. Every second the user watches 500 kb, that 500kb (one second) worth of content “drains” from the buffer leaving 4500 kb. Then download 500 kb more to the buffer to “refill” back up to 5000 kb or 10 seconds.
If there’s a temporary hiccup that makes the download slow/stop for say 7 seconds, the buffer will “drain” all the way down to say 1500 kb. But no problem, as long as the user’s Internet connection is faster than 500 kb per second, the buffer will start to fill back up as soon as connectivity is restored: It will be able to download say 800 kb per second while the user only watches at a rate of 500 kb per second.
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