Stuttery Internet TV
Hi all,
I know that Divx have spent quite a bit of time making sure the connected software can access internet based TV channels. For this reason i thought I'd properly check out what's there before writting it off as a load of garbage.
I found that some of the programs on Revision 3 appeal to my geeky side. However, I do not seem able to playback the programs without constant stuttering.
When I go to watch the program i get an option to download. If I choose this option, everything works fine. But if i try to play the program directly it seems to be very stuttery.
I've worked out that if i pause the program for a minute or so and then play then things sometimes improve.
I guess this is down to the speed of my internet connection (which isn't particularly slow, 6Mbits). I don't understand why Connected doesn't stop automatically for a few minutes while the program buffers.
Is this just me?
Do others have this problem?
Has anyone else ever looked at the internet TV channels?
Thanks,
Greenman
PS utube and break work fine (but I guess they are a different format)
PPS I have the very latest server and firmware
Hi dsalmonsen,
Thanks for the quick response.
My system has a wired broadband connection to the PC and then wireless to the DSM330. I don't think the delay would be that difficult to implement, I have two suggestions.
1. Make it user defined, ie. 30 seconds, 2 minutes, etc, etc.
or (and I think this would be best)
2. The system should monitor the download rate, compare this with the size of the file and start to play once it estimates that it can play the whole film without stopping.
For example.
If the download rate is 1000kbits/second and the playback rate is 1500Kbits/second and the film is 30 seconds long. The total film size is 45000kbits.
The system should download 15000kbits (ie for 15 seconds). Then start to play. This will then mean the whole film can complete without any stutters. I guess it would also make sense to build in a safety buffer as well.
These are numbers that I've made up and I don't know how accurate they would be but does this make sense?
This is surely not beyond the wit of man!?? or divx??
What do you reckon?
Greenman.
Even if your ISP bandwidth is great, the path a video takes from the Revision 3 server to your PC can have issues. The revision 3 content is higher quality (higher bit rate) than most of the flash based content so you would see issues with it more often.
It is not really feasible to offer a delay since that is just as annoying and then how long should it be? The best solution is to download first. After a while, you then then may be able to start watching it before the download is complete.
Another possibility, if your PC is wireless, is that the download and the stream to the device are competing for wireless bandwidth. This can be a problem if the service has a very fast download rate that consumes most of your wireless network bandwidth.