UKC

hello.

despite great protest, i lost. smart tv now in. does anyone know why we haven't managed a single film on netflix without it telling me "we're having trouble playing this right now" and it all going belly up.

broadband speed at 32 on the speed test thing and all should be well - i am right in saying balls to it and putting up with adverts and at least finishing a film, or is there something i can do to make the dancing sprites finish a whole film?

thanks
andy the luddite

In reply to screeweasel:

1. How are you getting your broadband on your TV? If it's wireless it might not be as fast a throughput as you think.
2. Also, check if QoS (Quality of Service) is enabled on your router, that can make a difference.
3. Some ISPs throttle bandwidth at peak times, maybe you've just been unlucky.

In reply to screeweasel:

I find whistling very gently on the vents of my laptop increases my broadband speed. I must admit though, that I only have anecdotal evidence to back that up. Have you been down to your local exchange with a prayer mat to pay your respects recently?

In reply to screeweasel:

I'm really surprised at this, because as someone living in a rural broadband blackspot (we're lucky to ever top 1mb/s since we're at least 6km from the nearest sizeable village (where our phone line runs from) and god knows how far from an exchange.

However, Netflix has always behaved amazingly - and assuming we're streaming in SD then it rarely (eg, maybe once a week max) stutters. I'm so impressed and it puts other streaming services to shame.

One reason for this is that Netflix put their servers directly into the sites of global ISPs, so there are fewer hops from Netflix to you.

Anyway, it sounds like the problem might be at your end rather than Netflix. Have you tried plugging in your smart tv to the router with a cable rather than relying on wifi? If your TV is anywhere near the router then it makes much more sense.


You mean, sitting and watching a film when somebody else deems to show it? Watching adverts? Are you mental?

Go into your Netflix account settings and under 'My Profile' there's a 'playback settings' link. Make sure you're not set to 'high'. I leave it on auto and it works fine.

In reply to screeweasel:
Apologies for the slight hi-jack but is there any way of seeing the full Netflix catalogue? I had a peek on their site but it didn't appear to have such a basic facility, unless I missed something exceedingly obvious!

Edit: I should have said, a catalogue which a non-subscriber can view, before deciding to sign up.

In reply to screeweasel:

Something sounds wrong. 1.5 should work ok - https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
We get about 5-8 and rarely get the stalls

In reply to Fraser:


Search for what you want on this site*: https://flixsearch.io/

It tells you which regions a particular piece of content is available in - it varies. I then use Unlocator to change my Netflix region to watch what I want.

*It's unofficial and isn't guaranteed to be accurate but I use it a lot and find I haven't had a mistake yet.

In reply to yorkshireman:

Cheers, will check it out.

In reply to screeweasel:

We're in a rural area and have had problems with Netflix in the past (between 3-6Mbps when the problem was happening). Sometime recently our Toshiba Smart TV had a bit of a fit. I reset it completely and on starting up it needed an update which I ran. Since then Netflix has run fine. Try checking for updates maybe?

In reply to screeweasel:

If you can try it from a PC

play a clip and click ctrl, alt, shift, D.

this will launch netflix diagnostics and tell you if something is wrong. Post back what you get and we can suggest how you fix it.

MovieId: 70221974
TrackingId: 13589554
Xid: 14509192638888 (14509192638888)
Position: 156.462
Duration: 2860.031
Volume: 100%

Player state: Normal
Buffering state: Normal, ETA:0.000
Rendering state: Playing

Playing bitrate (a/v): 96 / 3000 ( res: 1280x720, par: 1x1 )
Buffering bitrate (a/v): 96 / 3000
Buffer size in Bytes (a/v): 2775565 / 82712569
Buffer size in Bytes: 91219165
Buffer size in Seconds (a/v): 227.580 / 223.538
Will Rebuffer: false
Current CDN: c002.sou001.virginmedia.isp.nflxvideo.net, Id: 22964

Audio Track: en, Id: 656e7c322e307c5072696d6172797c747275657c6e6f6e657c756e6b6e6f776e7c756e6b6e6f776e7c417564696f7c756e6b6e6f776e7c7c, Channels: 2.0, Codec: mp4a
Video Track: Codec: encv
Timed Text Track: en, Profile: dfxp-ls-sdh, Id: 6e6f6e657c554e4b4e4f574e7c756e6b6e6f776e7c66616c73657c656e7c436c6f73656443617074696f6e737c756e6b6e6f776e7c546578747c7072696d6172797c7c

Framerate: 25.000
Current Dropped Frames: 0
Total Frames: 1856
Total Dropped Frames: 4
Total Corrupted Frames: undefined
Total Frame Delay: undefined
Main Thread stall/sec: DISABLED
VideoDiag: readyState=4,currentTime=156.786803,videoBuffered=12.000,videoRanges=152-164,audioBuffered=48.000,audioRanges=128.042666-176.042666

Latency: 0 ms
Throughput: 27750 KBPS
Bandwidth (normalized): 27750 KBPS
Max Sustainable Video Bitrate: 27654 KBPS

DFR: {"480":[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],"720":[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0]}