Issues with FreeviewPlus on new Sony TV

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joshhill96

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#1495577 19-Feb-2016 12:08

There is now an update here

SONY Android TVs are exhibiting intermittent On Demand Play Back issues where the video stalls on ad breaks, pressing the GREEN button on ad breaks will resume playback so you can return to viewing. The model affected is the KD-49X8300C (but may affect other screen sizes in this series), this issue is not affecting any other brand of TVs / boxes, so has been escalated to SONY NZ for investigation.

Formerly worked at iStore NZ (Rest in Peace), Sky Network Television, Freeview, Apple, Spark New Zealand Trading Limited, DISH TV Technologies.

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xontech

268 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1495588 19-Feb-2016 12:13

Thank you for this. At least this means the issue has ben accepted (by Freeview, not Sony yet?).

My TV did get an update yesterday which I have applied but haven't yet tried on demand to see if anything has changed.

joshhill96

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#1495593 19-Feb-2016 12:21

xontech:

Thank you for this. At least this means the issue has ben accepted (by Freeview, not Sony yet?).

My TV did get an update yesterday which I have applied but haven't yet tried on demand to see if anything has changed.

The issue has been Accepted by Freeview and has now been demanded from them for SONY to get this fixed.

The update yesterday from what I understand enabled the USB PVR function mode, any other fixes applied to this update is foreign to me, best to look on the SONY site to see if there is anything.

Formerly worked at iStore NZ (Rest in Peace), Sky Network Television, Freeview, Apple, Spark New Zealand Trading Limited, DISH TV Technologies.

Travel Geek: Brazil, Chile, New Caledonia, United States, Fiji, Vanuatu, Australia, Cook Islands

xontech

268 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1495596 19-Feb-2016 12:29

Link to update details:

http://www.sony.co.nz/support/download/610819/product/kd-49x8300c

"This software update (version PKG3.315.0102PAB) provide the following benefits and improvements:

Support HDMI HDR (High Dynamic Range)
Support One Touch HDD Recording
Support Programmed (Timer) Recording
Support Remote Self Timer recording
Support display of recording contents on DUX
Change application name of 'TV SideView' to 'Video & TV SideView'
Improve general software quality of the TV "

wintersm

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#1511749 12-Mar-2016 09:12

I have a KD-49X8300C and have the update listed above, it defiantly does not fix the on-demand playback problem. I have perfect playback for shows without adverts (were a couple last week)..

I will have to try the green button thing.... I had to obtain agents of shield yesterday so I could actually watch it in its entirety. (it kept failing at the first add break).

Phone: Google Nexus 1 , stock Gingerbread 2.3.4 Self Rooted.

tardtasticx

3075 posts

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#1520593 27-Mar-2016 22:46

Hi all, sorry if this should be made into it's own topic but I figured it'd be a fit since it's Freeview related.

I've got a Samsung UA32J5500AS which is a smart tv but not an Android TV. It's having the exact same issue. It seems to crash the TVNZ On Demand app as soon as it gets half way through the second or second to last ad break. Super frustrating since you can't just resume from where you left off, you have to manually fast forward back to that point (after relaunching the app etc). Thankfully when it crashes I get booted back to live terrestrial TV so I don't need to restart the TV, but annoying still none the less.

Has their been any updates/info about the issue with the Sony one? I imagine the TVNZ app is roughly the same if it's having the same issue?

Cheers!

kimw

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1522101 29-Mar-2016 10:34

Interesting the TVNZ app has very similar sounding issues on Samsung (which suggests the cause is more likely to be either the app or the ad-serving technology in behind it). They have a form on their website where you can advise about your issue:

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/ondemand/contact-us

Other than that, the suggestion that the green button will skip over an ad break hasn't worked for me. When playback gets stuck or interrupted in an ad break, most often the only way back is exiting and restarting the app / turning the TV off and on again (with the remote) / turning the TV off and on again (at the wall). At least the "app crash" experience described on Samsung often sounds a lot less painful than on Sony.

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wintersm

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#1530090 11-Apr-2016 14:56

I was getting a bit peeved at being interrupted watching on-demand that it was unusable..

So, I had configured a squid proxy server on a NAS box that I have (qnap), and then set the sony tv to the proxy (in the android network settings), then watched the logs to see what the on-demand app was trying to access when it fails, or works..

I then told the proxy to block that URL, and now I can watch any show all the way though without the advert fault causing it to stop.. its a little "naughty" but without access to the advert server the on-demand app doesnt try to play any more adverts and the whole show plays uninterrupted..

Looking at the URL, tvnz on-demand trys to access a video file to playback the advert, and for some reason particular adverts cause the app to fail, I guess they are unable to be played being some incompatible encoding, and the app cant handle that failure..

It wouldn't be hard to fix, and send out and ota update.. but this is a big corp..

Phone: Google Nexus 1 , stock Gingerbread 2.3.4 Self Rooted.

xontech

268 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1530099 11-Apr-2016 15:17

Great work @wintersm. Hopefully this research can get fed through to appropriate people/organisation as it potentially narrow's down the area to focus on for troubleshooting.

My Sony TV has had 2 software updates since this thread started and trying it last night still has the same issues. Not very high WAF at all.

Any chance of sharing the URL, you know, for science......

Xeon

302 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1530124 11-Apr-2016 16:39

My TV had an update last week, since then its pretty much been fine (pre update would crash every single ad break). Although instead of ads for on demand it just shows a blank screen for ~15 seconds.

kimw

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1530130 11-Apr-2016 16:44

Likewise, great investigation skills @wintersm. Am also curious about the domain where the ads are playing from, if you could let us know?
Cheers!

wintersm

87 posts

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#1530156 11-Apr-2016 18:24

Well.. You didn't hear this from me..

The advert video comes from a URL beginning with http://download.tvnz.co.nz/adcreative

Blocking this on its own didnt do much good, so I also had to block

http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net
http://video-ad-stats.googlesyndication.com

These might be all you need to stop, as it seems tv3's on demand stopped playing adverts too (not that there is much to watch on there)..

The proxy replies with access denied when urls starting with those above is accessed..

Another thing that I noticed when looking at the proxy logs, is that the on-demand video "stream" is quite unlike a stream on say netflix. I see 2 HTTP requests made every second while a video is playing, one is a small portion of video, the other sound. These seem to be 1 second of video and sound.. Rather odd and with high overhead I would have thought compared to a true video stream on the likes of youtube and netflix.

Phone: Google Nexus 1 , stock Gingerbread 2.3.4 Self Rooted.

fe31nz

1234 posts

Uber Geek

#1530219 11-Apr-2016 20:45

wintersm:

Another thing that I noticed when looking at the proxy logs, is that the on-demand video "stream" is quite unlike a stream on say netflix. I see 2 HTTP requests made every second while a video is playing, one is a small portion of video, the other sound. These seem to be 1 second of video and sound.. Rather odd and with high overhead I would have thought compared to a true video stream on the likes of youtube and netflix.

That is likely all to do with how they make it difficult to use any of the available tools to download the video instead of streaming it, and that is all about forcing you to watch the ads. All the tricks they are using to make you stream and so have to watch the ads make it impossible for me to use my normal browsers to watch the on-demand videos, as I have serious defences against the online web page ads and the tracking and statitics gathering that lots of web sites do. Those defences interfere with the tricks they are using and the video just fails to stream. So the only way I can get them to stream is to install a pristine browser and tell it not to use my proxies. That pretty much means I do not bother to ever use the on-demand sites. And so I still do not see their ads.

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