Shows the day after and jumpy video - Google Chromecast

2 Issues (are others seeing these problems?):
1) Twice now I've tried to play two rather popular shows the day after initial showing (Castle and Walking Dead) during "prime time" (around 8pm est) and they wouldn't load the most recent episode. It would act like it's casting, the episode would flash up on the tv, and then it would go back to the play movies and tv casting screen on both the tv and my phone. Meanwhile, older episodes and purchased movies streamed fine. I"m wondering if it's some kind of server overload or something.
One more thing to note, the episodes played fine directly on my phone
2) When playing video on Play Movies and TV I seem to get these little jumps in the stream. Not buffering, maybe better described as frame rate lags or a dropped frame or something. Nothing crazy noticeable but annoying none the less. I don't see this on Netflix. Anyone else see anything like this? Is it my connection or what? Any thoughts on the matter?
Regardless of my issues, here's hoping this thing takes off!

Unfortunately the jumpy video is a symptom of the poor performance of Google's tab-casting code. It requires your computer to do the transcoding of the stream in real time with very little buffering, and Google's "beta" code just isn't up to the task on any but the very fastest computers. Plex does a far better job transcoding the same streams on the same computer.

I was referring to casting from my phone as the device was intended, not a tab cast. Unfortunately I have found that my laptop cannot handle casting as it's too old . But thank you for the reply
Sent from my SCH-I545 using xda app-developers app

