Juddery Motion. Are PLP, Lightbox or Akamai to blame?

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Juddery Motion. Are PLP, Lightbox or Akamai to blame?

StarBlazer

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#151215 18-Aug-2014 08:42

So I keep coming back to the same question regarding the motion quality of both Lightbox and PLP. Both are served from the same servers from what I can tell and both suffer terribly with juddery motion. Coincidence?

First round of the PLP and the United game was almost unwatchable (not just because of the result), the Hull game was marginally better. Having taken part of the Lightbox beta trial, this was my major complaint about the service also.

The only link I can see is that they are served from the same place. Perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions - I can't see why who serves the video should impact the quality but for some reason it does.

With the same setup, PC or Laptop linked to TV using HDMI cable or using the inbuilt Samsung Smart apps on the TV; I can happily stream Netflix, BBC, ITV, youTubeHD - in fact anything. CPU is around 7-10% while playing and I have Ultra Fast Cable - I do not believe the equipment I am using is an issue. If the 2014 Smart TVs are not capable of playing the content via the app, then there is something seriously wrong.

Judging by comments on both the PLP and Lightbox beta threads, there is no point raising a ticket (either no response or they blame your equipment) so I am bringing it here - unless you can suggest somewhere else that will get listened to.

PLP, Lightbox and whoever owns Akamai, please feel free to comment. Please feel more free to actually solve the issue - all the other onDemand providers I've used have!

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#1110263 18-Aug-2014 09:31

Reading from previous comments in the Beta discussion, are you using your ISP's own DNS?

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StarBlazer

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#1110268 18-Aug-2014 09:50

freitasm: Reading from previous comments in the Beta discussion, are you using your ISP's own DNS?

Yes.

But here's the question - even if I was using a DNS, why would it affect the fluidity of the motion I see on screen. I would expect to see increased buffering caused by latency. Personally I believe the DNS/VPN position to be an excuse rather than a cause.

Are there any experts on Geekzone who can answer this once and for all? I've spent a number of hours on Google and video forums but never found an answer - most video forums point to rendering. I re-iterate my comments that I do not see this with any other on demand service domestic or international.

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Talkiet

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#1110274 18-Aug-2014 10:01

It's very important to understand what you mean by "juddery motion"... In my (considerable) experience of video streaming and playback troubleshooting, what I would refer to as "juddery playback" has never had to do with the network layer at all - in fact I see it regularly on local files, or on gig ethernet.

Usually, juddery motion has to do with a mismatch between the frame rate of the source file and the refresh rate of the display device, or a horrible interaction between the software playing back the file and the refresh rate of the display device.

Before we go any further, are you able to determine if the streaming video is suffering any sort of under-run (is the buffer running out and the playback actually PAUSING?) or is it more like the tic tic tic in panning across landscapes (one of the most obvious ways to see 'juddery motion')

Cheers - N

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StarBlazer

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#1110275 18-Aug-2014 10:01

Additionally, if members are using the Samsung PLP app on a Samsung TV it would be fair to expect a perfect picture but that doesn't sound like it is the case either.

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StarBlazer

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#1110277 18-Aug-2014 10:09

Talkiet: It's very important to understand what you mean by "juddery motion"... In my (considerable) experience of video streaming and playback troubleshooting, what I would refer to as "juddery playback" has never had to do with the network layer at all - in fact I see it regularly on local files, or on gig ethernet.

Usually, juddery motion has to do with a mismatch between the frame rate of the source file and the refresh rate of the display device, or a horrible interaction between the software playing back the file and the refresh rate of the display device.

Before we go any further, are you able to determine if the streaming video is suffering any sort of under-run (is the buffer running out and the playback actually PAUSING?) or is it more like the tic tic tic in panning across landscapes (one of the most obvious ways to see 'juddery motion')

Cheers - N

Yes it's the "tic tic tic" on panning, which for football is 90% of the game. The judder is at a constant rate which I agree points to a frame rate issue. Using regular TV as a further example, watching the opening sequence (time vortex) of Dr Who in Lightbox is juddery whereas watching the same sequence on the same episode on Netflix is not - using exactly the same equipment and setup. It made no difference to Lightbox with or without DNS. I can't test Netflix any longer as my 1 month trial has expired.

Don't get me wrong, I really want the NZ on demand services to work - which is why I have raised this as a specific thread separate to the Lightbox and PLP threads.

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fahrenheit

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#1110428 18-Aug-2014 12:49

I have perfect ipad playback, so unless the ipad app is being served by other servers, I'm not sure how it is akamai related.
Obviously the ipad doesn't use Silverlight...

My Silverlight performance with Netflix is flawless. With Lightbox, its broken. I don't need to compare the two side by side to know that Lightbox is a mess, but I believe that most people would have to have this demonstrated to them to see what they are missing.

Nothing suggests to me that this is encoded with the wrong field order/deinterlacing or framerate. Its not that consistent. The same samples I've played over again and again, have not always hitched in the same places. I even notice that when I tested on a Spark VDSL line, it was hitching even worse than the Snap line (same computer, same browser).

