The spinning circle right before the good part. Here is what your device is really doing while you wait, explained with a bucket under a tap.
The spinning circle. The frozen frame right before the good part. We all know the feeling, and almost nobody knows what the machine is actually doing while we sit there waiting.
Your device stockpiling a little bit of video ahead of time so playback stays smooth.
Old-fashioned radio and over-the-air television arrive at a rock-steady speed. The internet does not. Thanks to things like bandwidth and congestion, data online shows up in fits and starts, quick one second and sluggish the next.
So your device plays a clever trick. Instead of showing each piece the instant it arrives, it lets a little pile up in a bucket first, then serves the video out of that bucket at a nice even pace. If the connection stumbles, the bucket does not refill as fast, but there is already enough sitting inside to keep you watching while things quietly recover.
Buffering is your device building a small cushion so a bumpy connection feels smooth.
The wheel shows up when the bucket finally runs dry. Playback has caught up to the last of the stored video and now has to sit and wait for the connection to dribble in enough to start again. More lag or a weaker signal means a slower refill and a longer stare at that circle.
This is exactly why pausing a video for a minute often fixes the stutter. You are giving the bucket time to fill before you start drinking from it.
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