Related

Chromecast and new Nexus 7, YouTube issues

Hello,
I am using Chromecast with my new Nexus 7. I have issues with YouTube, since it plays perfectly the first video I start but always timeouts on the next one I try to play. I have to disconnect and reconnect to be able to make YouTube video streaming work again.
Any ideas of what might be the problem?
Thanks in advance!
I haven't noticed this on my Nexus 7 (2013). I will check again tonight and will report.
Mine is very seemless. I tried creating queue And they played all without any glitch. Check your internet connections?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
Screw Google Chromecast
Yeah, the chromecast sucks. Don't buy one. I was excited, but it just goes to a spinning circle all the damn time. A 6 minute 480p video took 25 minutes to play. That's 19 full minutes of the buffering circle.
Before you jump on my ****, I do IT for a living, it's got 2 bars, and all 10 other devices have NO issue playing youtube (on the same wifiN router), so don't go there.
Yes, that's more or less what happens to me. Resetting the device makes it work again, I assume it might be because Chromecast gets very worm, I can't find any other explanation than cheap hardware.
crhylove said:
Yeah, the chromecast sucks. Don't buy one. I was excited, but it just goes to a spinning circle all the damn time. A 6 minute 480p video took 25 minutes to play. That's 19 full minutes of the buffering circle.
Before you jump on my ****, I do IT for a living, it's got 2 bars, and all 10 other devices have NO issue playing youtube (on the same wifiN router), so don't go there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I was disappointed that this thing didn't have an ethernet port. For wireless, I noticed it doesn't even run on 5Ghz. At least not properly, I don't think. I need the router in the same room for it to run ~smoothly
Otherwise, when my brother leaves the tv on while I'm up in my room. I play scary youtube videos with loud noises to wake him up.
crhylove said:
Yeah, the chromecast sucks. Don't buy one. I was excited, but it just goes to a spinning circle all the damn time. A 6 minute 480p video took 25 minutes to play. That's 19 full minutes of the buffering circle.
Before you jump on my ****, I do IT for a living, it's got 2 bars, and all 10 other devices have NO issue playing youtube (on the same wifiN router), so don't go there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As an IT guy you should understand that every situation is unique. The good news is that there's almost always a solution. The times when problems can't be solved are rare. I would encourage you to look at other avenues to solve this so you can help others when they need it. Your blanket statement that it's a bad product and doesn't work simply isn't the norm. Most experience the opposite of you.
I did have problems with my Actiontec router but found a solution. My daughter, who also has an Actiontec router in her condo just plugged it in and it worked. She's a doctor and, believe me, her technical skills are not that great. It just worked for her. Another daughter of mine, a school teacher, had the plug and play experience also. Just works.
Like you, I work in IT. I manage 80 IT folks. The one thing I stress on my staff is a little message that a Calculus professor used to tell us when I was an undergrad at UCLA: "There are so many ways to solve the problem you can't help but get the right answer." So, I challenge you to keep trying and don't give up. I'm sure there's a solution for you. Once you find that solution your skills will have been enhanced and you'll be better able to help others that come here with similar problems.
Good luck
giuliastro said:
Hello,
I am using Chromecast with my new Nexus 7. I have issues with YouTube, since it plays perfectly the first video I start but always timeouts on the next one I try to play. I have to disconnect and reconnect to be able to make YouTube video streaming work again.
Any ideas of what might be the problem?
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This appears to be a glitch not resulting from any sort of connection. The issue isn't signal but some sort of failure in the code. What happens is it plays a video, goes to queue up the next one, shows the banner and dies. A fix is to toggle the app to play on the device and then back to the TV but it clears your queue which is annoying. Once its toggled it immediately plays for me.
Hoping they fix it soon. But it isn't a deal breaker by any means.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 4
Yes, by switching device / tv then video plays. I really hope it's some coding bug and not heating related, since code fan be fixed.
TabGuy said:
As an IT guy you should understand that every situation is unique. The good news is that there's almost always a solution. The times when problems can't be solved are rare. I would encourage you to look at other avenues to solve this so you can help others when they need it. Your blanket statement that it's a bad product and doesn't work simply isn't the norm. Most experience the opposite of you.
I did have problems with my Actiontec router but found a solution. My daughter, who also has an Actiontec router in her condo just plugged it in and it worked. She's a doctor and, believe me, her technical skills are not that great. It just worked for her. Another daughter of mine, a school teacher, had the plug and play experience also. Just works.
Like you, I work in IT. I manage 80 IT folks. The one thing I stress on my staff is a little message that a Calculus professor used to tell us when I was an undergrad at UCLA: "There are so many ways to solve the problem you can't help but get the right answer." So, I challenge you to keep trying and don't give up. I'm sure there's a solution for you. Once you find that solution your skills will have been enhanced and you'll be better able to help others that come here with similar problems.
Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every IT situation is unique, sure. But this device can't keep from constantly buffering even at 480p. It's ridiculous. And no, it's not the router. I have 5 android phones, 3 laptops, and 2 android tablets that all play youtube without EVER stopping in the middle of the video, and most of them at 1080p. 2 of those phones are really old ones (model escapes me at the moment, I don't use them much these days). It's the device. It's not either of my routers, it's not my 30mb down connection, and it's certainly not user error or network congestion. Probably the NSA backdoor google installed in it is slowing it down.
F Google, and F this broken crap device.
Oh, and additionally it can't play side loaded songs from my phone in Google Play music. It can't even stream an mp3 WITH NO VIDEO. This is not just bad hardware, this is outright crap design.
"Connecting..." in YouTube
I'm seeing something similar too... I can playback the first video fine, the tablet then displays "Connecting..." in the YouTube app - but I can't control the video or add new videos to the queue. I have to kill the app to play another video. BTW, same thing happens on my Nexus 10... but I don't see the problem if I'm using a PC+chrome. I've got another Chromecast that should be coming in a few days... so will compare to see if it is a hardware issue or something else.
I was watching YouTube on my Chromecast yesterday and had something very similar happen. The first video I watched had no problems but every video after that had buffering problems. I even tried re-casting it, leaving the app, and restarting it but the problem didn't go away. I thought it was a heat issue so I disconnected it and haven't tried it since but am going to try again tonight. They were long videos (about an hour or so each) but I doubt that has anything to do with the buffering issue.
I know it wasn't my internet because when I played YouTube on my laptop and my PS3, it could stream at the highest quality no problem. It seems to be only happening on the Chromecast.
crhylove said:
Oh, and additionally it can't play side loaded songs from my phone in Google Play music. It can't even stream an mp3 WITH NO VIDEO. This is not just bad hardware, this is outright crap design.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haven't really played around with it but I can agree with you on the fact that it WILL NOT play side loaded music which is just crap. What's the point of having it connect to your device to stream music if it CANNOT play it?? Stupid if you ask me, I hope that GOOGLE is planning on fixing their device. Why put a plug in from people rooting the device and being able to make the device work the way they want it to? Sorry your device doesnt work either..
-AkWingnut
I am still having this issue. Basically with YouTube not being able to stream 2 videos in a row the device is crap. Still waiting to be able to stream local pictures and videos, Google please hurry.

