As many of you know, the number one source for the latest Hatsune Miku songs and videos always has been and always will be NicoNicoVideo.
Improving buffering speeds with a Japanese VPN
With the recent changes on the latest version of nicovideo.jp many users might have noticed that response speeds and buffering times seem to have highly increased.
The reason for this is that the videos are now partly buffered/stores on a different server than before. This server has a much worse route (read: connection) with some of the American Tier-3 providers. This means that no matter of your internet connection, the video will load much, much slower than you might be used to from before.
This problem can be bypassed currently by using a Japanese Proxy, or better a Japanese VPN. Most VPNs are commercial services, but are available over at vpntraffic for as low as $10 for three months. Using a Japanese VPN will make it almost as if you were actually browsing websites from Japan. Your IP will be Japanese and all websites will see you as if you were browsing from Japan directly. Of course the data is still being routed back to wherever you are, but the routing paths with a proxy or VPN are much better than the current default Nicovideo servers.
In our testing the buffering speeds on a popular video at primetime have gone up from 40kB/s to up to 1300kB/s.
Using a download tool
For those with more patience, who do not mind watching a video with delays, there is always the option to download a video directly instead of attempting to watch it while buffering. You can use the popular Firefox extension NicoFox to download any video or song from NicoNico to your computer. With NicoFox, you can download videos first and then watch them without interruption from your computer. NicoFox even saves the comments for each video, so you are not missing out on that either.
Summary
- Improve buffering speed directly with a Japanese VPN
- Use NicoFox to permanently store videos on your computer
We hope that these steps help you to enjoy viewing Nico videos without much interruption again. If you know of any other ways to get around the current problems, let us know in the comments below!
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