On Demand - unwatchable - BT Vision

em00jie · 11-11-2009, 12:05

Hi i am having real problems with stuttering/ freezing AV on all on demand content, and i'm hoping to get some advice. I've done a trawl of the forums and can see a few people have had the same problem as me in the past but the threads seem to end without any resolution...is there a resolution?

I had BT Broadband installed 2 weeks ago and vision last Friday.

after BB connection my DL speed was great around 9-10 mbps. Vision installed great and for the first 4 days i thought this is pretty cool, the bad feelings of leaving Sky were starting to die down.

However yesterday afternoon all on demand content started stuttering. I called vision support and they couldnt find a problem my line was OK and so were the power adaptors, they've booked an engineer to come and look.

after the call i decided to run a few speed tests and i was disappointed to find my 9-10 mbps of only a week before had dropped to between 1.5-3.5 mbps this was the same when i checked this morning. This was using speedtest.net as recomended by BT tech support.

Can vision run with these speeds? why the sudden drop in BB speed?

Has anyone else sucessfully resolved stuttering on demand before, if so how did you manage to sort it?

Any help would be much appreciated.

From a slightly less impressed new vision customer.

scotty2808 · 11-11-2009, 15:33

Stuttering VOD - not had it to be honest.

Sounds to me like you have some sort of line problem.
Have you done the back to basics stuff (disconnecting any extensions and testing the bb line speed at the master socket ?).

all the best getting it sorted.

em00jie · 11-11-2009, 16:44

I've tried connecting a laptop direct to the hub making sure nothing else was connected. This slightly improved the speed to around 4.5 mbps but nothing like what is was a week ago.

I also connected vision direct to the hub (10m cable) removing the power line adapters from the equation and it did improve the stuttering considerably although not gone altogether.

I think its a speed issue, hopefully engineer will confirm this tomorrow.

bit of a side issue, anyone know if engineers carry the new black boxes? if the stuttering is due to a faulty box what are the chances of me getting a shiny new black one? to be honest I'll just be grateful for it all to work again.

Matterhorn · 11-11-2009, 19:12

go to http://www.speedtester.bt.com

run the test and tell us what the IP profile for your line is.. and the speeds.

spaceman05 · 11-11-2009, 19:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matterhorn

go to http://www.speedtester.bt.com

run the test and tell us what the IP profile for your line is.. and the speeds.

just out of interest here is mine:-

Download speedachieved during the test was - 1760 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 400-2000 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :8128 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 2000 Kbps

dunno if that is good or bad, but i have never had a problem running vision

em00jie · 11-11-2009, 22:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matterhorn

go to http://www.speedtester.bt.com

run the test and tell us what the IP profile for your line is.. and the speeds.

Download speed achieved during the test was - 3412 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :9704 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 1016 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 5400 Kbps
The throughput of Best Efforts (BE) classes achieved during the test is - 24.91:27.29:47.8 (SBE:NBE:PBE)
These figures represent the ratio while sententiously passing Sub BE, Normal BE and Priority BE marked traffic.

Interestingly these results are lower than last night when BT got me to run the test and yet tonight vision on demand is working ok, although BB internet is running like a dog.

speedtest.net is still giving me average speeds of about 1.5 mbps or less tonight...who to trust??

Sods law the engineer will be here tomorrow and no stuttering will happen!

Matterhorn · 12-11-2009, 00:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by em00jie

Download speed achieved during the test was - 3412 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :9704 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 1016 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 5400 Kbps
The throughput of Best Efforts (BE) classes achieved during the test is - 24.91:27.29:47.8 (SBE:NBE:PBE)
These figures represent the ratio while sententiously passing Sub BE, Normal BE and Priority BE marked traffic.

Interestingly these results are lower than last night when BT got me to run the test and yet tonight vision on demand is working ok, although BB internet is running like a dog.

speedtest.net is still giving me average speeds of about 1.5 mbps or less tonight...who to trust??

Sods law the engineer will be here tomorrow and no stuttering will happen!

so..

your line can support (technically) the 9704 figure

your profile is capped at 5400 meaning you'll never get higher than that.

d/load speeds look slow though and you profile should match (as close as poss) the theoretical highest speed of the line's ability.

something doesn't look right. Make sure you do the test tomorrow when the engineer arrives, unless he does it anyway.

good luck.

