TiVo TiVo bandwith issues

jobbie8 · 02-02-2013, 17:24

For the last 9 months or so, I've had terrible problems with YouTube on Tivo.
Stuttering, freezing and not buffering, (you know the grey line just ahead of the red line) I have had maybe 10 engineers out to my house, they've replaced cables, put a power booster in, swapped my 3 Tivos about, the Samsung Tivo has a diferent power adapter to the Cisco so its a good job I did'nt do it as I would of just swapped the boxes and not the power cables.

I was one of the first to get Tivo, I linked my YouTube account so I could watch my playlists. In the early days when we had friends round we could watch an entire playlist without a problem. Now, last night for instance, a 1 minute 48 second HD clip, (as Tivo picks the best quality) only got 8 seconds into it before the stuttering began and then froze.

This only happens in the evening, I have always been told that the moden/internet inside Tivo is seperate to regular BB and cannot be affected by too much traffic, even though I tried to tell them, (2nd Line, engineers etc) that if my house and local area is fine, what else could it be?
Last night was the worst issue ever, even Spotify was stuttering and unable to play a full song through, also my Discovery Bar hardly ever loads pitures up fast like it used too, again evenings only. I can be through the diferent menus before its fully loaded.

When I reported the fault again, last night, the 2nd Line Team finally aggreed that there is an network issue with bandwith and the internet side of Tivo, the guy said there had been 250 or so calls about YouTube recently. So after all this time, Im not the only one.
He said Spotify is a new problem, but with more and more Tivos being installed, its going to get worse before it gets better.

I pay for Virgin and Spotify and Im quite gutted I can't use the entertainment services on a friday night. In the end I put a cd on!

Anyone else have similar problems?

---------- Post added at 16:24 ---------- Previous post was at 16:19 ----------

Watched YouTube without a hitch today, by 7pm tonight it will be a diferent story....

Qtx · 03-02-2013, 01:47

Did it deteriorate in the evening again?

Virgin had YouTube problems at the end if last year which was down to not having enough bandwidth at the YouTube server end. People are complaining about videos again recently but virgin is saying these are local congestion issues this time. The spotify issue as well does make it sound like a local issue. The Tv boxes can be on a different network but can still suffer from congestion.

Chad · 03-02-2013, 04:17

Until recently SKY customers who wanted to access on demand had to have SKY broadband. Nowadays SKY TV customers can use internet provided by anyone connected to their SKY+ box to allow them to access on demand and catch up material.

Does anyone know if Virgin Media throttle SKY on demand and catch up traffic? For example if I'm downloading a hugh amount of content to my SKY+ box 24/7, and have a 100mb broadband connection with Virgin, will my speeds be managed at anytime? A HD movie from SKY on demand can easily be 4gb. It wouldn't take long for Virgins traffic management system to kick in if I'm downdloading 2 or 3 movies to my SKY+ box.

It would be interesting to know this for future reference.

spiderplant · 03-02-2013, 11:59

There's an open fault ticket for buffering on YouTube. The reference is F002334615.

Qtx · 03-02-2013, 12:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiderplant

There's an open fault ticket for buffering on YouTube. The reference is F002334615.

Thanks for that info. Find it strange that so many have complained about streaming the last 2 or 3 weeks but no one has been given that fault reference number

spiderplant · 03-02-2013, 12:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chad

Does anyone know if Virgin Media throttle SKY on demand and catch up traffic? For example if I'm downloading a hugh amount of content to my SKY+ box 24/7, and have a 100mb broadband connection with Virgin, will my speeds be managed at anytime?

Sky traffic isn't specifically managed, so you'd only be subject to the usual bulk data limits, and may get reduced to 50Mbps for 5 hours. Though if it's only a 4GB film, you wouldn't be anywhere near triggering it.
http://help.virginmedia.com/system/s...RTICLE_ID=2781

(But why would you download 24/7 at 100Mbps? You couldn't possibly watch that much video. (And what has this got to do with TiVo buffering?))

