Problem with Amazon video on new ADSL connection

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help me. My girlfriend has just moved into a new house and has got a TalkTalk ADSL connection. The connection speed is OK, first synced about 10 MBit/s down and as I type is running about 15 MBit/s. Getting about 0.8 up.

There are no issues with browsing or using most apps. Netflix on a range of platforms is working fine. However, I can not get amazon video to play ball. At first I thought it was the SONY blu ray player at fault. It plays netflix OK but when I first connected it to the WiFi it would not play ball, I had to set the IP address and DNS manually. But this has not stopped Netflix working OK... The specific issue with Amazon video is low quality audio with lots of noise and a lack of sync between the audio and video. It makes the video pretty much unwatchable. The video is not the highest quality either, but is OK.

I have since swapped blu ray players with my girlfriend (we have almost identical models) and hers works OK on my internet connection and again my blu ray player struggles on hers. It has the same issue with needing the IP and DNS details to be set manually, and amazon video won't work properly. Exactly the same issue with audio as with her blu ray player.

My understanding is that Amazon video only requires about 3.5 MBit connection for HD video, so I'm not sure what could cause the issue. And given that Netflix apparently requires a slightly higher 5 MBit and is working OK, I don't imagine it is a bandwidth issue.

This leads me to believe there is some sort of other issue with the connection, i.e. that Amazon doesn't like talk talk settings or something. But I don't really know what those issues could be exactly. And I'm not sure what further I can do to diagnose the issue. I'm tempted to buy a new router (my girlfirend is currently just using the free router) as my own experience with the free one I got with Plusnet was that it was garbage. But I don't want one of us to fork out for a router that won't have any effect.

I'd be grateful for any ideas/suggestions anyone can offer.

Tim

Less likely to be any TalkTalk settings on your connection and more to do with the route between TalkTalk and where the Amazon video is served from.

In theory TalkTalk recently said they'd expanded capacity to cope with The Grand Tour starting, but maybe this was not enough.

So don't waste money by going to buy different routers, especially if you still the issue when using an Ethernet based connection to the router they supplied.

Thanks for the prompt reply. I have tried wired (over powerline) and wireless, with little if any difference. Have not tried direct connection to the router yet. Will borrow a fire stick and give that a try at some point using the TV right next to the router.

Is there any reference reading you can link me to about talk talk and any issues with amazon tv/increasing bandwidth?

Thanks

Tim

Andrew would mean a direct Ethernet cable, rather than power line adaptors.

Edited by deleted (Sat 03-Dec-16 19:23:36)

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/11/talktal...

Nice PR as a big number, but 100 Gbps only actually supports 28,000 people streaming at the same time and TalkTalk has over 4 million customers

Whilst it might not help I can use amazon tv fine on talktalk. Have you tried rebooting the router, I know it sounds daft.

Also regarding having to set DNS and IP etc manually that's not right and is very strange. Try setting it back to DHCP and reset the talktalk router to factory settings.

Do all other devices get a decent connection over DHCP?

Also finally can you stream the grand tour ok from a laptop?

Thanks, Andrew - but such information is not generally available, that I am aware of.

tl;dr: I also see a problem, but be patient. It may take 60 to 120 seconds to get HD.

I'm on TalkTalk Business (resold via Pulse8), ADSL2+ synced at ~18/1. My traffic is supposedly prioritised over TalkTalk Retail traffic. I've used Amazon Video over that connection for 18+ months. I've recently noticed it's taking far longer for the HD stream to kick in.

When I was watching The Man in the High Castle a year ago, the stream would start with a fairly decent SD picture, switching to HD before the end of the opening titles. I don't recall any problem with lipsync.

However, each of the three Grand Tour streams I've watched have started fairly OK, then actually down-shifted to a horrible, low-bitrate SD stream, before finally managing an HD picture after about 90 seconds. I'm also seeing lipsync issues, but not hearing the noise you describe.

Is that what you're seeing? Or does it never get better, even if you wait a few minutes?

All,

Thanks for the input. Not been back at my girlfriend's to do any more testing for a few days. Going back tonight so will do some testing and see what I can find out.

Will report back.

Thanks

Tim

Be interesting to see if things were any better at low use time such as Sunday 5am-9am or similar

If Netflix ok then I don't think spending money on routers etc is a good idea. Much more likely to be ISP problem

I've been surprised that The Grand Tour seems to have gone off so smoothly, indicating that Amazon seems to have done its best to have thiings well sorted from its end. I did notice that much of the world is still waiting for GT to be made available

All,

Thanks very much for your help so far. I've got some more to tell you after doing some further testing this evening. So I'd appreciate any further advice based on this!

First new thing I have tried is to watch amazon video on a laptop. I have tried it both on wireless right next to the router and upstairs next to the blu ray player. In both cases it worked fine. HD stream and no problems with sync between audio and video. So this leads me to think there is no definitive issue with amazon video on the connection, but some quirk of hardware or settings or something such like. The laptop is connecting fine to the wireless via DHCP.

The bluray player is still suffering an issue with connecting to the internet automatically, I think this must be the cause of the problem somehow. With both my bluray player and my girlfriend's bluray player they will not automatically connect to the internet. They both reported connecting to the wireless but no connection to the internet. I have spent some time tonight playing around with different IP address and DNS settings and it seems to be the DNS settings where the bluray player gets stuck.

I have tried Google DNS settings and OpenDNS settings. Both of these allow the bluray player to connect to the internet and Netflix works OK with these, but amazon will play HD video but suffers from a noticeable audio/visual lag. I also tried using the talktalk DNS settings as the router reports them. The bluray player simply will not connect to the internet using these settings. So I think maybe this is the issue? Amazon video will work OK but only using talktalk DNS, but for some reason our bluray players won't work with talktalk DNS. Is that even plausible?

I feel like I've made some progress testing this out, but not sure it helps! I'd appreciate any further ideas.

Thanks

Tim

It's really this simple, if the device does not get an IP over DHCP and everything else does and if it does not auto assign DNS and everything else does the device is faulty.

Can you return it if purchased recently and replace it for something else?

The fact it works fine on a laptop rules out the connection in my view.

It seems clear that the blu ray players are the problem. Have you looked to see if there is an updated firmware available on the maker's web-site?

Alternatively, have you contacted the maker direct or looked to see if there is a forum on the web site?

Both bluray players are brand new, similar Sony models updated to latest firmware. Both work absolutely fine on my own PlusNet connection. That's why I think there's something specific about the TalkTalk connection. Will try and research more with Sony.

Thanks

Tim

I'm sure you're correct in coming to the conclusion that there is a basic conflict between the two

Getting TT and Sony to sort it is probably going to take forever. As you say, if your players work ok on Plusnet and elsewhere it points to a problem at TalkTalk

Hi,

I had exactly the same problem with my Sony Blu-Ray player when I moved to TalkTalk. After much investigation, the problem appeared to be somehow related to DNS and the TalkTalk HG633 router.

Following the instructions in one of these posts resolved the issues I had:

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/TV-tech-equipmen...

https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/home-cinema-projecto...

I have no idea what's special about the DNS server at 67.219.62.174, but trying others didn't seem to work.

Adam.