Source
r/youtubetv•
CharlatanPrime

VOD Playback jerky

I just started a trial of YoutubeTV and for the most part I like it except for VOD playback. Any VOD title I play back plays in a sort of herky-jerky manner. It's almost like they're playing at 30 frames per second. It's... very... jerky... and... not... at... all... smooth. It makes VOD very difficult (or impossible) to watch. Audio appears fine.

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My internet access is through Verizon Fios and the max speed is close to 1GB measured on my iPad near the TV

Viewing YTTV on a VIZIO tv that's a couple of years old using a new Roku Streaming Stick+; located about 5 feet from my WiFi access point - signal strength is excellent

Tried lowering resolution to 720p from 1080p and did not see any difference after a few minutes

No issues playing live TV or recorded shows - VOD only.

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If anyone has any ideas for how I can either diagnose or fix this, I'd appreciate hearing them.

Posted Mar 11, 2019, 2:57 PM UTC

110
drv687•

Look at the stats for nerds and see if any frames are being dropped.

2
CharlatanPrimeOP•

I don't see any dropped frames. And just this morning we started seeing the jerky playback on a recorded show (Seth Myers from last night). Playback is fine on iPad. I'm going to try a different device and a different tv and see if it makes a difference.

1
Fatus_Assticus•

VOD is provided by the network. If it's a local affiliate it's possible they had issues. If it's a cable station it's possible it was 30fps and for sports that can be painful. Yttv up converts to 1080p60 which is great but the stations don't do that on their own.

Setup a recording and watch the DVR version. See if it happens again.

2
Cardiff-Giant11•

i was watching vod and it was only 30fps i think that may be what you were seeing as well

1
CharlatanPrimeOP•

That's strange - watching on the PC it looks fine. I will check on my other Roku and my iPad and see if it exhibits the same behavior.

1
rrainwater•

Did you look at stats for nerds and verify the resolution and frame rate?

1
CharlatanPrimeOP•

I did look at the stats and I didn't see any issues, but I don't recall exactly what I was seeing. Will make some notes tonight.

1
thezerosubnet•

From my experience on a Roku Ultra, the VOD I watch is all 30fps and it’s not smooth at all. The actual DVR recording is 60fps and is much smoother.

I doubt there’s anything we can do about this other than to hope YTTV converts VOD to 60fps like they do with live and DVRd content.

1
Astars26•

I noticed a lot of buffering with the VOD's but not when watching live tv yesterday.

1
CharlatanPrimeOP•

As a final update to this question I posed last week, I did a bunch of research and fiddling around. After trying a bunch of different combinations on two different TVs I found out that the issue was some sort of interaction between my Roku Streaming Stick+ and my VIZIO tv. I have no issues using a regular Roku Streaming Stick on an older Panasonic Plasma. I have no issues casting YTTV from my iPad to my VIZIO tv using a Chromecast. It's just that one combination that causes VOD issues. So I've switched to my Chromecast and control things from the iPad. Problem solved!

1