Audio cutting out a lot on some material

[Anonymous User]

Generally sound works fine, but with some material it's just horrible, cutting out several times per second.
The stuff that's causing the trouble right now is "True Detective" on Entertainment.
Is anyone else seeing this issue?

The Now TV box goes straight into a Sony TV with HDMI.

Racing Le Mans, for example, works fine. There must be some difference in the source video, and how it's handled by the Now TV box.

[Anonymous User]

I've been noticing this for months as it used to happen on episodes of Arrow and The Flash but only a few times per episode so not as ruinous.

It definitely has gotten to the point of being unbearable now though. All recent episodes of Hannibal S3, True Detective S2, Wayward Pines, Penny Dreadful S2 have been torture to watch because of this distracting issue.

[Anonymous User]

Hi @Anonymous User

Very sorry about that 😞

I'll get this issue looked into.

Birgit

NOW TV Team

[Anonymous User]

After a period of not seeing this issue, it's back.

Episod 10 of Wayward Pines is unbearable with these dropouts.

Going back to episode 9 I don't see the issue.

These are not buffering issues, but audio dropouts with no corresponding image stuttering.

It looks like an encoding error to me.

I'm in PAL land, although I believe the TV is running 60 Hz (HDMI) -assuming that's all the NowTV box will output.

I'm going to not watch Pines tonight, just in case it works better later.

It would be great if the techies at NowTV could get a handle on the issue.

If there is a diagnostic mode the NowTV box can run in to output data about the video and audio streams, I would be happy to use that to give more information.

[herojan]

unforgettable episode 3 series 3 has sound drop outs in the second half.

[Anonymous User]

Hi @herojan @Anonymous User

I don't know if it's just me here, but I noticed a lot of drop outs on Wayward Pines ep10 on catchup, however, when I replayed a segment with drop outs, the drop outs don't occur in the same places, they just seem random.  This makes me think it's not the encoding but something to do with the actual streaming to the NOW TV box.  I've never had any drop outs on Apple TV or my iPad

[Anonymous User]

" I've never had any drop outs on Apple TV ..."

Bit sad if NowTV's own box doesn't work as well as Apple TV.

Did you check the exact same episode that caused trouble with Now TV, with the Apple TV?

The reason I think it's an encoding issue, is that I suspect it somehow is a audio stream sync issue. Some time stamp is incorrect, or some sample rate figure is incorrect, in the video or audio stream. It's just a theory. Perhaps the Apple TV box ignores some of this information.

[Anonymous User]

@Anonymous User it's not the NOW TV box, but the files it plays. It's the same one used by the consoles, LG TV, Chromecast, PC and some others. It's a different file for Apple TV, suggesting the encoding is playing up somewhere in the pipeline. 

[Anonymous User]

Hi @Anonymous User

Thanks for letting us know, I have raised it with our content team.

@herojan - can you tell us on which device this happens?

Birgit

NOW TV Team

[herojan]

@Anonymous User

his was on my LG tv (I'm taking part in the app trial). In the past this has happened on my now tv box.

[Anonymous User]

Hi @herojan

Thanks for that.

I've raised it with our content team.

Birgit

NOW TV Team