Nowadays there are more and more devices connected to your wifi router. With smart TVs that can be connected to your wifi router for streaming it has eliminated all of the need for cables but there can be issues there if the TV is in a bad location. If you have a wireless router that is not sending out a strong enough wireless signal your TV can continually buffer.
What is buffering? You can tell it is buffering when the program or movie you are watching stops and you see that arrow running in a circular motion. Many times it will even display a message saying that it is buffering. Buffering is caused when the reserve of data coming into the TV is insufficient. When you watch a movie it isn’t just one long stream of video coming into the TV. It is broken up into packets(small pieces of data) as it comes from your streaming service and is then reassembled as it comes into your TV. Those data packets are coming through your TV like an assembly line. There should always be a reserve of these packets so that the video does not stop. It stores these packets in a buffer area inside the TV. If it did not have this reserve your movie would be choppy and erratic as you watch it. If the buffer empties out, the movie stops to allow the buffer to refill. That’s when you get the buffering message.
What causes the buffer to empty? If you have a slow or erratic connection to your wifi router it will cause that. If your internet connection to the outside world is slow it will cause this to occur. In our area there is generally Century Link and Sparklight. Century Link is just not a good service if you’re going to be running multiple TVs at the same time. If you are running one TV close to the wifi router it will work most of the time. We also now have cell internet service through T-Mobile and Verizon. Those can work if you have the wifi router in the right place. If you need help I’ll be glad to come out and troubleshoot the connection and identify the specific problem. There are a number of inexpensive solutions for this problem.