Audio stuttering from YouTube and Play Music

So, casting from Netflix seems to work fine, but anything from YouTube or Play Music results in audio so choppy it sounds like a toddler trying to learn to be a DJ. Video from YouTube plays fine, with no hesitation. Any ideas?
Local files seem to be okay as well. Netflix audio stutters a little at first (maybe 1min),but eventually smooths out. It still does it long enough to be annoying. Kinda regretting my chromecast...
Really, no one?
no issues like that here. well once a youtube video did after i resumed from pausing it reloading the vid solved that issue.
Local files? you're still able to play them?
Yeah, dropping a file into Chrome and casting the tab seems to work. When casting a tab, I'm assuming that a mild delay is typical, right?
To some degree as that is still in beta. Network conditions also play a bigger part when casting via chrome
Sent from my C6506 using Tapatalk 4
Well, someone (on another site, obviously) suggested it might be a bad unit, so I returned it. Grabbed another today...and same thing. Is there a particular wireless security type that it doesn't like? I'm on a 2.4Ghz router. Is there a particular channel that's better?
stick1300 said:
Well, someone (on another site, obviously) suggested it might be a bad unit, so I returned it. Grabbed another today...and same thing. Is there a particular wireless security type that it doesn't like? I'm on a 2.4Ghz router. Is there a particular channel that's better?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en
Use WPA-personal/WPA-PSK is sufficient.
I'm using WPA-personal. And all WiFi Analyzer seems to be telling me is that I have great reception. The channel I'm on fluctuates between 9 and 10 stars, but a couple seem to hold on 10, so I guess I could switch, but it doesn't seem to be a big difference.

Local Media not playing well with Chromecast

I have looked around but haven't seen anyone talking about this issue so apologize if I missed something.
I am trying to play movies that I have on my phone. They are in the .MP4 format. I currently have tried Avia, LocalCast and AllCast (though I have not purchased the full version yet). I can start watching a video and it will play great and look great. Inevitably though it will start acting like it is buffering and then it will quite working at all. On top of this, the controls on my phone (HTC One rooted) will disappear. For instance, Avia controls will be in my status bar when I first start the movie but will soon disappear giving me no control over what is playing.
At first I thought it might be Greenify doing something but I don't have them greenified. I have tried a few different things to fix this issue but it just won't go away. Could this be a problem with the Chromecast or my phone or is there just something I am not doing correctly. I don't want to use plex or anything I have to upload and then stream from.
Appreciate the help.
srb7215 said:
I have looked around but haven't seen anyone talking about this issue so apologize if I missed something.
I am trying to play movies that I have on my phone. They are in the .MP4 format. I currently have tried Avia, LocalCast and AllCast (though I have not purchased the full version yet). I can start watching a video and it will play great and look great. Inevitably though it will start acting like it is buffering and then it will quite working at all. On top of this, the controls on my phone (HTC One rooted) will disappear. For instance, Avia controls will be in my status bar when I first start the movie but will soon disappear giving me no control over what is playing.
At first I thought it might be Greenify doing something but I don't have them greenified. I have tried a few different things to fix this issue but it just won't go away. Could this be a problem with the Chromecast or my phone or is there just something I am not doing correctly. I don't want to use plex or anything I have to upload and then stream from.
Appreciate the help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Almost sounds like your network is encountering a loop, traffic storm, or increasing packet retries.
If your router has an STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) option, try toggling that.
Also try disabling WiFi Sleep in your phone (keeps WiFi connected even when phone goes to sleep).
It could also be his device is running out of steam (overheating and therefore the OS throttles the Clock down especially true when heavy radio use like constant WiFi causes excessive heat in the unit), Starts doing some Background tasks that take priority or is generally going into a lower power state after awhile of no activity.
People need to understand while it may seem convenient to stream files off your phone or tablet they are not built for such activities.
They are meant as media consumers and not much more than that.
Too much going on inside them and Manufacturers put an extreme emphasis on saving power in all of their drivers that makes the devices just not suited to doing a long duration activity without user interaction.
Between the screen going off, WiFi going to sleep, Unit going into deep sleep mode and constant monopolizing of the Network and radios when the Device has a Pull task scheduled like getting Email....It is really not the ideal device to stream media from.
Since most media servers available today support remote (Home Cloud) streaming to a variety of devices and can transcode on the fly there is no longer any reason to store media on your device unless you have no network access at all. And in those cases the CCast won't work anyway because it needs to be able to load the player apps from the internet. Many of those same media servers also support some sort of local sync so you can store and play media locally on that mobile device when network is not available.
We need to start changing the way we think about storing and using media for Mobile...
Thanks for the advice and I will keep exploring. I have WiFi sleep disabled already.
It very well might be the device. I tried using my Touchpad and it didn't seem to run into any problems although I haven't used it enough to be sure it wasn't going to run into the same issues.
What is happening just seems like odd behavior. Like I don't understand why Avia would lose the player controls in my status bar after such a short time.
Maybe I need to think about a media server instead. Though one of the things that made me interested in the Chromecast was the portability of playing movies on large screens.
Again thanks for the response and if anyone else has any idea, I would love to hear it.
you could try y2cast from google play store, it is easy to use.
I'm getting a similar issue when try to cast Pandora. It runs fine on the tablet but won't run on the chromecast, seems like it tries but doesn't make it.

