Forum Discussion
Playon having issues with slow download speed?
spydermike wrote:
This worked for me last night. All four episodes downloaded. Each episode is about an hour in SD downloaded in 3-4 minutes each. I have two longer movies scheduled for tonight.
That's good to hear.
Two nights ago, I was able to download 5 shows totalling about 6 hours of viewing from Netflix and Amazon. I am having to use the Cloud App on a phone to get the record the shows to the cloud, then shutting the phone off at night and turning on a dedicated laptop with the Windows Cloud Dowloading app at night before the bonus zone starts. I keep another laptop with Playon Desktop off during the night time as well. So far this is the combination that has worked the best for me...although I am just starting out and don't have too much data yet.
The only odd things I notice are:
1. Inconsistencies in closed captioning - some shows have it and some do not. I need to see if there are settings for this.
2. In quite a few cases, the audio lags the video by about a second or two...kind of annoying as you can't really get into the program. Not sure what can be done about this one.
In my experience, though I've had a couple of issues with Netflix and captions over the many months I've been using PlayOn Cloud, they've been good for the most part, and perfect over the last few.
When it comes to Amazon, however, that's a different story. I haven't gotten much from them, but of the roughly half dozen movies I have gotten from them, only the very first had captions available. I contacted PlayOn a couple of different times about this, they refunded me the credits, and I tried the titles again, but it was the same, so I gave up with Amazon, at least for now. I haven't streamed anything from them in probably six months.
I don't necessarily need the captions, but I like having them there.
i have buffering all the time; well most of the time. it is really hit or miss. sometimes in middle of day i can watch a prime or netflix moving. but pretty much forget it at night. i was just about to hit the button to order playon tv. but from your posts, it sounds like pretty much a waste of time. thanks.
I have figured out a way to make it work fairly consistently for me. I use the phone app to establish the queue that I want to download. That gets the files copied and ready to download during the day. I then used their downloader app on my laptop to schedule the downloads during the bonus time from 2am to 8am. It has served me well
To get captions from Netflix, it was suggested to watch a show with captions on for at least 6 minutes. That sets the expected captions setting. Then when I recorded and downloaded the series, the captions were all there.
Kind of a kluge...but what isn't with HNS. I can't t even email my wife a photo file as I am considered spam. Well I guess they have a point there....
Oh, and as far as the audio lagging, I found that if I pause for a couple of seconds right near the start of the show then the audio synchs up. This has been very repeatable. I have to wait until the audio and video stop struggling and relax...usually in the first 30 seconds. It could be an issue with my Samsung TV reading a cheap USB Memory stick.
From our experience, PlayOn is the only solution that makes this HNS service somewhat useable for streaming. Sad but true.
"To get captions from Netflix, it was suggested to watch a show with captions on for at least 6 minutes."
This is the way it used to be, but PlayOn changed that over a year ago, and now the captions are embedded. and you no longer have to do the 6 minute thing. For me, they only show if I play the files with VLC player, but if I do, the captions work every time.
so you use the play on cloud to record movies and then download from cloud to your pc during the day? why do you need to que movies from your phone? thx
PlayOn Cloud is an app for iOS and Android, that's why it's on a phone (or tablet). You cue the movies from the app, then you get an email when they're ready to download, and you can download from their website, or from the app. If you download from the app they're downloaded to your device. If you use a browser and download from their website, you can download them to a computer or a USB drive.
so you use the play on cloud to record movies and then download from cloud to your pc during the day? why do you need to que movies from your phone? thx
rj39503 wrote:so you use the play on cloud to record movies and then download from cloud to your pc during the day? why do you need to que movies from your phone? thx
He's recording them and setting up the download schedule during the day, but for the actual downloads to take place at night, during the Bonus Zone.
""To get captions from Netflix, it was suggested to watch a show with captions on for at least 6 minutes."
This is the way it used to be, but PlayOn changed that over a year ago, and now the captions are embedded. and you no longer have to do the 6 minute thing. For me, they only show if I play the files with VLC player, but if I do, the captions work every time."
My TV has its own player software (not VLC) and the method I mentioend as told to me by Playon works (play at least 6 minutes with captions on first, then download)...I used it just a few weeks ago. It was on their website FAQs too:
PlayOn supports closed captioning for Netflix recordings. To enable closed captioning on your recordings, follow these instructions:
1. Log into your Netflix account in a computer browser (or the Netflix app)
2. Select any video, start watching it with the captions enabled
3. Let the video play for at least 6 minutes
This will become the new playback preference for your account and will carry over to your PlayOn recordings. To disable closed captioning in PlayOn recordings, follow the same steps as above with the captions off.It's weird you still have to do that, but maybe it's an "individual results may vary" type of thing. For the last six months or so everything that I've gotten from Netflix via PlayOn Cloud has had captions I can turn on or off during playback. Same with Amazon Prime, which is the one I had the most CC problems with.
Come to think of it, the only PlayOn Cloud item I've downloaded recently that was missing the CC was an older movie from TCM via HBO Max.
If you read the last two sentences of their FAQ, they state that if you do it that way once, from then on it is the norm for you. We continue to get CC available since then. I don't have to do it every thime. It must update their profile of us. Just a guess.
Yes, I know that's what their FAQ says. When I had issues with CC, I did what the FAQ said, then contacted Tech Support and told them I'd done that and couldn't get the CC to work, and they told me they don't do it that way anymore, that the FAQ was outdated.
spydermike wrote:If you read the last two sentences of their FAQ, they state that if you do it that way once, from then on it is the norm for you. We continue to get CC available since then. I don't have to do it every thime. It must update their profile of us. Just a guess.
spydermike wrote:If you read the last two sentences of their FAQ, they state that if you do it that way once, from then on it is the norm for you.
I never tried it with mine.
This is what I got from Tech Support:
Hello,
I'm happy to help. It is no longer necessary to manually enable subtitles by watching a program for a number of minutes, as we include the subtitles file in each recording which can be toggled on/off in video players like VLC. The FAQ is outdated, and we will pass the information on to the appropriate department.
Trent
PlayOn SupportI appreciate what he is saying...perhaps in response to a slightly different question. He states "it is no longer necessary to...". For my application it seems that it is. My Samsung TV could not access the CC files apparently. However, when I used the method in their FAQ, it was recorded with CC visible and that is how we watched it. Users of Playon Cloud - there is more than one method to achieve this one goal it seems. There might be even another if there is a Netflix profile option to always have CC displaying.
My issue was CC was not showing on the recordings. I did the 6 minute watching and it still wasn't working. I consulted Tech Support, and they told me the 6 minute watching is no longer necessary because their files already have embedded CC, so watching for 6 minutes is pointless, as it won't add CC because they are already there. Before they started encoding with CC, you had to watch for 6 minutes to tell the system you wanted CC. And it worked; I did that for months. Then it stopped working when they began encoding the CC with every file.
Anyhow, I'd recommend that anyone who doesn't see CC try watching the file with VLC (the program is a free download). That'll show whether CC are embedded or not. Errors do happen with some of the company's encoding, so it's a good idea to make sure.
And all I am saying is that the FAQ method still works as confirmed by Bill at Playon:
...those specific steps are absolutely still valid for getting subtitles burned in for Netflix recordings.
I think we are talking about two different issues here. You have a method that works for you and I have one that works for me. Both are valid.
It didn't work for me, no matter how many times I tried. Glad it works for you.
