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5 hacks to help boost your streaming experience

(Unsplash/Kevin Bhagat)

* Partner Post 

For most people, streaming video is quite convenient, but can occasionally become frustrating. Choppy picture quality or endless loading can make your patience run out when using movie apps like Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, or more. Most people may readily point fingers at the movie apps that they are using or even the internet service provider. However, there are ways that you can ensure a stress-free steaming experience at all times. Here are a few hacks to keep in mind:

Pick the right plan

You can spend lots of cash purchasing cutting-edge networking equipment; however, it will not make any difference if your internet connection in your home is inadequate. There is not much that you can do to make the connection of your ISP reliably fast. However, you can subscribe to a plan that provides the right data allowance and speed that suits your needs. With the right internet plan, you will boost your movie streaming experience.

Stream during the low activity times

Your movie streaming quality will suffer when other people use your internet connection to also download or stream. Additionally, when many people are using the same connection, they will take up a significant portion of the internet and this slows it down affecting your streaming. Make sure that you pay attention to the hours that people in your geographical location stream. In most cases, you may have streaming challenges during the weekends and the post-work hours as they can slow the overall internet speed in your area.

Data caps

Data caps or data allowance is the download limits that some internet service providers will impose on their clients. Every ISP will have its own policies and plans. However, for better streaming experience, make sure that your internet plan allows you to use at least 1 terabyte of data every month without any restriction on the time of day that you use it. With 1TB of data, you will have adequate data for streaming content with ease and browsing other platforms without a problem. However, you may require more data allowance is you love streaming lots of Ultra HD videos. Check out bestdroidplayer.com for more information.

Disable hardware acceleration

Hardware acceleration is mainly associated with slow streams, crashing of media players, and pixelated graphics. When you turn off the hardware acceleration, your machine will enable applications to opt for hardware resource requirements rather than using the universal settings of your computer. This will allow seamless and stress-free streaming of videos or movies on your device. However, make sure that you switch the hardware acceleration back after you are done streaming.

Use Ethernet instead of Wi-Fi

Even though great streaming video devices will support Wi-Fi, most of them will also have Ethernet ports to support a wired connection. Ethernet connections tend to be more reliable and are not inhibited by the bandwidth limitations of Wi-Fi connections. You can easily plug your devices directly into an Ethernet switch or your router. Without the Ethernet Cable, most routers will deliver about half of the speed of your computer or smart TV and this force the media players to downgrade the video quality.

To boost your streaming experience, you should ensure that you stream in the correct quality format. Your device can opt for HD instead of SD to ensure the best resolution. But you can shift to standard definition if it provides a smoother and better streaming experience. Make sure that you also use a free VPN for Routers to protect your streaming experience from your ISP and your information from hackers.