Hulu+ - Low quality streaming

Hello everyone!
I just recently got myself a Chromecast to use specifically with Netflix and Hulu Plus (casting from an iOS device).
Thanks to this forum I knew how to proceed for everything beforehand, using Smart DNS in my router, blacklisting google's DNS servers, etc. I have a TP-Link router.
Netflix is working perfectly, bumps to the 720p stream in about 6 seconds and another 5-6 seconds later it streams at 1080p without any noticeable drops so far.
Hulu Plus however is being problematic. It might smart in HD (sometimes) but either a few minutes later or after the commercials it drops to SD quality and rarely ramps up again. Starting the stream again helps, but only for a short while.
As I currently don't have another H+ device to test, i was wondering if the hulu plus implementation with Chromecast is indeed flawed or if this is happening just to myself (I understand that being overseas might not help - although I'm not sure which CDN I'm getting the content from), but it's really annoying seeing all the godawful pixels on my screen constantly - the Ads... pfft, well, those are always in 720p, go figure!
Anyway, hopefully you'll be able to share your experiences with me!
Cheers, thanks.

Gear VR Video Lag

I have been unable to find this issue online, which makes me think I am in a small minority that is experiencing it. I received my Gear VR, and it is a fun piece of equipment, though definitely not something I would have spent money on. I watched some Netflix and it played smoothly, though I saw pixels like people were saying. Nothing that can be done about that.
Here is where I experienced a problem. Oculus video says you can play your own videos from your library. It is true, however, I tried watching an hour long video last night and the video would periodically lag while the audio stayed on pace. As such, the audio got ahead of the video. I was able to remove the headset for a second, put it back on, and continue with everything synced again but it would continue to happen throughout the video. Has anyone experienced this, or know of a way to reduce lag so my videos on the device's drive can run smoothly? It was very annoying, and makes me think the Gear VR will become a paperweight if I cannot resolve this issue.
I found it works best with h.264 video and m4a audio, I had similar issues as you describe wirh AC3 audio.
I've seen that happen with *other* devices when a particular audio/video stream was more challenging to decode. I'd assume that using sub-optimal encoding for a video would give the Oculus Video significant "heartburn" in decoding.
If your source video isn't in-spec I'd consider transcoding it into most-compatible spec. That won't require any specific video transcoding tool, it's not a 3D specific process, and the tool of choice will depend upon what OS you run on your computer. For me under Linux I use AVEIDEMUX for this kind of work, generating an MP4 container with AAC 128Kbps audio and the h.264 video stream. I haven't watched a full movie in VR yet but those encodings have worked well for my previous devices (GS5, Galaxy Tab S 8.4, and Nexus 7 2012). It also works for playing 4K video smoothly off SD on my GS7.

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