Content buffering despite high speed connection.

[gb2012]

I've a BDP-S370 which seems to be randomly stalling on playback of web content, particularly iPlayer.  Interestingly cBeebies programmes seem to be unaffected and BBC 2 seems to have the most issues but this may just be a red herring.  Does anyone have any recommendations?  I'm with ISP Zen.

Message was edited by: Catmambo

[chickenribbit]

I'll just add to the list...

My BDP-S370 is connected by wire to Virgin 10Mb/s cable broadband.

I get buffering problems which can start any time after about 10 mins of playback.

Firmware is the latest firmware from the auto update feature.

Seems to be exactly the same issue that everyone else is reporting.

The problem started around Christmas - before that all was fine.

Sony - you're hiding from this one.  Please talk to us!

[dona3853]

It's interesting Top Gear has been mentioned a couple of times. I have never had any issues with iplayer on the BDP-S370 until last night. It's not that it was buffering but just that it would freeze after every 10 to 15 minutes with no way out but to go back to Home. It has only happened with this last episode of top gear. I have watched the previous 3 episodes of this series fine. I think it may have happened once during an episode of Outcasts which I also watched this week. The issue with Top Gear was after I had done the new update. I'm on BT and have 4.5mb connection via an ethernet and can usually watch BBCHD without any problems.

[theskyboy]

I did the firmware upgrade on the 16th Feb to my BDP-S370. (By creating a disc, rather than a network upgrade). And so far I haven't had any more buffering issues on iPlayer (Both SD & HD).

[vorlich78]

My BDP upgraded itself last night, but I haven't yet had a chance to test iPlayer. I'll post back when I do.

[chippyboy99]

Same problem here.  BBC iplayer does not work anymore.

1. Decent broadband connection.

2. Ethernet connection to BDP-S570

3. Latest firmware

4. It used to work perfectly and now it doesn't.  Iplayer plays fine for about 5 minutes and then stalls and buffers every 30 seconds or so.

5. Works perfectly on all my PC's, so it's not the broadband or my network, is it!

I am 100% convinced this is down to the BBC iplayer changes made a few weeks ago.  It is the BBC's fault, I am sure.  But we need Sony to talk to the Beeb so the 2 companies can fix it between them.

As it stands, I have a Sony device that is unfit for the purpose for which it was sold.  It is 3 months old, but nevertheless, I will be returning it for a full refund unless this gets fixed.  I already own a BDP-S350 I was quite happy with.

I only bought the 570 for the iplayer facility, and as it stands, IT DOES NOT WORK.  Sony, please can you do something?

[Accelebrate]

Same issue here since Christmas, another O2/Be user as well.

Connection speed: 18mb down, 2Mb up, low ping time.

Device connected via ethernet. Every other service works fine. I tried changing my DNS settings to a none Be server to see if the CDN provided me with a different stream, but didn't have any joy.

Only purchased the device because of its iPlayer abilities.

Message was edited by: Accelebrate

[catdevnull]

Updated to latest firmware version last night.

Attempted to watch Top Gear in SD and stopped at 3:00 (exactly) despite showing plenty buffered. Pressing play/pause made no difference.

Switched to media centre (which connects to same network switch and network) and played with no issues.

Seriously Sony, can you at least acknowledge this is a problem and say you're investigating?

[sonybdps370]

I am now encountering similar problems with iPlayer after downloading the recent firmware update (19/2/11).

While attempting to watch Top Gear (20/2/11), I experienced freezing of the picture on 3 occassions, after which I gave up.

None of these were like the regular buffering issues that I was previously used to seeing (with my admittedly poor 1.5 Mbps connection). This time around, the iPlayer app was completely unresponsive to the remote, eventally returning itself to the Home screen.

In one instance, the S370 became completely unresponsive, failing to shut down, unresponsive to any buttons and requiring disconnection from electricity supply. The restart was concerning, as a "Wait"message would appear for about 10s, until it then turned itself back off every time - eventually my pressing the eject button seemed to make it return to normal.

Please fix.

[Cascy24]

I updated to new firmware 2 days ago.

I-player HD still completely unplayable due to buffering every 5 mins.

SD played some programmes ok (2 episodes of Outcasts) but Hustle stopped to buffer for 30 secs literally every minute and a half (I timed it lol).

I then turned the quality of I-player from high to standard (done in settings). Then Hustle played ok but obviously with a very poor picture. This shouldn't be necessary as I have a 12.5 mb download on my broadband.

The point is, as everyone else has said, that up to Christmas I-player played perfectly HD,SD without any problems whatsoever; now it has major problems and there is no acceptance from Sony that there is anything wrong.

In fact Sony has told a few people that there are no problems with the S370 (read previous posts). So are Sony aware of the I-player problem? Well....YES! :

                                                                 A previous poster has sent sony customer services a link to this forum (shouldn't have been necessary as this is a Sony forum and I guess it has Sony administrators reading it to check that nothing untoward is being written on it)

                                                                 The sony representative on these forums called Catmambo said on page 1 of these posts that he wanted to hear technical details so that Sony could could investigate the problem. He now has 6 pages of details but hasn't contributed to this forum since asking for details on page 1.

This problem isn't going to go away - unlike Sony customers who will go away and find rival companies whose products work as advertised.

[juanitozz]

I have the same problem with my BDP-S370. It's connected by ethernet (wired) to an o2wirelessbox. I can normally get about 9Mbps download speed.

The problem is there at all times of day and evening but seems to be OK very late at night (after say 1am) although I've only tried this a couple of times. Which makes me think it coudl be somthing to do with demand.

I have no problem watching iplayer in HD on my Mac off the same router (via wireless) and broadband.