Are you having some trouble playing a video on TED.com? Here are some common issues and solutions:
The video quality is poor, or it buffers too often.
The TED.com video player is designed to automatically adjust playback resolution based on the available internet bandwidth. You might try checking your WiFi or data connection strength, which could require rebooting your modem or router.
The video has no audio.
We have found that many Windows NT users (including Windows 7, 8 and 10) have experienced problems playing TED videos due to an incompatibility with our TED.com HLS video player. This usually manifests in lost audio.
As a temporary workaround to watch individual talks, try the embed player version: https://embed.ted.com/talks/
Or, try downloading the talks to watch offline (our download article can show you how).
Certain types of videos won't play.
Sometimes the reason a video won't play on TED.com is because it's part of our TED-Ed series, or it came from an independent TEDx event, both of which are hosted on YouTube.
TED-Ed videos and most TEDx content are actually embedded from YouTube on TED.com, not added as unique files (we call this non-featured content). This means that any usual governmental, local, institutional, or organizational restrictions on YouTube will apply, so the content will not be viewable on TED.com. I'm afraid we don't have a workaround for YouTube restrictions.
If you're still having trouble watching videos, try these other troubleshooting steps:
- Update your internet browser to the latest version using http://outdatedbrowser.com/
- Check that firewalls, Flash-blockers, or other plugins (like Flashblock, Adblock or Ghostery) allow traffic from TED.com
- Clear your browser cache (http://www.refreshyourcache.com/en/home/) and delete cookies (http://www.whatarecookies.com/delete.asp), then reload TED.com
- Try using a different internet browser, if one is available
If none of the troubleshooting steps help, please reach out to us at contact@ted.com with the following information:
- Link(s) to the video(s) you’re having trouble with
- Copy/paste the link from What's My Browser
- A description of the problem (the video won’t load, pauses or stutters, etc)
- A screenshot of the issue