more VOD quirkiness

[olds403]

Have been watching on demand stuff a lot lately. We have a Hopper with Sling in the living room and are watching on a Wireless Joey in the master bedroom. We have been able to access the next episode of shows without having to go back through the On Demand link to find them, so that has been fixed. I recently moved the Joey WAP to get better signal at the upstairs WJ and that has been successful so the issues have not been related to signal to the WJ.

Another thing I have noticed is that if I try to rewind a short amount or skip back, the show will go all the way to the beginning instantly. This forces you to try and skip/fast forward to the spot you were last watching to resume. Of course with forced commercials that won't skip or fast forward that makes this extremely difficult. A couple times I just gave up and went to the next episode even though there may have been 15-20 minutes left.

Also noticed a LOT of freezing/pixelization and buffering of Dish On Demand programming starting around 7pm. It will work fine ALL DAY (last Sunday for example) and then I literally have to switch to the Roku to watch the same shows on DiscoveryGo with no issues. One thing that surprised me was that the same program on Dish On Demand looked MUCH better with more contrast than the same show on the DiscoveryGo app on the Roku, I was not expecting that. So it seems that it is one step forward, then one step back. Cannot figure out what is causing the issue at 7pm, unless it is just the load on the ISP due to all the people watching at that time, although I would expect the same thing on the Roku (but it is not). Nothing changes in my house at that time.

 

[DISH Support]

Another thing I have noticed is that if I try to rewind a short amount or skip back, the show will go all the way to the beginning instantly. This forces you to try and skip/fast forward to the spot you were last watching to resume. Of course with forced commercials that won't skip or fast forward that makes this extremely difficult. A couple times I just gave up and went to the next episode even though there may have been 15-20 minutes left.

Also noticed a LOT of freezing/pixelization and buffering of Dish On Demand programming starting around 7pm. It will work fine ALL DAY (last Sunday for example) and then I literally have to switch to the Roku to watch the same shows on DiscoveryGo with no issues. One thing that surprised me was that the same program on Dish On Demand looked MUCH better with more contrast than the same show on the DiscoveryGo app on the Roku, I was not expecting that. So it seems that it is one step forward, then one step back. Cannot figure out what is causing the issue at 7pm, unless it is just the load on the ISP due to all the people watching at that time, although I would expect the same thing on the Roku (but it is not). Nothing changes in my house at that time.

Usually with On Demand issues like that it could be chalked up to network connection (which may factor), but since other apps are working fine it could be something to do with the box, does it start working normally again at any point after 7pm?

On the remote, we've had other people saying that's been happening, for that we would submit feedback.

 

[olds403]

Usually when it starts acting up around 7pm we switch to the Roku and use the DiscoveryGo app until we go to bed so I have not checked it later in the evening. It has worked fine the next morning on the occasions that I have tried it. I will take a look at the network. The Hopper with Sling is connected by wifi, I do have a really long ethernet cable so I could try a direct connection and see if that changes anything. Thanks for the information.

 

[pattykay]

... We have been able to access the next episode of shows without having to go back through the On Demand link to find them, so that has been fixed. ...

I still have a similar issue on my Wally with U812, connected by WiFi. On the Playback Complete pop-up, whenever I select the On Demand button, the receiver refreshes and kicks me back to Live TV instead of going to the On Demand Menu. This happens every time I try it.

...
Another thing I have noticed is that if I try to rewind a short amount or skip back, the show will go all the way to the beginning instantly. This forces you to try and skip/fast forward to the spot you were last watching to resume. Of course with forced commercials that won't skip or fast forward that makes this extremely difficult. ...

I always hated when that used to happen in the More Video Services app, back when Dish still had the More Video Services app.

...
Also noticed a LOT of freezing/pixelization and buffering of Dish On Demand programming starting around 7pm.

...

Cannot figure out what is causing the issue at 7pm, unless it is just the load on the ISP due to all the people watching at that time...

I had that happen on a couple of on demand events early Tuesday afternoon. (May 19) Fortunately, they were really short events (around one minute long each) so it did not take that long for them to finish buffering and complete playing. Then after that, I immediately watched an hour-long on demand program without any issues at all.

When I used to see this issue frequently, it would always be in the middle of the night. This is when I would expect for there to be a lot less load on the network, due to fewer people being awake.

 

[olds403]

I still have a similar issue on my Wally with U812, connected by WiFi. On the Playback Complete pop-up, whenever I select the On Demand button, the receiver refreshes and kicks me back to Live TV instead of going to the On Demand Menu. This happens every time I try it.


I always hated when that used to happen in the More Video Services app, back when Dish still had the More Video Services app.


I had that happen on a couple of on demand events early Tuesday afternoon. (May 19) Fortunately, they were really short events (around one minute long each) so it did not take that long for them to finish buffering and complete playing. Then after that, I immediately watched an hour-long on demand program without any issues at all.

When I used to see this issue frequently, it would always be in the middle of the night. This is when I would expect for there to be a lot less load on the network, due to fewer people being awake.

Our experience has been that it seems to be a progressive issue, it starts a little with a few freezes and occasional pixelization but then gets progressively worse until the wife says "can we watch this on the Roku?" It generally happens over the course of one hour long episode to the point it is unwatchable.

 

[olds403]

So this past weekend I decided to change the internet connection to ethernet instead of wireless. I found my really long ethernet cable and connected the HWS directly to the WOW router, then put in a fake password to disable the wifi connection. We will see if this helps the buffering/freezing issues with VOD content that I have been seeing.

 

[HipKat]

So this past weekend I decided to change the internet connection to ethernet instead of wireless. I found my really long ethernet cable and connected the HWS directly to the WOW router, then put in a fake password to disable the wifi connection. We will see if this helps the buffering/freezing issues with VOD content that I have been seeing.

Press info>Recall on the Internet Settings page and it will clear the connection settings, instead of using a fake password

 

[olds403]

Press info>Recall on the Internet Settings page and it will clear the connection settings, instead of using a fake password

Thanks for the tip, I appreciate it.