80% of Viewers Will Click Away if a Video Stream Rebuffers

[Jon Childs]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://newteevee.com/2009/12/10/4-out-of-5-viewers-leave-if-a-stream-buffers-once/' target='_blank'>http://newteevee.com/2009/12/10/4-o...m-buffers-once/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"More than 81 percent of all online video viewers click away if they encounter a clip rebuffering, according to a new study by Tubemogul. The Emeryville-based video distribution and analytics startup took a close look at 192 million video streams over the course of 14 days to figure out how much rebuffers matter. The result: 6.81 percent of all streams rebuffer at some point, and around 2.5 percent rebuffer twice"</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1261538657.usr486.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>People are not very patient with re-buffering video streams. It appears that online video streaming will not be viable until the end to end solution is a lot more reliable. Viewers are not willing to accept videos that pause almost seven percent of the time.&nbsp;It seems like an odd phenomenon. People will wait through commercials (or at least until they can fast forward their DVR past the commercials) to watch TV, but if an online&nbsp;video re-buffers for a couple seconds they will quit watching.&nbsp; Maybe people who watch videos online are used to instant access to everything on the Internet. Alternatively,&nbsp;maybe they are more willing to wait for commercials to watch Grey's Anatomy than to watch a video of some strangers cat running into a window on YouTube.</p>

[Jason Dunn]

I'd sure believe it - there are only so many times I can see the word "rebuffering" before I get impatient and click away to something else. You raise an interesting point about commercials - since I watch 99.9% of TV now off a PVR, I skip commercials. So when I'm watching something and the playback stops for 10+ seconds...I'll have to REALLY like what I was watching to put up with that more than a couple of times.

[alanjrobertson]

Isn't it to do with reliability? You might sit through ads as you know how long they'll last for, but if a stream keeps rebuffering then you're likely to get frustrated and wonder if it will ever settle down. I much prefer sites like Youtube that allow you to pause the vid at the start and let the buffer at least partially fill up (with visual confirmation) before you start watching.

[whydidnt]

The other thing to consider is that most commercials are inserted at a logical break in the program. When a streaming video pauses to rebuffer it typically is mid-sentence, or at least not at a logical point for a break. Much more frustrating as you tend to lose the point of thought, etc.