Research bid to make slow streaming a thing of the past

Anyone tired of slow-streaming or low-quality pictures while watching movies or TV shows online could benefit from potentially revolutionary Irish research.

A six-strong team at University College Cork expects its four-year project to have a major impact on the ability of internet service providers to make best use of their capacity. This, in turn, should result in customers of wired networks — as distinct from mobile and other wireless broadband — enjoying high-quality uninterrupted video playback.

“The amount of online traffic being used for video makes up around half of all internet activity, but that will reach 69% by 2017. This effects the quality, so it can lead to poorer standard picture, or video stopping to catch up while a user is watching,” said the lead researcher, Cormac Sreenan of UCC’s computer science department.