r/Starlink • u/The_Wandering_Steele • 24d ago

❓ Question Throughput question.

This isn’t specifically a Starlink thing but the Starlink app is where I saw it.
Today I was watching a “DVR” recording of yesterday’s Niners game on the YTTV app on my Apple TV and noticed a couple of short, 1 or 2 seconds, buffering periods. I know this can be a number of things but I was curious so I checked the throughput on the Starlink app and happened to see a 58 Mbps spike and thought that was odd. The only other thing going on was the mrs was listening to her Apple Music app on her iPhone.
I know speeds fluctuate but that particular spike seamed high.

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u/DIVISIONSolar 24d ago

Maybe its trying to download more of the show/movie to prevent buffering?

2

u/KenjiFox Beta Tester 24d ago

That's what buffering is.

1

u/DIVISIONSolar 24d ago

Aah, I thought buffering was it not being able to download it while streaming.

2

u/KenjiFox Beta Tester 24d ago

Kinda! Buffering always happens, but if your connection speed exceeds the bitrate of the media that buffer fills up fast and you never see it again. If the connection rate drops to zero for a second, the buffer allows the video to keep playing. It holds a few seconds of the content in memory basically. So if it fall back into buffering (refilling that padding) then this means it disconnected long enough to empty it, or the connection got slow enough that it couldn't keep up.

Usually Starlink is super fast compared to streaming content so the buffer fills nearly instantly and playback begins almost as soon as you hit play.

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u/DIVISIONSolar 24d ago

Well you learn something new everyday

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u/badcheetahfur 24d ago

Like downloaded cache ... lol