Content buffering despite high speed connection.

[gb2012]

I've a BDP-S370 which seems to be randomly stalling on playback of web content, particularly iPlayer.  Interestingly cBeebies programmes seem to be unaffected and BBC 2 seems to have the most issues but this may just be a red herring.  Does anyone have any recommendations?  I'm with ISP Zen.

Message was edited by: Catmambo

[mackthen]

Just checked the SONY site and they posted new firmware (vM03.R.742) on Thursday,

Downloaded and updated the player and it hasn't fixed the issue in any way.

Still constantly stalling and buffering on even SD.

On reading through this thread it seems like an awful lot of the people posting with this issue are on o2/Be (as am I).  I wonder if that's relevant?

[Audioguy]

I am now getting the same problem as many here.

Sony BDP-S370 bluray player

ISP 02 (Be Un Limited)

Bandwidth 9.99MB per sec according to speedtest.net

Problem with BBC iplayer

I really dont bother with any other sources apart from iPlayer, DVDs and Blurays so it's a real pain that iPlayer is not working properly.

I was watching Top Gear just now and it froze three or four times. In each case the picture froze but there was no spinning icon or bar along the bottom. After it had frozen I seemed to be able to press Play or Pause and get the bar up but it made no difference to the frozen picture. If I tried to fast forward or rewind at that point and then hit play at that point the box seemed to lock up completely. If after the picture had frozen I hit pause or play I could still hit Return and get back to the iPlayer menus. There I had to start the program again and fast forward back to where I was.

I've never had this happen before but probably only watched iPlayer a few times this year.

Hope this gets through to Sony.

I'm going over to the BBC now and see if I can cut and paste this into a forum there somewhere.

Audioguy

[Audioguy]

After my previous message in this discussion I've experimented a bit more.

I have since watched an hour of "The Chinese are Coming" which was a great program with quality video and had no problems for the whole hour.

I then left the bluray player playing Top Gear again and it has frozen the picture 15 minutes into the program. I could press play to get the bar along the bottom up and there is plenty of buffered program but something in the program has caused the picture on the BDP-S370 to freeze.

Might there be something in the fact that Top Gear is more popular than a documentary about the Chinese in Africa? Maybe the BBC's servers are causing problems with popular programs or maybe they are protecting popular programs against streaming differently?

Audioguy

[planetf1a]

I haven't tried since applying the latest software update on Saturday -- however the descriptions above are what I was seeing too.

This occurred both on O2 LLU (4 Mbps) and since mid Jan on BT Infinity (34 Mbps)

It did NOT occur on EITHER using a samsung internet@tv -- same connection.

[catdevnull]

I havn't tried the latest firmware yet (will do tonight) but I am also having the same problem:

ISP: Zen

Connection Speed: 8Mbps (7150Kbps after BRAS application)

It's interesting that this mostly seems to affect popular streams.

Some (if not most) ISPs use Akamai Cache's for serving iPlayer content I believe (cuts down on their transit costs) - it could well be that popular programs (like Topgear) are served off these cache clusters while more obscure stuff is served direct from BBC iPlayer servers.

Perhaps the incompatibility is with the data coming from the Akamai caches rather than direct from iPlayer servers?

One for Sony's engineering department to look at maybe.

==Edit==

I should probably also point out that I have no problem streaming iPlayer through any other device.

[planetf1a]

I still believe it's a sony bluray implementation issue since I have both a samsung internet@tv iplayer client (on a tv) and the sony iplayer (BDP-S370) both in the same room, same users, same ethernet switch, same bt infinity connection.

I can literally start watching one program on sony, get fed up and switch to samsung for the same program

The sony has these issues, samsung doesn't (though it has another annoying feature - inability to sensible ff/rw)

What frustrates me is that if sony can't locate the problem then add debug/trace to capture additional data & ask for volunteers to run a special version, capture the data (perhaps to USB key) then it can be uploaded and investigated.. That is not hard surely but it does require paying attention to and supporting your customers

Message was edited by: planetf1a

[catdevnull]

Oh aye, even if it is an incompatibility with Akamai cache servers it's still an implentaiton issue on the the device. After all - the servers work with everything else!

The odd thing is there was a reply from what seemed to be a Sony rep early on but nothing in this thread since.

Hey! Mr (or Mrs) Sony person! Can we have an update please?

[Cascy24]

I also think it's sony player problem rather than a server one because my S370 also started the buffering problem around Christmas, after 6 months of perfect I-player performance.

I have a Sony Bravia internet TV (Sony KDL 37 EX503) which plays I-player perfectly for hours at a time using the I-player Beta which came out around November last year.

Both my S370 and TV are both connected to the same  wi-fi router which downloads at a consistent 12.5 megs.

The real question is why is Sony ignoring a problem that has been on this forum, the BBC I-player forum and on other forums since Christmas?

I, like Catdevnull, wonder where the Sony spokesman Catmambo has gone since his request on page one of this discussion for people to give the technical details of their set up so that he could pass the problem on to be investigated.

Quote from his post on page one before he disappeared.

Hi all

Thanks for flagging

Can you summarise

• ISP
  
• Connection speed when this occuring (via your PC at www.speedtest.net)
  
• Only iPlayer or other channels also
  
• Firmware version
  

So we can try and identify where the fault lies.

This can't be doing Sony's reputation any good at all!

[planetf1a]

I'm mostly disappointed not because of the problem itself but because

- no indication individuals with issues are able to get decent responses from sony

- no real involvement here from sony support

for me that's what customer service is about these days -- it's not just about formal support cases tracked (once you break through the armoured guard of level 1) but having a vibrant engaged community.

Sadly I see little evidence of that

[extreme_3d]

Please add another to the list. The wife didn't really see the need for a blue ray player but it was the iplayer feature that won her round. Now all I get is "what a waste of money"

ISP : BeUnlimited

Connection Speed: 13.5Mb

Firmware : Latest (upto this date 15/02/11)

Only seen the problem on Iplayer. No problems up until about Mid-December time. Now problems all the time.

Come on Sony, please sort this out.

Message was edited by: extreme_3d