Embedded video has black screen when buffering + Slow buffering screencast.com vs. Amazon.

I'm having a similar problem. I’m using CS 8.0.04 and having lots of problems with the table of contents (TOC) option with multiple files. The transition between multiple files is very slow (3 – 8 seconds) with a dark screen between the menu’s multiple files. This has not been a problem in the past (e.g., CS6 or 7). This happens with all browsers.

Here's a summary of correspondence with Mike at tech support (copied with permission). Importantly, TechSmith needs more feedback to prioritize a fix.
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Cause:
I did some digging and spoke to a few folks in development as well. What we found out is that the flash controller we use in Camtasia 8 is completely different than the one in your CS7 links. The newer controller uses a different way of buffering the video which at the beginning can take a tad longer depending on the Internet connection to buffer the videos. This is done to hopefully avoid any stopping and starting during the middle of the playback of the video. On my end with a faster connection the wait times were not as noticeable between CS7 and CS8 but the slower the connection the more difference there will be.

I’m afraid I don't have any other way around this in CS8.

CS8.1 uses the same controller as 8.0.

I have not seen any other reports of this behavior come through tech support. The behavior will be different for every user since they all have different varying speeds of Internet connection. Unless we get more reports of this being a problem I don't see any immediate changes.

Feel free to post this in the community. It would be a good way to find out how widespread the problem may be.

Please let me know if you have any questions.
Kind Regards,
Mike
Senior Support Specialist

with a 4GByte download speed, I was surprised to see buffering throughout the playing of an MP4 file I'd uploaded to screencast.
Worse still, there was a significant (2-4 seconds) delay begfore the buffering occured.
I am based in the UK.. could this be the issue (i.e accessing screencast servers in the US??)

I may need to rethink my video streaming provision as this performance is unacceptable.
Are there any parameters that I can amend or add to the tscplayer_inline embeddedObject to improve this?

regards,
Duncan.

I believe the loading time and buffer time is a common issue throughout all players. I don't think TechSmith can control the variables that affect performance, but what we need, is a UI improvement. When my users click the play button, there is no response or indicator while the video loads. In some instances, I find myself clicking 2 and 3 times because I'm unsure if I clicked the button the first time. By default we see a blank screen, so maybe a solution would be to add a layer for the loading or buffer message.

As a work around, I add a message below the video stating that the video may take up to 1 minute to load.

It's been slow for a fair while. Uploading from Australia is painful - a 4 second (18MB) video takes over a minute on my connection which is 100Mbit fibre. I tested the connection to Lansing MI and I'm getting 14Mbit upload speeds there and 20MBit down.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/4616578774.png

Playback stutters and takes a long time to buffer initially (seems to want to buffer the whole thing?)

I like the convenience and it's great to be able to share help videos easily but not when it's this slow.

Perhaps it's a server load issue?