HBO NOW running slow

[macbroadcast]

HBO NOW has been running fine using unblock-us. But only yesterday I have noticed issues with playback and stutter, especially with watching GOT. Also have been seeing a drop in quality.

Unblock-us have tested the HBO NOW app from their end and said they are having the same problem and HBO is experiencing some "down-time." Especially cause its newly launched.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue?

 

[mikeka]

It's been fine here since launch. No glitches and good HD quality. I'm in California.

 

[iOrbit]

when i first got HBO Now, the first day experience was awful. it stayed in blurry low quality SD. and it would buffer often.

i canceled my auto renewal immediately.

but in the days after, it performed great, which is strange.

so my advice is - keep trying it, giving a good week of testing to see what the consistency is for you. It could be a bad day of service?

i tried it lightly last night and it was working fine for me, not the best performance i've seen it achieve but acceptable / okay. (probably moderately compressed 720 at the worse)

 

[macbroadcast]

Thanks guys for the reply. I'll keep trying and see how I go.

Update: Just tested "last week tonight" and ran nicely in FULL 1080p. But I go back to game of thrones, everything goes downhill from there?

It could be Unblock-us or HBO NOW?

 

[wojinewxe]

well, it stayed in blurry low quality SD. and it would buffer often. thanks

 

[Longkeg]

Last Week Tonight is a great show but has only a fraction of the viewers that GoT has. Even here in the states GoT streams can be less than perfect. HBOs servers have trouble keeping up with the demand sometimes, especially for first run episodes on Sunday nights. Add to that a VPN bottleneck and it not surprising you are having issues.

 

[macbroadcast]

Last Week Tonight is a great show but has only a fraction of the viewers that GoT has. Even here in the states GoT streams can be less than perfect. HBOs servers have trouble keeping up with the demand sometimes, especially for first run episodes on Sunday nights. Add to that a VPN bottleneck and it not surprising you are having issues.

Agreed. However, it is possible for things to run quite good, which did happen for the last 2 weeks. Only monday did things go down hill. Lets hope HBO adds more servers or what ever makes the streaming more stable.

 

[Longkeg]

You say things went bad on a Monday? Was there an improvement later in the week?

GoT first runs are on Sunday at 9pm EDT, when most of Europe is sleeping. When they wake up on Monday the HBO stampede begins; most of it through VPN or DNS servers. Once the world has their GoT fix for the week things taper off back to normal.

That's my theory anyway. Could be complete hogwash, but it sounds good to me.

 

[macbroadcast]

You say things went bad on a Monday? Was there an improvement later in the week?

When I first viewed GOT ep3, I experienced some stutter (frame skipping) and a drop in quality. I contacted Unblock-us which is the server I use (DNS) and they said HBO NOW may be experiencing some "down-time" and its highly on demand etc.

Just yesterday, I again watched ep3 of GOT and ran much better with the quality staying consistent, however the motion wasn't the best, almost like playing a NTSC DVD in a PAL DVD player (stutter/frame skipping) which never was happening before.

I tested other apps such as FOX (to compare) and ran a random show which was streaming in HD, and still was stuttering. But again like I mentioned before, Talk shows run perfectly. FOX is not as popular as HBO NOW I don't think? And I'm getting 30mbps which isn't the best, but a-parentally Netflix needs only 10mbps or something?

Update: I just watched GOT season 1 worked perfectly, it seems HBO NOW is on high demand and needs some time to cope with this. Also, is it normal for a stream to look a-little pixilated and then load into full HD?