Matterhorn · 12-11-2009, 00:05

my results..

Download speedachieved during the test was - 6626 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :8128 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 7150 Kbps

assured rate

Download speedachieved during the test was - 593 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 576-600 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Assured Rate IP profile on your line is - 600 Kbps

jackgarnham · 13-11-2009, 09:45

Hi em00jie.

The fact that your IP profile is a lot lower than your actual line rate suggests that there have been some issues with your homehub connecting to the exchange, disconnections, errors etc.

The Engineer will likely isolate your extension wiring (if any) and connect your HH direct to your master socket to see if this improves your speed. If you're on ADSL2+ and syncing up at 9.7Mbps then you can't be more than a couple of miles from your exchange, so you should definitely be able to get the 2Mbps required for a steady Vision stream.

Having said that, I have been experiencing lots of stuttering with VoD in recent weeks, where my line state has not changed and wonder if BT are having some sort of back-end issue with VoD.

em00jie · 13-11-2009, 12:33

Thought I'd let you know how i got on with the engineer visit...

Inevitably Wednesday night VoD started working normally again with no stutter and my BB speed seemed to have returned to a decent speed.

I called vision help desk to tell them as i didnt want to get charged for a wasted callout but they said let him come out anyway!

Good job too as i noticed a rather strange behavior with FFwd and REwd on any sports VoD. at any speed the picture would freeze but the timebar would move backwards and forwards relative to the speed, pressing play would resume AV at that point. No other VoD programs had this problem they would all display video skipping forward/back.

Engineer was convinced that this was a broadcast issue as if it was a box issue all programs would be doing it. He called vision help desk for advice who just told him to try a different box as they wouldn't log the fault until this was tried.

He was most p*ssed off at having to do this, telling me it was a waste of time and that he'd only have to reconnect my old box once proven it made no difference...to his surprise there was no problem with the new box

I asked him if i could have the new black box but he said no, they are only allowed to swap black for black and silver for silver. BT want rid of all the silvers before putting black ones into the home, bit crap i thought when he had them in his van...

Anyway quite happy that problem is resolved.

wwwebber · 13-11-2009, 12:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by em00jie

I asked him if i could have the new black box but he said no, they are only allowed to swap black for black and silver for silver. BT want rid of all the silvers before putting black ones into the home, bit crap i thought when he had them in his van...

Yet no-one will tell us what these black boxes look like or what they can or cannot do !!.

I guess they're gearing up for somekind of launch - I just hope it's not a wet flannel

Glad your probs are sorted anyway

spaceman05 · 13-11-2009, 22:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by em00jie

Thought I'd let you know how i got on with the engineer visit...

Inevitably Wednesday night VoD started working normally again with no stutter and my BB speed seemed to have returned to a decent speed.

I called vision help desk to tell them as i didnt want to get charged for a wasted callout but they said let him come out anyway!

Good job too as i noticed a rather strange behavior with FFwd and REwd on any sports VoD. at any speed the picture would freeze but the timebar would move backwards and forwards relative to the speed, pressing play would resume AV at that point. No other VoD programs had this problem they would all display video skipping forward/back.

Engineer was convinced that this was a broadcast issue as if it was a box issue all programs would be doing it. He called vision help desk for advice who just told him to try a different box as they wouldn't log the fault until this was tried.

He was most p*ssed off at having to do this, telling me it was a waste of time and that he'd only have to reconnect my old box once proven it made no difference...to his surprise there was no problem with the new box

I asked him if i could have the new black box but he said no, they are only allowed to swap black for black and silver for silver. BT want rid of all the silvers before putting black ones into the home, bit crap i thought when he had them in his van...