Qtx · 03-02-2013, 12:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiderplant

(But why would you download 24/7 at 100Mbps? You couldn't possibly watch that much video. (And what has this got to do with TiVo buffering?))

You can choose a whole tv series to watch in HD from the on demand screens, which will all download in the background while you watch the first. Did the whole game of thrones in this way myself. Useful for VM users to know this would get them traffic managed.

passingbat · 03-02-2013, 16:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qtx

You can choose a whole tv series to watch in HD from the on demand screens, which will all download in the background while you watch the first. Did the whole game of thrones in this way myself. Useful for VM users to know this would get them traffic managed.

But I don't see what the big deal about that is anyway; a traffic managed connection doesn't stop you downloading, it just does it slower.

So, when I'm traffic managed on my 60meg connection down to 30meg, I'm still faster than anyone on Sky ADSL.

Qtx · 03-02-2013, 17:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by passingbat

But I don't see what the big deal about that is anyway; a traffic managed connection doesn't stop you downloading, it just does it slower.

So, when I'm traffic managed on my 60meg connection down to 30meg, I'm still faster than anyone on Sky ADSL.

Who was making a big deal out of it? A few questions were asked and answered.

What has Sky Adsl got to do with anything? The hypocrisy shown is off the chart passingbat.

Virgin adsl is the same speed as Sky adsl. Sky Fibre never gets its speeds decreased. Another story though as below...

Quote:

Originally Posted by passingbat

VM has loads of content. Granted, not as much as Sky, but it has loads. The discussion is about PVR functionality, not content. Taking the discussion down the content route will only lead to another Sky VS VM content debate which is a waste of time.

Listen to your own words, or have them thrown back at you

Doz007 · 03-02-2013, 18:15

So have VM introduced Traffic Management to the dedicated TiVo connection?

Qtx · 03-02-2013, 18:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doz007

So have VM introduced Traffic Management to the dedicated TiVo connection?

Not yet

Although many were told their tivo box was on an overutilised part of the network causing part of their streaming issues, beginning to look like it is in fact vm youtube network once again.

After all the arguments before, it seems I was indeed correct. Can I be smug now? At least Speh can stream youtube ok

jobbie8 · 03-02-2013, 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qtx

Did it deteriorate in the evening again?

Yes by 8pm Youtube on Tivo was unwatchable. Spotify was alittle better, tracks broke up for a second or two at the begining of a song.

This is really bad, hope Virgin sort it soon.

Is this a reason why Tivo is lacking in apps?

---------- Post added at 18:33 ---------- Previous post was at 18:32 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiderplant

There's an open fault ticket for buffering on YouTube. The reference is F002334615.

Is this for Tivo YouTube?
Anything reported for Spotify?

spiderplant · 03-02-2013, 20:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by jobbie8

Is this for Tivo YouTube?
Anything reported for Spotify?

Yes, it's for TiVo YouTube. I can't see anything listed for Spotify, but it's possible it has same cause.

mikes12345 · 03-02-2013, 21:14

I was wondering if this was just me - I tried to watch a 20 min clip on my Tivo earlier and gave up (it was full HD). I then tried to watch the same clip on my laptop - when I turned the quality right down (480p) it streamed OK, at 720p and 1080p it wouldn't work over my 60mb connection.

I wouldn't describe myself as a heavy user so I cannot imagine I have ever been traffic managed (we watch an occasional you tube clip but other than that nothing more than general web browsing.

I am taking part in the SamKnows broadband study, and based on that I don't generally have problems with my connection which makes me think this is related to YouTube.

I don't suppose anyone knows if there is a way to fix this, or a way to make Tivo select lower quality streams?

Incidentally, this is the report I got for January showing the speeds detected by the SamKnows monitoring device - Kudos to Virgin there are very few times when I drop below my stated speed.
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