Unable to watch any video content, unless using Youtube.

Avatar image for rubberfactory
RubberFactory

333

Forum Posts

245

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

For the last couple months I have been unable to watch any content from Giantbomb that doesn't provide a Youtube version (subscriber content, and live streams).

I resubscribed hoping the new video player might alleviate the issues but they are the same as before. Progressive plays for a while then cuts to a blank screen. Streaming is consistently low quality and super choppy. HTML 5 plays fine for about 10 minutes and then gets to a point where it plays for half a second then waits about 10 seconds then plays another half second, the same thing happens when using the download option.

I have a 25mb download speed and have no trouble viewing video content from any other website so I'm not sure what the problem is.

I use Chrome and am using a PC. Any help would be appreciated.

Avatar image for mrpibb
mrpibb

480

Forum Posts

18

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 3

User Lists: 0

can you get me a speed test? Also, are you in Europe? Asia? US?

thanks

Avatar image for rubberfactory
RubberFactory

333

Forum Posts

245

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

@mrpibb: Hi, sorry for the late reply.

I'm in The US, Florida to be exact. my speed test scores are 22.56 download and 6.0 upload.

Avatar image for pd
PD

170

Forum Posts

288

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 5

User Lists: 9

I'm having a similar issue, but slightly different. After watching roughly 1+ hours of Giant Bomb content, the next video I play will stop or stutter after a couple of minutes. I need to quit my browser to fix the issue, which works most of the time but every now and then it won't.

I had this issue back before the redesign during the Whiskey Media days but it mostly went away with the first player redesign. At least, until maybe December of 2013? It came back and it persists with this new video player.

I'm using the HTML5 player in Safari 7.0.1 and OS X 10.9.1. My download speed is about 60 Mb/s. I coincidentally live in Florida as well, if that's any help.

Avatar image for rubberfactory
RubberFactory

333

Forum Posts

245

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Thanks for the tip @fattony12000, but it's still not working. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. I really want to continue supporting Giant Bomb with a premium membership but for the longest time I haven't been able to watch any of the premium content.

Avatar image for rubberfactory
RubberFactory

333

Forum Posts

245

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

#7  Edited By RubberFactory

@mrpibb: Is it possible to get a refund for my premium subscription. I just resubscribed under the hopes that this issue would be fixed, but I am unable to view any of the features I'm paying for.

Avatar image for noremnants
noremnants

439

Forum Posts

1475

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I'm getting this exact same issue. I can't watch any premium streams due to the constant buffering and stuttering. I have a 40Mbps connection and never have an issue watching any other streaming video except the ones on Giant Bomb. I can always fall back to youtube for the free stuff but the stuff I'm actually paying for (Subscriber content) is completely unwatchable. I just tried to watch the Evolve trailer and it couldn't even make it more than 30 seconds in to a 2 minute video without constant buffering. This happens on all video quality settings.

I'm running Chrome 32 in Windows 8.

Avatar image for rubberfactory
RubberFactory

333

Forum Posts

245

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

#9  Edited By RubberFactory

@noremnants: Yeah it's a serious issue for me. I was just trying to watch the Demon's Souls stream and it played for about a few seconds and then went black, it did that every time I refreshed. It wasn't always like this, progressive used to work fine about 2 months back, and I never had problems with livestreams until recently.

Avatar image for fattony12000
fattony12000

8491

Forum Posts

22398

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

#10  Edited By fattony12000
@rubberfactory said:

Thanks for the tip @fattony12000, but it's still not working. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. I really want to continue supporting Giant Bomb with a premium membership but for the longest time I haven't been able to watch any of the premium content.

Damn, duder. Start pinging the shit out of the Top Men, then I guess.

@rorie@alexisg@edgework@jeff@drewbert@vinny@patrickklepek

Avatar image for rorie
rorie

7887

Forum Posts

1502

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 4

User Lists: 3

@rubberfactory: Just out of curiosity, have you tried using another browser for these streams? Does that affect anything? Just to see if it might be an addon or something that's interacting weirdly with our player.

Avatar image for rubberfactory
RubberFactory

333

Forum Posts

245

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

#12  Edited By RubberFactory

@rorie: I just tried to watch a few videos from Fire Fox and I just got a black screen when using progressive and HTML5. Streaming worked but was constantly buffering.