I'm not confident this is going to get sorted this close to launch and with this much head in the sand.

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StarBlazer

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#1110440 18-Aug-2014 13:01

fahrenheit: I have perfect ipad playback, so unless the ipad app is being served by other servers, I'm not sure how it is akamai related.
Obviously the ipad doesn't use Silverlight...

My Silverlight performance with Netflix is flawless. With Lightbox, its broken. I don't need to compare the two side by side to know that Lightbox is a mess, but I believe that most people would have to have this demonstrated to them to see what they are missing.

Nothing suggests to me that this is encoded with the wrong field order/deinterlacing or framerate. Its not that consistent. The same samples I've played over again and again, have not always hitched in the same places. I even notice that when I tested on a Spark VDSL line, it was hitching even worse than the Snap line (same computer, same browser).

I'm not confident this is going to get sorted this close to launch and with this much head in the sand.

Actually, now you mention it, the iPad app is very good on both Lightbox and PLP - perhaps the streams are encoded or delivered differently. PLP have openly said before that the best experience is with an iPad with an ATV3. It would be nice if someone from one of the three parties was to comment with evidence. Hell, they're welcome to come around to my house and see if they like if they think it will solve the problem or provide them with useful diagnostics - I'll even make them a coffee (real coffee, freshly ground!)

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dclegg

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#1110444 18-Aug-2014 13:06

The only time I've really noticed this juddery playback on LightBox was watching S01E01 of Orphan Black. We stream to our TV (2013 Panasonic Plasma) via AirPlay from the LightBox iPad App.

I re-watched it again over the weekend, this time with my wife. Because she likes to tinker on the iPad while watching TV (which we can't do with LightBox), we watched this episode on NetFlix. It had the same juddery motion on panning shots.

MarkCerny

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#1110635 18-Aug-2014 16:37

PLP on ipad is almost perfect but the Samsung app on my H6400 tv is bad. As I said in the other thread, the picture is good, it's pretty much HD but the motion is terrible. Did anyone see Breakfast this morning ? They showed a clip on Chris Wood scoring a goal and that was an embarrassing advertisement for PLP. tic tic tic.....

This is not my broadband speed either, because it the motion issue is there even at 400kbps.

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#1110662 18-Aug-2014 17:02

MarkCerny: PLP on ipad is almost perfect but the Samsung app on my H6400 tv is bad. As I said in the other thread, the picture is good, it's pretty much HD but the motion is terrible. Did anyone see Breakfast this morning ? They showed a clip on Chris Wood scoring a goal and that was an embarrassing advertisement for PLP. tic tic tic.....

This is not my broadband speed either, because it the motion issue is there even at 400kbps.

Thanks for the feedback MarkCerny - I hope PLP and LightBox have seen this.

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Lightbox

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#1110688 18-Aug-2014 17:53

I am reading along.

FYI, Akamai is one of the worlds biggest CDN providers, they serve up something like 20-30% of all Internet traffic. I doubt you'll see them active here on GZ anytime soon.

Based on the feedback we'd had in here, we've gone back and re-examined hardware acceleration on Silverlight. We've got a build in staging that corrects it, which looks promising in terms of solving some of these issues.

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tdgeek

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#1110702 18-Aug-2014 18:20

Tks Jakob.

So, after reading all the posts, and that the iPad is generally very good, it appears to me to be the PC platform or Silverlight. Your post indicates a Silverlight issue, although my rMBP played well. That also uses Silverlight. Or more the PC version of Silverlight?

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#1110780 18-Aug-2014 20:08

Lightbox: I am reading along.

FYI, Akamai is one of the worlds biggest CDN providers, they serve up something like 20-30% of all Internet traffic. I doubt you'll see them active here on GZ anytime soon.

Based on the feedback we'd had in here, we've gone back and re-examined hardware acceleration on Silverlight. We've got a build in staging that corrects it, which looks promising in terms of solving some of these issues.

Thanks that's good to know. Let me know if you would like me to do any testing. Cheers

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StarBlazer

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#1110785 18-Aug-2014 20:09

tdgeek: Tks Jakob.

So, after reading all the posts, and that the iPad is generally very good, it appears to me to be the PC platform or Silverlight. Your post indicates a Silverlight issue, although my rMBP played well. That also uses Silverlight. Or more the PC version of Silverlight?

Does anyone know if PLP uses Silverlight also?

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PhantomNVD

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#1110847 18-Aug-2014 21:44

Agree, ipad experience of Lightbox is way superior, even on my slow internet, BUT still not up to Netflix standards as LB don't/won't/can't seem to get their buffering in order.

TBH, since Netflix offer a Superior service for less (including DNS redirection costs) I can't see how to justify. Supporting the local content at all, though my kids have loved the cartoons LB has, SWMBO votes Netflix hands down better...

On topic though, Skipping and panning on a new laptop with 8gb RAM when not doing so on iPad with same network speed seems to be a software issue... Let's hope sorted by launch date...

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