Hi guys.

I have been going out of my mind trying to figure out what is causing my buffer problems when watching media from sites like 4OD, sometimes I get buffering and sometimes not.

When I first moved to Sweden I searched Google for a solution to access streaming sites from the UK & US, I done some research & came to the  conclusion that SmartDNS is my best options as it does not affect your speed unlike a VPN. I signed up to a provider called 'Trickbyte' partly because it was the cheapest one I could find at $2.99 per month, it gave me access to the sites but was experiencing random buffering & lagging while streaming mostly on 4OD than any other VOD service. I then decided to try other SmartDNS services (UnoTelly & OverPlay) to see if I have the same problem, after a lot of testing I still get the same buffer problem. It is hard to test as I can watch one video and get no problems and then the next video I get buffer problems.

I decided to try VPN service even though all that I have read about SmartDNS VS VPN is that SmartDNS is by far the best solution.

I setup a trial with 'Hide My Ass' and selected a UK server, after a lot of testing I can confirm that there is a noticeable improvement get hardly no buffering or lagging.

I found a post in the 4OD Q&A that explains buffering problems and that one of the reasons is that streams will travel to many computers before it reaches the end point computer. This got me thinking that when using a VPN I get a direct connection to the UK VPN server which will cut out many computers that the stream goes to before mine which equals a less chance in buffering.
Am I sort of on the right lines here? Can I have opinions on this matter please.