Edit: It looks like the black screen is not just a FireFox issue it's happening in Chrome too. Also if it is in any way connected I can no longer download any podcasts from the site through itunes or from the site.

Avatar image for poliwog
POLIWOG

44

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I'm having the same issue using FireFox. I press play and a black screen appears

Avatar image for amyggen
AMyggen

7738

Forum Posts

7669

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

#14  Edited By AMyggen

So strange, I've had no issues since the new player and you've got a better connection than me...

edit: You're not able to download either?

Avatar image for rubberfactory
RubberFactory

333

Forum Posts

245

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

#15  Edited By RubberFactory

@amyggen: Nope, there is no way for me to watch any content that does not support Youtube. I'm pretty upset because I just renewed my subscription with the hopes that the new player would sort out these issues, but as of right now I'm paying for nothing.

Avatar image for amyggen
AMyggen

7738

Forum Posts

7669

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Avatar image for rubberfactory
RubberFactory

333

Forum Posts

245

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

@amyggen: How exactly does downloading work, when I hit the download button it just opens up a new page with just a video player, it doesn't seem like it's downloading. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Avatar image for amyggen
AMyggen

7738

Forum Posts

7669

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

#18  Edited By AMyggen

@rubberfactory: When you hover over the download for your video of choice you should get the option to download in either low, medium or HD quality. Click on that and the download starts, and you can watch the video in your video player of choice (VLC all the way, baby!). If that's not how it works for you, you should contact Rorie because that would be strange as fuck.

Avatar image for rubberfactory
RubberFactory

333

Forum Posts

245

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

@amyggen: It definitely doesn't do that for me. I'll contact Rorie, thanks.

Avatar image for icaria
Icaria

196

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Not sure if this belongs here. Since the latest site video player update a week or two ago, I can't watch any videos with Linux + Flash player 10. Have tried both webkit-based browsers and Firefox. I'm not using adblocking or anything like that. Having to switch OSes just to watch some Flash videos on a website is pretty ridiculous.

Avatar image for pxabstraction
PXAbstraction

397

Forum Posts

1720

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 1

I'm having constant buffering problems with the new player as well, same as before. On top of that, this new player was apparently released without the ability to save your playback position when you leave the page? I can't fathom why a new player was pushed out with features missing from the previous one. But yeah, even on my 150MBit cable connection at home, I have no video issues except here. As someone who bought Premium primarily for videos, it's getting incredibly frustrating to keep having to deal with this nonsense.

Avatar image for e30bmw
e30bmw

655

Forum Posts

69

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#22  Edited By e30bmw

@amyggen said:

@rubberfactory: When you hover over the download for your video of choice you should get the option to download in either low, medium or HD quality. Click on that and the download starts, and you can watch the video in your video player of choice (VLC all the way, baby!). If that's not how it works for you, you should contact Rorie because that would be strange as fuck.

Yeah, that's not how you download stuff in Chrome at least. You have to right click on the quality you want and then click save as.

Avatar image for amyggen
AMyggen

7738

Forum Posts

7669

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

@pxabstraction: They've said that they are rewriting the "resume" function from scratch because it didn't carry over to the new player, so they're at least aware of the problem.

Avatar image for lamzor
lamzor

70

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

#24  Edited By lamzor

@rorie: I was having the same problem. Im on perfect 150mbit connection. Playing dota2 on USe servers(being from Europe) without any problem for months(ping is around 100ms). Good services max my router WAN LAN download speed, which is around 12MBs.

But suddenly all giantbomb video became unwatchable. 2sec playback 10sec load time. Download speed was 15KBs. I tried the workaround from Szlifiers blog and it worked. download speed now is around 2-3MBs, and videos are watchable again.

On android mobile, i tried to modify HOSTS file in the same way. Ping to v.giantbomb.com now points to new destination but i have same buffering problem in browsers. Im testing HD video via mx video player and it seems to be working without buffering.

It seems that there is problem between my ISP(Chello - pretty major Europe ISP) and your service provider :( Last time i have seen this problem, it was with Twitch. But it was well known that they did not have good connection to Europe and most people were having problems.