Anyway quite happy that problem is resolved.

i should hope there is no need to swap black for black yet or we may have real problems

11-11-2009, 12:05	#1
em00jie Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 7	On Demand - unwatchable Hi i am having real problems with stuttering/ freezing AV on all on demand content, and i'm hoping to get some advice. I've done a trawl of the forums and can see a few people have had the same problem as me in the past but the threads seem to end without any resolution...is there a resolution? I had BT Broadband installed 2 weeks ago and vision last Friday. after BB connection my DL speed was great around 9-10 mbps. Vision installed great and for the first 4 days i thought this is pretty cool, the bad feelings of leaving Sky were starting to die down. However yesterday afternoon all on demand content started stuttering. I called vision support and they couldnt find a problem my line was OK and so were the power adaptors, they've booked an engineer to come and look. after the call i decided to run a few speed tests and i was disappointed to find my 9-10 mbps of only a week before had dropped to between 1.5-3.5 mbps this was the same when i checked this morning. This was using speedtest.net as recomended by BT tech support. Can vision run with these speeds? why the sudden drop in BB speed? Has anyone else sucessfully resolved stuttering on demand before, if so how did you manage to sort it? Any help would be much appreciated. From a slightly less impressed new vision customer.

11-11-2009, 15:33	#2
scotty2808 Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 182	Stuttering VOD - not had it to be honest. Sounds to me like you have some sort of line problem. Have you done the back to basics stuff (disconnecting any extensions and testing the bb line speed at the master socket ?). all the best getting it sorted.

11-11-2009, 16:44	#3
em00jie Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 7	I've tried connecting a laptop direct to the hub making sure nothing else was connected. This slightly improved the speed to around 4.5 mbps but nothing like what is was a week ago. I also connected vision direct to the hub (10m cable) removing the power line adapters from the equation and it did improve the stuttering considerably although not gone altogether. I think its a speed issue, hopefully engineer will confirm this tomorrow. bit of a side issue, anyone know if engineers carry the new black boxes? if the stuttering is due to a faulty box what are the chances of me getting a shiny new black one? to be honest I'll just be grateful for it all to work again.

11-11-2009, 19:12	#4
Matterhorn Inactive Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 612	go to http://www.speedtester.bt.com run the test and tell us what the IP profile for your line is.. and the speeds.

12-11-2009, 00:05	#8
Matterhorn Inactive Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 612	my results.. Download speedachieved during the test was - 6626 Kbps For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps. Additional Information: Your DSL Connection Rate :8128 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM) IP Profile for your line is - 7150 Kbps assured rate Download speedachieved during the test was - 593 Kbps For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 576-600 Kbps. Additional Information: Assured Rate IP profile on your line is - 600 Kbps

13-11-2009, 09:45	#9
jackgarnham Forum Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: West Yorks Services: BT Vision, BT Employee Broadband Opt 3, Xbox 360 w/Live Gold, Wii, Posts: 169	Hi em00jie. The fact that your IP profile is a lot lower than your actual line rate suggests that there have been some issues with your homehub connecting to the exchange, disconnections, errors etc. The Engineer will likely isolate your extension wiring (if any) and connect your HH direct to your master socket to see if this improves your speed. If you're on ADSL2+ and syncing up at 9.7Mbps then you can't be more than a couple of miles from your exchange, so you should definitely be able to get the 2Mbps required for a steady Vision stream. Having said that, I have been experiencing lots of stuttering with VoD in recent weeks, where my line state has not changed and wonder if BT are having some sort of back-end issue with VoD.

13-11-2009, 12:33	#10
em00jie Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 7	Thought I'd let you know how i got on with the engineer visit... Inevitably Wednesday night VoD started working normally again with no stutter and my BB speed seemed to have returned to a decent speed. I called vision help desk to tell them as i didnt want to get charged for a wasted callout but they said let him come out anyway! Good job too as i noticed a rather strange behavior with FFwd and REwd on any sports VoD. at any speed the picture would freeze but the timebar would move backwards and forwards relative to the speed, pressing play would resume AV at that point. No other VoD programs had this problem they would all display video skipping forward/back. Engineer was convinced that this was a broadcast issue as if it was a box issue all programs would be doing it. He called vision help desk for advice who just told him to try a different box as they wouldn't log the fault until this was tried. He was most p*ssed off at having to do this, telling me it was a waste of time and that he'd only have to reconnect my old box once proven it made no difference...to his surprise there was no problem with the new box I asked him if i could have the new black box but he said no, they are only allowed to swap black for black and silver for silver. BT want rid of all the silvers before putting black ones into the home, bit crap i thought when he had them in his van... Anyway quite happy that problem is resolved.