NowTV

[MartinEB]

It is there to sweeten things when they announce this years price rises - announcement due Monday, for implementation on 1st June.

Customers will have to up to £30 more a year for their TV when the price rises come in on 1 June 2016

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales ... r-11075816

[Miro]

Anybody else having problems tonight?
I can get Ch4 & ITV.
No NowTV at all, no Demand5, BBC buffering badly and then giving up altogether.
Driving me nuts!

[firsttango]

Have you actually opened a ticket and notified SmartyDNS about your issue. I had an issue a few months back with ITV2 on Nowtv box and reported it to them and they were most helpful and solved the issue in 24 hrs. Not had TV on this evening but BBC IPlayer was fine via NOW box this afternoon on both live and catch up.

[Miro]

I have now, thanks. Because some services are functioning, I assumed SmartyDNS was too, so I didn't think it would be a problem with SmartyDNS. We'll see.

I also told them about an issue with the Tunein internet radio app. Stations take a very long time to load, and then after a short while buffer to the point that the only way I can get it started again is to actually reboot the NowTV box. However, shortly afterwards, the same problem occurs, making the app all but useless. I Googled this one, and it would appear that there is a known glitch though with Tunein on NowTV. Anybody else got this problem?

[El Cid]

Anybody else having problems tonight?
I can get Ch4 & ITV.
No NowTV at all, no Demand5, BBC buffering badly and then giving up altogether.
Driving me nuts!

Yes, BBC iPlayer unwatchable. I checked my connection speed and it was about 0.2mb/sec. Upload and ping were fine.

I have raised it with my ISP as it is most unusual - it's usually about 40mb/s.

Sid

[Miro]

I'm pretty confident that speed is not an issue here. My Orange fibre regularly shows 250mb/s on the PC (connected directly to the Orange router). Surprisingly (maybe not?) if I connect the PC to my secondary router (which has the SmartyDNS) it usually only shows about 1/10th of that speed, but even so, 25mb/s should be more than adequate. Just checked now, and both routers are giving around 75mb/s (I'm surprised at how inconsistent and variable the results are) Anyway, since connecting the NowTV via homeplugs on your advice, rather than using the hopeless wifi, buffering has been minimal (an exception was the second half of the England match on ITV on Saturday - missed all the goals!)

I was on to Orange this morning actually, about another issue. For the last couple of weeks my Denon Hifi's internet radio has been suffering dreadful buffering, sometimes every couple of minutes, each time necessitating re-selecting the radio station to get it started again. Makes no difference whether using wifi or ethernet via the homeplugs, either router. It's become unusable. Tempting to think it's a faulty network card in the Denon; it's less than a year old, but is in fact a replacement of the original unit I bought which seemed to have a problem finding and connecting to the wifi. But with the various problems with NowTV, I can't help wondering if it's Orange. I tested the Denon at a friend's place with Movistar and it performed fine, but the test was only an hour, and sometimes I get more than an hour out of it here too before crashing. Orange of course told me they could find no fault with my connection.

Sorry to go off topic a bit, but it's so frustrating, all these network issues. Techie forums are no help, because they're too, well, techie!

[El Cid]

My connection speed is now back up to 45 this morning so it was obviously a temporary glitch.

I have a stand alone Internet radio in our bedroom and was getting some buffering problems a few weeks ago, usually around 8am. I am pretty sure it was a server problem as when I changed to another server it worked fine.

Sid

[Enrique]

Hi,
When your Network connections are running well do the following and save the results.

Windows........ cmd -> in the "Black box" type tracert " to your preferred server"

i.e tracert www.google.co.uk

And note the times it takes on each hop especially the initial ones through your ISP

When things go pear shaped do the above and compare.

Normally/but not always, find its the ISP that is causing the problem.

See not to Techie.................

[Miro]

I have a stand alone Internet radio in our bedroom and was getting some buffering problems a few weeks ago, usually around 8am. I am pretty sure it was a server problem as when I changed to another server it worked fine.

Sid

Complete numpty non-techie question: can you explain what you mean by this? How do I "change to another server"?

Good news: all channels (live and catch-up) are working normally this morning, so I'm inclined to think it was an ISP problem, but there was no speed problem, and why could I get ITV live, and Channel 4 with no problem? BBC actually came back on last night, but NowTV was still not responding at the time.

Hi,
When your Network connections are running well do the following and save the results.

Windows........ cmd -> in the "Black box" type tracert " to your preferred server"

i.e tracert www.google.co.uk

Another numpty question: what is my "preferred server"?! What am I testing for here, and what am I looking for in the results? Can I use this to test for problems with my internet radio?

