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Rubbish on demand service

carrera4life
On our wavelength

So Virgin Media make a song and dance about having the "fastest" broadband.. Well, you do not. 1Gb/s is BANDWIDTH.

Now, with this bandwidth you would think they could deliver a consistent, working on-demand service.  Unfortunately that is not the case. Contacting the offshore call centre achieves nothing.. I still have a tivo box that sometimes plays on demand programmes and other times is unwatchable. Like tonight,  trying to watch series 2 of The Gulf and it is pointless ; the spinning buffering icon works perfectly.

I do not see why I am paying for something I am unable to watch. 

 

16 REPLIES 16

japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Do you have a V6 or a TiVo? I ask because you've referred to a TiVo but posted in the V6 board. Although they run the same software - are very different beasts with internet connectivity. And therefore the solution to your issue could differ quite substantially.

A TiVo doesn't use your home broadband, whereas a V6 does - and there are several variables that can cause issues and are worth checking.

If you're not sure, check here - once we know which box you have, further advice can follow. Edited to add that both boxes allow recording of programmes, and if you know you'll want to watch a particular series, then "record record record" is always a better solution than relying on VoD.

There's a good chance that with a bit of further info from yourselves, we can offer some helpful advice either way,

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Good evening.

 

It is a TV v6.. I called it a tvio as that is how it describes itself in the menu.

Even though i have power cycled the device, it still buffers when attempting to play this program. I had this problem with series 1 of the gulf; i ended up watching on amazon prime via the tv itself rather than via the v6. I had to pay to watch too. 

 

 

japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

As per my previous post - a TiVo & V6 run the same software but are very different beasts in how they connect, so thanks for confirming,

A V6 connects to your homehub which then provides an internet connection, this can either be by wired Ethernet cable or wireless. How is yours connected?

If it's wireless, what's the signal strength? Follow Home > Help & Settings > Settings > Network, and look in the top-right.

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It is  connected as via wireless and the signal is 67%. Note that other on demand services "seem" ok.

Periodically it looses connectivity and requires a complete power cycle to reconnect. The tv connects via wireless too and that does not experience buffering. 

And this is the puzzle ; I have just selected an old top gear episode and it plays flawlessly.. Switch to The Gulf and immediately it buffers rendering the program unwatchable.

 

japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

67% should be fine of itself, but if it's varying much below that you're getting into dodgy ground IMO.

Do you have one single SSID on your homehub across both 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz WiFi bands? It's possible your V6 is flipping between a good 2.4Ghz and weak 5Ghz one. Splitting the bands into different SSID is the only way to prove that.

It would be a good test, to check the signal strength when you have buffering problems, I would be surprised if it's not dropped from 67%

Can you explain what you mean by "Periodically it looses connectivity"?

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I do have both 2.4ghz and 5ghz access points, admittedly on the same sid.

By Periodically losing connectivity, I mean it fails to find the on demand services necessitating a reset of the device. The frequency of this is indeterminate.

 

For what it is worth, we have had this unit for 2 maybe 3 years and despite numerous calls to VM they maintain the box is working as expected.. That doesn't explain why some on demand contents works whilst other is problematic. 

japitts
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

You could well have a WiFi fault with your box, that can't be ruled out. Equally if you're using a VM homehub, then I wouldn't rule out some "improvements" having been made somewhere along the line.

I would look at separating the two WiFi bands to have 2 distinct SSIDs, and see if removing that variable makes any difference. If nothing else, it's a process of elimination which is easily un-done by a pinhole reset if it has no impact.

All the apps/streamers use the same internet connection, and all of VM's OnDemand uses the same VOD platform. The only exception to that rule is that BBC VoD uses the iPlayer app, whereas every other broadcaster uses VM's in-house IP-VOD service.

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