Now TV Box

[Anonymous User]

I've just bought a new Now TV box. The small black one. 

When I play sky sports the picture is rather jumpy and jittery on football. 

If I go to sky sports news, the banner at the banner which scrolls right to left is jumpy and not smooth. Why is this happening? I've turned off motion reduction. MPEG reduction on the TV. It's a Panasonic tv. 

[Andy]

@Anonymous User

Welcome to the forum. It's not uncommon to notice very slight juddering with Internet streams due to the nature of streaming and because sports tend to feature lots of fast pans and action scenes they tend to highlight this more than movies/entertainment. However this can often be helped by adjusting the TV's post-processing options, which it looks like you've already tried to do. I'll tag @schnapps who is a Panasonic TV user who can possibly suggest additional adjustments you could try.

However there is currently an issue with sports streams which some users are experiencing where the picture will stutter/freeze on occasion, you might want to check the following thread to see if this sounds like what you are experiencing. 

https://community.nowtv.com/t5/Sports/On-Sports-channels-picture-freezes-sound-continues/m-p/439050#M12837

You could also try checking the other apps to see if you only notice this juddering on sports streams or if it's also noticeable on other streams (eg if you have movies/entertainment see what it's like there, or look at the BBC Sports app) which will help you determine if it's your TV settings that may need tweaking.

[Anonymous User]

This has been reported so many times, it's garbage streams from now tv. I have bt tv which streams football over bb and it's perfect. Now tv have no interest in fixing this, been happening for years. 

[Soulcal24]

Don’t know if this is true spoke to now tv agent on live chat last night and he told me scheduled maintenance is to fix glitches on streams so just have to wait and see what happens on 23/08/17 when maintenance due

[schnapps]

@Soulcal24

Would be surprised if this scheduled maintenance on the 23rd of this month is related to the Sports Pass broadcasts picture issues, because it only relates to the Now TV boxes where every type of NowTV playback device is effected by picture glitches.

I know Now TV and Roku USA had a similar planned maintenance schedule of their hardware about 12 to 18 months ago (before the Sports channels was encountering these picture freezing issues).

Suppose we will have to wait and see if us box users notice any difference with the NowTV service after they have completed the maintenance. 

[schnapps]

@Anonymous User

Out of interest what is the model number of your Panasonic TV ?

The NowTV black box had a firmware update a while back to change the video playback output to 50 Hz, when watching something on the box, press the info button on your TV remote to double check your screen is displaying 50Hz.

Also another problem IMO with the NowTV Sports broadcasts is that they use 25 frames per second (fps) which looks fine when the camera is static, but when there is any moving action the picture looks unnatural and more blurry due to the reduced number of frames that they use (Where Sky Sports Satellite, BT Sports IPTV and Terrestrial Sports TV like BBC etc use 50 fps which looks miles better when watching Sports). 

Some people notice motion judder more than others, where i don't notice this on the NowTV Sports stream even when they are using 25fps.

If you are noticing motion judder rather than the reported random intermittent picture freezing of the Sky Sports channels which @Andy has kindly made you aware of in his linked post, then all you can do is play around with your motion processing on your TV.

My Panasonic model CX680 TV has a software bug in it's electronic motion processing where if i switch on the Intelligent Frame Creation setting when there is either a action replay or slow mo during the match the picture will drop a frame and will jitter for a second which is so annoying, therefore i always leave IFC switch off.

The easiest way to turn off your TV motion and post processing electronics is to switch on "Game Mode" in your TV Picture settings (give it a try to see if there is any difference).

I would also compare say the BBC News channel ticker bar on the Panasonic Freeview tuner against the BBC IPlayer on the NowTV box and also watch some MOTD on the BBC IPlayer to see if you notice the judder.

Or is the juddery picture only seen on the NowTV Sky Sports HQ News and Sky Sports channels ?

The only other thing i could suggest purely for testing reasons, is to try your NowTV box on a different TV or take it to a Friends or Family members house to see if the Sports channels are also juddering on their television set.

[Anonymous User]

The update made no difference.
Would the smart box be any better than the basic box in this respect?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi @Anonymous User,

Have you tried disabling the 'post-processing' options on your TV? Such as: Auto Motion Plus, Dynamic Contrast, Black Tone, Digital Clean View, MPEG Noise Filter, Sharpness, etc - Or what-ever your TV calls them.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah turned off. Made no difference.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi @Anonymous User

Is your NOW TV box directly connected to your TV or is it connected to another device first?