Streaming video - advice needed

usignuolo

I am very interested in "extreme" weather and am signed up to a couple of websites in the States where they stream video from storm chasers out in the field. I am having great difficulty getting a consistent signal. It is not merely that they move out of range, they can be stationery and it suddenly goes off line.

One service uses "justin tv" which is an internet start up and claims to have its own "balancing" software which can be used to cover any live event for well over 1000 people. When I am watching the storms, there are usually only around 150 people on line when it crashes out.

It happens so often that I began to suspect the chasers of turning off their feed, and wrote in to ask. They deny it. The other service is called chasertv and seems to be one supertechie running it. He has a much smaller user base and there are rarely more than 50 people online at once but still it throws me off after a few minutes.

I have asked the technical guys at these sites and they say they cannot comment on my case as I am in the UK (although there are other UK users who say they get consistent coverage).

It is not exactly high quality coverage in either case, as they basically stream one frame per GPS capture, so it is not as though I am trying to watch in high def or anything.

The justin tv site uses Chrome as its browser interface but that is OK I have that installed. The other site uses IE. I am using latest Java and Flash (Justin uses Flash) I am running XP Pro on a Dell. Plenty of spare capacity.

Can anyone who knows about streaming advise on what the problems might be. Do I just need more bandwidth? I have a broadband cable modem from Virgin using XL service (up to 20mb).

I am reluctant to upgrade unless I know that is the problem. No point in speaking to Virgin, you just get parroted script from someone in an Indian call centre about unplugging your modem and plugging it back in.