Streaming issues

[redrum217uk]

Hiya,

Just after some opinions on some streaming issues I have. I have a Chromecast, it's basically a dongle that plus in the back of your tv and you control it with a mobile phone, it's only out in America for now. It allows me to watch netflix, youtube and so on.

One issue I have with it, is the framerate will drop on films, the sound will be fine and then the framerate jumps up to catch up.

I have tried many way to find out why it does this (thinking it was the chromecast itself) but nothing seems to fix it. I have 2 of these, they both do it and I got my neighbour one, and his does it too. The only common thing is we are both on SKY. The dongle itself sits only a foot away from the router so it can't be poor wifi connection.

In addition to this I sometimes get buffering issues when watching on my PC, it also had excellent wifi reception.

I get around 11 - 13mb/s normally so speed shouldn't be an issue. Below is my BB quality monitor for the last 24hrs (Sorry I can't work out how to embed the picture so it's just the link) I'm also not 100% sure how to analyse the graph but I went out last night at about half 7 and there seems to be some sort of jump about 10pm when I wasn't even in. Is the graph normal?

Could it be connection issues that's causing my buffering problems? I don't have my router plugged into the master socket though, as I get rubbish wifi coverage when I do and there is no difference in speeds for me either, even when I tested it in the master socket I still got buffering problems. Any help would be great


thinkbroadband :: Broadband Quality Monitor

[Isitme]

This review does suggest that the devices lags a bit and is not quite 100% efficient yet. It is due for release in UK next month.
Google Chromecast Review: UK Release Confirmed As March 1 : Prices, Specifications, Reviews | Know Your Mobile

[redrum217uk]

Hiya

From what I can tell the stutter he is referring to is web-casting, basically casting from the chrome browser, that is in beta. Its not that clear if he means YouTube and netflix, which is pulled directed from their servers.

Still doesn't explain why I also get buffering issues when using my PC though? What do you think of the quality monitor does it all look okay? Roadworks.org says they are laying the fibre cables to my cabinet this week so not long until fibre anyway (i hope)

[Isitme]

I think what your graph shows is that you have very poor latency, which can have a very bad effect on video streaming and gaming. I'm not sure what you can do about it apart from checking your voice line for excessive noise.

[redrum217uk]

Ahh right thanks, I might give sky a call and see what they say. I might also move my router to the master socket and see if that makes a difference.

This is my latest monitor http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/e15af0deb3c28d6e644947be37820968-10-02-2014.html

Thanks for your help

[Isitme]

Looks like you had a resync between 9 and 10am, which slightly improved your latency, but it is still fairly high.

[redrum217uk]

Quick update

I phoned sky, they guy was really helpful, they did numerous tests, my router is now plugged into my test socket. He did say there was noise on the line but not bad enough to cause streaming issues (he never said how much is was) He was more concerned that my line speed should by 15mb/s but his stats were showing only 13, and that my connection was synced too low. That with the bit of noise he thinks its network related. I've been given to the next level of support so should hear from them soon.

[redrum217uk]

Just checking out my stats and they don't seem very good for download noise margin?

D/l 15359
Att 28db
noise 5.4db

U/L 1023
Att 15.7db
noise 12.12db

Just have to wait and see what sky say!

[redrum217uk]

Okay so I got my follow up phone call from SKY, the guy did another line test and said he can find nothing wrong with my connection. He did ask if i ever played games, which I said now and then. I did mention my SNR being as low as 5.3 and asked what the ideal number would be, he said 7 to 9.

He then put me on a gamer profile and lowered my speed to 10mb/s but in reality I'm only getting 6mb/s I'm no expert but this seems a little drastic to cut my speed in half to help with some buffering when streaming. I was thinking they my start another 10 day thingy to find a better SNR. On the upside my SNR is 7.3, but I had a quick look at my BQM and my latency is even higher. It is early days of course.




Maybe I'm expecting too much? But I'm not really happy my speeds have been cut in half, the chap was really helpful tho and said he'd call back in a few days to check how I was getting on, I think I'll say I don't like the lower speed and I'll just put up with the buffering!

Saying all that Openreach were laying fibre over night last night to my local cabinet so fibre isn't far away!

UPDATE:

Okay scrap all the above, a really nice guy from SKY called my back (as if they had not called in the first place) I explained how my speed was now half and he said he wanted to try a few more things. Long story short, he reset my profile, he told me I don't need to plug my sky box into the phone line any more and he was surprised at the speeds I was getting given how far away I am from the exchange. He said that I had an unacceptable high level of forwarding errors. We tried various things and he ended up ordering me another HUB but to contact them again if I still have problems.

So wait and see!

[redrum217uk]

Hello,

Can anyone let me know if everything on my BQM looks okay? I've had my SR101 replaced with SR102 and have noticed some improvements in my speed and so on. I tried to watch an HD movie from netflix just now and playback was jerky and the sound kept cutting out, I gave up in the end after only about 15min.

Below is my graph, you can see around 2pm (when I started watching the film) there is a few % of packet loss, would this affect streaming? My latency is also still quite high. If I contact SKY any advice on what I should be asking them?







Many thanks