Poor Quality Stream - NowTv Stick - Apple Tablet ok

[Anonymous User]

What has happened to the TV stream!! I've never had a problem until this weekend, where what seems to be after an update the quality is like watching through my frosted bathroom window.

The stream starts ok then after a few minutes the quality starts to gradually decrease, sometimes I've seen this happen before but the quality quickly improves again (based on internet speed).

What i think has happened is the new software update seems to have removed the function to improve the bitrate of the video when the wifi quality / internet improves. So it's a constant cut to the bitrate with no improvement. 

The router is less than a meter from the tv stick.

The stream works fine on my apple tablet.

I'm using the nowtv stick (3801UK) with update 9.3.3 (build 4104-56) and other channels that i've tried ,channel 4, itv and bbc i can watch them live without issue

I've tried restarting the router, nowtv stick and tv for good measure

I've used the chatbot to try get some additional help and to my surprise it's worse than a google search. I just want to talk to a support agent!

We pay all this money to nowtv and they cant even be bothered to have proper support agents.

[Anonymous User]

I've had exactly the same problem this weekend trying to watch sports. A few seconds good quality then as you say, like looking through frosted glass. Unfortunately it coincided with an Internet service issue in our area which I thought was the problem, but now there's an alert message on the Nowtv website saying they are aware of a problem, which I assume is it. 

[Anonymous User]

@Anonymous User 

I did perform a factory reset, but still the stream was bad quality.

Just seems to have fixed itself

[Anonymous User]

Hi Jason1s

Are you still having this problem? I am. I have checked and reset everything.

Regards

Sid

[Anonymous User]

Hi Sid,

I've just checked sky sports f1 and now everything seems to be ok with clear streaming.

Jason

[Anonymous User]

Thanks Jason. I'll keep trying. It may be a genuine problem with my stick. 

[Anonymous User]

I've got both the nowtv stick and roku 4k stick. I would say the roku stick
is way more superior than the nowtv stick which is still made by roku.

It's more powerful and has the antenna in the USB cable to increase
performance

I use the nowtv one for when I'm around my girlfriends but it feels like a
constant battle with the official nowtv stick. Every time I press the home
button it restarts instead of going back to the main screen.

If you can't fix it might be worth getting roku 4k. Plus you can get amazon
prime video on that too.

I'd be much happier to see nowtv integrated in my android TV. Seems to be
the only app that I can't get with it!

Jason

[Anonymous User]

Do the other live chanels on itv, bbc iplayer or c4 [play ok?

[Anonymous User]

Hi Jason, thanks for the information, I'll get a Roku stick if I do need a replacement. I played a Sky news bulletin streamed from YouTube, first via my smart tv and then from the Nowtv stick home page app. Both played fine. I've also played 4K video from Nowtv stick YouTube app so the stick seams to function hardware wise in that respect. 

[Anonymous User]

The frosted glass is back, I only notice really when the F1 is on as i watch this the longest.

ITV, C4, BBC Iplayer and C5 Live channels work fine.

There is a different between live TV and pre-recorded shows. Pre-recorded normally uses TCP where live tv uses UDP unicast/multicast. The difference being TCP will request for any lost packets and UDP does not.

I just don't get why all other live channels seem to work ok, but the sky sports do not. (This is the only nowtv pass i have)

This only started happening after a software update on the nowtv. My educated guess with having an I.T background is they've changed something underlying how the buffer works, and because my connection is not really the ideal connection, 9.4mbps download bandwith, with 60-100ms latency, this is why only some people are affected.

I've watched gogglebox, british bake off, bbc news all on the live channels without a problem.

[Anonymous User]

Hi Sid,

Are you still having problems?

I got the following response from them suggesting i try removing the boost package. Do you have the boost package?

QUOTE
Sorry to hear that you are still facing inconvenience with the NOW TV Stick but I have investigated your case details from the beginning and I have some information to share with you to get this query resolved for you.

Firstly, with the recent software update on the NOW TV Stick, we did not alter any changes with the network. We just updated the stick to improve the customer experience and that had nothing to do with the network queries as everything shall remain the same.

Secondly, on 24/10/2020, it was a temporary issue which has been already resolved.

After checking your internet speed details, you mentioned you have download speed of 9 mbps. 

With NOW TV Boost Month Pass in your account, it allows you to watch on 3 devices instead of 2 devices but require a minimum speed of 12 mbps on each device as all the contents are automatically played in 1080p.

In order to try and resolve your query, I would like to suggest you 3 steps :

1. Remove the Boost pass from your account completely for few days and check if that is causing us the trouble or not 
2. If that does not works, while watching NOW TV, turn off all the devices connected to WiFi apart from NOW TV Stick and check if that works for you
3. If both the steps does not works, then possibly the networak speed is less for all the devices of your household to work at the same time. Hence request you to contact your service provider and ask them to increase your internet speed so that it can resolve your query

After the first trouble shooting step, please let us know if this resolves your query or not so that we can move to second and third step.

UNQUOTE