Avatar image for noremnants
noremnants

439

Forum Posts

1475

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@rorie: I can confirm that Szlifiers solution fixes the problem for the most part.

Avatar image for lamzor
lamzor

70

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

i have removed my HOSTS workaround and the service seems to be working again. didnt have any problems last 4-5 days. download speed are around 3-5MBs.

Avatar image for nakke
nakke

67

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Extremely slow speeds for me the past few days. I'm on a 350mbps connection in Finland. Occasionally it jumps to an acceptable ~3-4MB/s, but then goes back to just around 20kB/s or whatever for ages.

C:\Users\nakke>tracert v.giantbomb.com

Tracing route to a1189.g2.akamai.net [87.108.18.41] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 8 ms 8 ms 9 ms 10.235.0.1
2 9 ms 7 ms 7 ms hel5-sr3.dnaip.fi [62.78.106.136]
3 14 ms 9 ms 7 ms hel5-tr3.dnaip.fi [62.78.107.116]
4 9 ms 11 ms 6 ms esp2-tr2.dnaip.fi [62.78.107.41]
5 10 ms 11 ms 7 ms academica.ficix1.ficix.fi [193.110.226.52]
6 10 ms 8 ms 9 ms xe-0-1-0-0.cr1-usp1.hel.ip.as29154.net [79.99.155.3]
7 10 ms 7 ms 11 ms a87-108-18-41.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [87.108.18.41]

No Caption Provided

Seems to be in order.. Speedtest aswell:

Avatar image for dezztroy
Dezztroy

1084

Forum Posts

131

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I have problems with the GB player as well. Framerates are constantly low, and it loves to freeze my entire browser for a couple seconds now and then. Going fullscreen makes it play at single digit framerates. It's certainly not an ideal way to watch videos.

Youtube player has no issues.

Avatar image for alexw00d
AlexW00d

7604

Forum Posts

3686

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

When the player from just before and then just after the cbs merger (which they're still getting used to guys) I couldn't watch a single video, it would just be a black screen indefinitely. The way I fixed it is by getting a new motherboard... And reinstalling my Windows in the process. Now I'm not saying that will fix everyone's, cause I only have some of the symptoms you guys have, but I think that my problem was caused by something in one of the various things GB uses to be corrupt on my end.

And for the download speed problems I think they started popping up the last time GB switched out hosts right?

Avatar image for nakke
nakke

67

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Your problem had nothing to do with streaming/connection/download speed, that was probably an issue with your graphics card drivers or similar.

Avatar image for nakke
nakke

67

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

#32  Edited By nakke

I changed v.giantbomb.com to point to Paris instead (instructions on http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/szlifier/blog/a-fix-for-crappy-download-speeds-from-giant-bomb/100558/), seems to maybe have fixed the issue. Still pretty bad speeds compared to what I 'should' be getting, but at least streaming seems to work without hickups.

Avatar image for noremnants
noremnants

439

Forum Posts

1475

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#33  Edited By noremnants

@rorie: Still getting this issue and it is beyond frustrating to the point me contemplating canceling my subscription since I can't watch the premium videos I am paying for. This really should be the #1 priority for the dev team as videos are the lifeblood of Giant Bomb.

Here are traceroute and speed test results.

Tracing route to a1189.g2.akamai.net [63.216.54.253]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1

2 19 ms 93 ms 115 ms mpls-dsl-gw57.mpls.qwest.net [207.225.140.57]

3 42 ms 19 ms 19 ms mpls-agw1.inet.qwest.net [75.168.229.193]

4 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms chp-brdr-03.inet.qwest.net [67.14.8.194]

5 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms ge9-1.br03.chc01.pccwbtn.net [63.218.5.29]

6 39 ms 39 ms 37 ms 209-8-108-102.static.pccwglobal.net [209.8.108.102]

7 37 ms 33 ms 32 ms 63-216-54-253.static.pccwglobal.net [63.216.54.253]

Trace complete.

No Caption Provided

Avatar image for rorie
rorie

7887

Forum Posts

1502

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 4

User Lists: 3

#34  Edited By rorie

@noremnants: Sorry, I'm really not up on video player stuff. Perhaps @mrpibb might be able to say if anything's changed in our video player or bandwidth provider recently.