Software Requirements

Posted by on 2009/03/31 | Views: 98326 |

Software Requirements
To enjoy videos at OnlineNigeria.com, you will need the following software installed on your computer:




  • Internet Explorer 6.0 or above, Firefox 1.5 or above, or Safari 2.0 or above


  • JavaScript and Cookies must also be enabled


  • Adobe Flash Player 9.0.115 or above


  • Microsoft Windows XP SP2, Microsoft Windows Vista, Macintosh OS X or Linux

In addition, you will need an internet connection with sufficient bandwidth. Our videos stream at 480Kbps or 700Kbps, and we'll adjust our stream based on your bandwidth, but we recommend a downstream bandwidth of 1,000Kbps or higher for the smoothest playback experience. You can test your downstream bandwidth at http://www.speedtest.net. Once there, click on the yellow pyramid on the map (if none of the pyramids are yellow, select one that is closest to your geographic location). This will initiate a speed test. Once complete, your downstream bandwidth is displayed in the "Download" box near the top of your screen.


Some of our videos now come in a 1,000 Kbps, H.264, 480p stream. You can recognize these streams by the 480p Hi-Res button that will appear in the lower right of the player. To watch these high-resolution streams, you'll need to upgrade to Flash Player 9.0.124.0. We recommend a downstream bandwidth of 1,500Kbps for the smoothest playback experience.


You'll also need Flash Player 9.0.124.0 to watch the 720p clips in our HD Gallery. Those are encoded at 2,500Kbps, and we recommend a downstream bandwidth of over 3,500Kbps to stream those. You can also pause the video and allow the streams to buffer before playing.


 

Buffering


When a video is paused, OnlineNigeria.com loads a small portion of the video into your computer's memory. The buffer progress bar allows you to see how much of a video has been stored, and when the bars reach "full," about five minutes of the video have been loaded. (Due to legal reasons, OnlineNigeria.com currently does not buffer more than a small portion of a video at a given time.)

Buffer


For users who are experiencing choppy playback due to network congestion, this progress bar lets you know when the video has reached its buffering limit so you can hit "play" and enjoy the show.


Stuttering
Stuttering videos are, unfortunately, among the hardest problems to diagnose. A good rule of thumb is:


  • If both the video and audio stutter while you are viewing, you are most likely experiencing issues with your internet connection.
  • If the video stutters but the audio is fine, you are most likely experiencing issues related to your computer's hardware and/or software configuration.

Here are some general suggestions that may help.


  • Are you watching video over a wireless connection and your video is stuttering? If so, try it over a wired connection.
  • Do you experience video stalling problems only during fullscreen mode? If so, try lowering your desktop resolution.
  • Are you running any bandwidth-intensive applications on your own computer (e.g. Vuze, BitTorrent, Outlook, other downloads, internet phone services such as Skype, Vonage, MagicJack)? If so, you may want to pause these applications while watching videos on OnlineNigeria.com.
  • Are you sharing an internet connection with other people? If so, check to see if they are using any bandwidth-intensive operations while you are watching videos.
  • Is the CPU usage on your computer unusually high while watching videos on Hulu? On Windows, you can check this by right-clicking on your task bar, launching the Task Manager, and going to the Performance tab. On a Mac, go to "Applications," then "Utilities" and launch the Activity Monitor. If the CPU usage is above 50% (or 100% on Mac with a dual-core processor), try shutting down any applications that may be using your CPU.

If you're still having issues, you can use the following steps to try to diagnose the problem:



  1. Pause the video and allow the buffer to reach "Full." Once it's full, try playing your video again. If the video is still stuttering, you may be experiencing issues with your CPU performance. Try turning off any CPU-intensive programs you're running. Additionally, you can try running OnlineNigeria.com in a different browser, or updating your Flash drivers. If the video is no longer stuttering, your CPU usage is probably not the issue.
  2. Perform a Speed Test of your connection. This can be accomplished by going to http://www.speedtest.net. Once there, click on the yellow pyramid on the map (if none of the pyramids are yellow, select one that is closest to your geographic location). This will initiate a speed test - once complete, examine the results. If your download speed (indicated by the down arrow) is below 1,000Kbps, then your bandwidth is fairly limited. You may want to consider limiting your viewing experience to the standard 360p videos, as higher-quality streaming will be more to likely stutter. If your download speed is 1,000Kbps or above, your bandwidth should be able to stream video from Hulu. To watch videos from our HD gallery, we recommend a speed of 3,500Kbps or more.
  3. Perform a Traceroute. If you receive an output with 13 or more hops, the problem is most likely related to how your ISP is routing your computer's requests to Hulu. Unfortunately, OnlineNigeria.com is unable to fix this problem — you can try contacting your ISP's support desk to request help. If you receive an output with 1-12 hops, the issue is probably not related to your ISP.
  4. If you've tried everything else, contact Hulu. We can try to address the issue to see if there's something on our end. Fill out the form at www.onlinenigeria.com/contactus and our support team will take a look.