I've been watching and enjoying this series until the last few nights and finally until tonight have had to give up. The picture keeps blanking out but the sound keeps going. Tonight it has become impossible to watch. Given how much I pay virgin (over £200 pcm) for my services I think this is a very poor deal.
Is anybody else having this problem?
There has been another post about Game of Thrones recently, (£200 pcm sounds a lot are you buying shares or have a lot of boxes). How are watching GOT.
LG TV constantly switching Filmmaker mode on and off | Virgin Media Community - 5672563
The first 3 seasons of watching GoT has been absolutely fine. Picture and sound quality excellent. However started season 4 and I started getting HDMI 1 Dolby Digital 3640x2160p pop ups at the top of the screen (a banner / overlay) causing the sound and visuals to black out for a few seconds then return. This can happen multiple times during an episode. Sometimes not at all. It is getting worse. GoT seems to be the only program that is causing this. I have tried changing audio settings from follow content to PCM 5.1 and PCM 2.0, disabling Bravia sync on my TV, factory rest on both virgin 360 box and TV. New HDMI lead 2.1 Still doing it. Now GoT is unbearable to watch as it seems to becoming more frequent. Any suggestions? Thanks.
It may be worth having a look again at one of the episodes that was previously OK, just to see if that is still fine. It will at least rule out the software update last week being the cause [it has had other effects on UHD viewing].
Does the popup you get say "Dolby Digital" which is sound related or "Dolby Vision" which is picture related?
After your suggestion earlier episodes/seasons are also suffering from this never ending information banner pop up banner.
On your 360 look at Settings > Audio & Video > Match frame rate.
If it's set to ON then people do see a blackout/or hear a sound drop when the 360 or HDMI reconfigures for any difference in frame rate.(This is more noticable on live TV when switching from adverts back to a program, or changing channels)
If it's set to the default (OFF) then the box just accepts the frame rate difference which isn't noticeable by most users and shouldn't blank the screen out. (Either way try toggling this setting to see if it solves your issues)
Hello Richard. It just say Dolby Digital. If I change to PCM 5.1 then the Dolby Digital information is not displayed but the other information is.
Check out the link provided by roy247.
Also having the same problem. We have a Sony Bravia TV and have tried all the different audio and visual settings, changed the HDMI, rebooted etc. No problem with any other channel or show; just GoT. Virgin/Sky showcase really need to sort it out as it's clearly a problem their end.
Forum TeamHi brightonjohn,
Welcome to the Community, and thank you for posting. I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with your TV services while trying to watch Game of Thrones. Are the issues still ongoing? Has any advice from fellow community members helped to improve things? Let us know so we can support you further.
Best regards,
Steven_L
I've experienced the same issue and it is in fact the reason I've joined the Forum as I search for a resolution. The 'cutting-out and in' only happens with the GoT streaming; I've not seen it anywhere else. To help any Techs who may be trying to troubleshoot this is what I've tried to date.
1. It happened a few times around Season 4 or 5 but came to a head in Season 6 with Episode 10 being the worst affected. Interestingly I've just tried that episode again on my other multiroom TV and it was affected the same way but the picture did seem to dim down/up intermittently.
2. When I experienced the issued I did the obligatory reboot of the box and that made no difference.
3. I managed to stream the episode on my phone and laptop via the VirginGo App and it worked fine, but when I tried to 'Cast it' onto the TV the same cutting-out and in happened again.
Anyway, I'm now on Season 8 of my rewatch and when the episodes are problematic with the issue I watch it on my laptop. Not ideal but it reduces the frustration of not continuing with the storyline at all.
Here's hoping someone can use this detail to resolve the issue.
Just having a quick look at Game of Thrones [I chose Season 5 episode 5 as a random episode], and looking at the Sky Showcase version [I've a Stream box so can't watch the UHD version] which should be SDR HD.
The issue is that the picture is changing throughout from SDR HD to HLG HD. My TV plays through that [an LG] but it does keep putting the HLG banner up, and a look at the detail of the picture shows it changes, as do the exact colours.
There has been an issue [to me] in that a lot of the HD content in catch up is tagged incorrectly as HLG. For the other programmes I've watched it is consistent throughout the programme, whereas for Game of Thrones it changes sometimes within minute to minute. This will change picture mode and colour space in many TVs depending on set up and model.
It is impossible to compare directly with the version on SkyQ as they have four versions, SD, HD, UHD, and UHD HDR. The closest to Virgin's, their HD version, doesn't have this issue being consistently in SDR.
I assume others posting here are using the Sky Showcase version rather than the Sky UHD version which is only available to those who can and do subscribe to the Sky Movies and Entertainment UHD add-on or the Virgin pay per view version.
I did a check a while ago and all of Sky's on demand in HD I looked at was mastered in HLG. This is deliberate to keep costs down. However this can cause multiple problems for SDR and lower-end HDR TVs such as dimmed or flashing pictures due to inadequacies/poor settings of TVs or lack of HLG metadata to guide tone mapping (meaning TVs have to guess how to render brightness and contrast).
We're having the same issue with season 4
Hoping someone has a fix for it soon!
We've reset the virgin box, checked the hdmi but it's only game of thrones with the problem
VM has enforced HDCP 2.2 for its UHD streams, and if any link in the chain between box and TV (including soundbar or AVR) is not compliant, then the HDCP handshake won't work. So, check your TV specs that the HDMI port (normally HDMI 1) supports HDCP 2.2 and that your HDMI cable is high speed and under 5m in length.
Thank you Richardr1 and Roger_Gooner for your replies and the technical detail provided. I suspect the issue is TV or equipment set-up related. I had a play around with settings today on my TV (Sony KD65A1) and VM360 box but no difference. Anyway, Season 8 Episode 1 on the TV was fine, but Episode 2 started the cutting in/out so I'm on the Go App tonight. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Hi, as above, I think it is a playout issue at Virgin's end. Unless you are paying for the Sky Cinema and Entertainment UHD addon you will be watching the Sky Showcase version. (Even if you have that addon check which version of the programme you are watching). If so, HDCP and the like won't affect you, that affects UHD only. The HLG coding is wrong and all over the place on the episode I looked at.
I’ve had the same issue, started about a week ago. I have an LG TV and its gradually got worse. To the extent i’ve given up on watching it as it’s completely unwatchable. It happens every few seconds, changing between tv picture mode saying HLG HDR in the top right with the brightness changing. Only happens on game of thrones. No other channel or on demand programme.
it would be good to know when i will be able to finish watching the series.
I am in no way technical. The HDMI cable came with the Virgin box when it was installed and everything has worked perfectly until last week. Why would anyone perform an update on software that would make the cables provided with the setup obsolete?
I was moved to a stream box from the 360 following a big reduction in my subscription. I watched GOT via the Sky Showcase and managed to view all 73 episodes without issue.
Forum TeamHi all,
Thanks for your posts around the issues you're facing watching Game of Thrones.
We are aware of an issue with Game of thrones on demand content in HD. This appears to be on LG TV's. The issues include changing the picture ratio/format/brightness etc.
This is being looked at and we hope to have a fix soon.
We are sorry for any inconvenience caused whilst we work to resolve this.