[markwilding]

I too have got ITV live back this afternoon

[Miro]

Mark, I didn't have a problem with live ITV last night (that's scheduled for tonight I believe!)
Just had a reply from SmartyDNS:

"there was a bug in our system, the issue is now fixed. What refers to Tunein, we don't unblock it, check the link below for our list of supported device and unblocked websites.
https://www.smartydns.com/unblocked-websites/

However, I've added to our "to unblock in the future" list, we'll let you know when/if it will be available."

Well, I guess that explains that then. Little confused by the bit about Tunein: surely it doesn't need unblocking? It's available on various OS, and basically just accesses internet radio stations from around the world, which are not geo-restricted anyway. It works fine on my Android devices, and on the NowTV app, it does work some of the time, it's just very intermittent.

[El Cid]

[
Complete numpty non-techie question: can you explain what you mean by this? How do I "change to another server"?

On your Denon, you may not have an option to change. On my AV receiver which has Internet Radio, there is a fixed server. On my Hama radio it does have the option. I use MediaU which you can set up your favourites online and the radio uses them.

My point was that the buffering seems to be a server problem - it's just that it was easy for me to prove that by changing servers.

By the way, my ISP confirmed this morning that there were major problems in the infrastructure last night and that is was further up the line from them so it could have affected many users apart from just theirs.

Sid

[Miro]

Mmmm...so your ISP had a problem, SmartyDNS admitted they had a problem....strange.

Just had another reply fromSamrtyDNS about Tunein in response to my question back to them (about Tunein not being geo-blocked anyway). They said "we've just checked and Tunein works with our service, not sure why it is not working for you. Try to reinstall your app."
I'll try that and see if it improves, but I've also contacted NowTV & Tunein to see what they have to say.

Sid, another dumb question, how I would I know if my Denon has the option to change server? There is radiodenon.com which appears to use something called vTuner, which perhaps is similar to your MediaU? I'll try it out and see how it works.

[El Cid]

I think my Pioneer AVR uses vTuner (that's the only option) - never had any problems with that, but I rarely use it now as I get all the UK radio from Intelsat 907.

Sid

[Miro]

ITV last night on the NowTV was utterly useless again for the live game. I gave up and went back to Filmon on my mobile via Chromecast to the TV Worked perfectly (apart from the usual poor picture quality, which just seems to be ITV Player). Live BBC was buffering too on NowTV. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that third party apps on NowTV are there purely for catch-up.

I uninstalled the Tunein app and reinstalled it, with no improvement, but I had the following response from Tunein regarding their NowTV app & the buffering issues I am having: "We are currently working on our next product update which we hope will address many issues including the ones that you're experiencing." So that pretty much confirms that it's the app and not my ISP or a server issue.

[markwilding]

I also had problems during the first half of the match yesterday. The picture wasn't great either. However, the second half was much better despite the fact that the Spanish referee needed glasses.

[Miro]

Perhaps he was watching it on ITV too!!

[Miro]

Quick question re: NowTV packages. When you buy a package, does it activate immediately, or do they give you a code to enter when you want to activate it? I want to buy a 1 month Sports pass, but don't want to activate it before I am going to next watch, i.e. on Saturday.

As for my buffering issues, having tested all sorts of combinations, I've come to the conclusion (I think!) that there may be more than one factor at play. I suspect that my ISP (Orange) may be partly the problem - speedtest results varying between 10 & 280 mb/s don't seem right somehow, when I'm paying for fibre 300; but ultimately what it seems to have boiled down to is SmartyDNS. Using their second alternate DNS definitely seemed to improve results over the first alternate, but I've also been trialing Unlocator, and the internet radio has been performing (almost) perfectly, Tunein radio via the NowTV seems to work, and I've not had any buffering on the TV either. SmartyDNS themselves told me it "looks like there is a bad interconnection between your ISP and our servers" and offered me a partial refund, which was good of them. For what I paid for 6 months, though, I think I'll keep the subscription going, just in case Unlocator stops working!

Thanks to everyone for their input and advice

[MartinEB]

Quick question re: NowTV packages. When you buy a package, does it activate immediately, or do they give you a code to enter when you want to activate it? I want to buy a 1 month Sports pass, but don't want to activate it before I am going to next watch, i.e. on Saturday.

You have to activate it with a code - you can leave it (presumably) as long as you want (within reason) between purchase and activation?

[Miro]

Thanks. I actually found the answer after searching their site a bit:
"When you get a Sky Sports Day or Week Pass, you have the option to Start My Pass or Save for Later. When you save for later you have 365 days to activate your pass. When you start your pass it will run continuously. You won’t be able to pause or rewind your pass.
The Sky Sports Month Pass starts automatically from the moment you purchase and can't be saved for later."
So, I better wait until Saturday to buy my pass to get the most from it!