SmartTV (?) and YouTube oddity

[Jethro_uk]

7 year old LG with YouTube app.

Works perfectly fine 99% of the time. But of late there have been a few YouTube vidoes it seems to refuse to play. It just sits there "Loading ..." after 5 minutes I give up.

Up until now it's happened 3 times - the very same videos each time. However if I got to a PC or tablet (via app or website) the video plays fine. So it's not anything to do with my internet. If I back out of the "Loading ..." screen on the TV (it's not crashed) I can select another video and it will play fine.

Last night, something slightly different happened. Was 10 minutes into the video (Russell Howards "Hometime" part 2) and it froze into "Loading..." and now refused to play that individual video.

Logic dictates its a TV issue, but it seems suspiciously niche to me.

One for folk to puzzle over.

Done the usual TV disconnect from mains, leave off for hours etc etc. Made sure it's firmware is up to date.

[The Natural Philosopher]

back in the day we would bash the side of the set and replace the valves one by one till it worked :(

[Tricky Dicky]

It might be the app itself that needs updating.

Richard

[Caecilius]

I've found the integrated "smart" part of smart TVs are only good for a few years. After that, manufacturer interest in the old model declines, and app bloat makes them run too slowly.

I've found the best solution at that point is to buy an Amazon fire stick, Roku stick or equivalent. These cost around £30 if you wait for them to come on offer, and give a smart TV a new lease of life.

[Andrew]

7-YO LG ?. More like the TV needs replacing :-)

(Or just get a newer smart stick and plug into spare hdmi).

[Jethro_uk]

It's as up to date as LG will let it be.

If it refused to play a video from the start I'd accept that. But the fact it started playing one for 10 minutes doesn't support that theory ?

[Jethro_uk]

Oh, I'm not worried about it. The 3 precious videos I just ripped and watched. And if that hadn't worked, I'd have cast my tablet to the TV to watch.

The smartstick option is in reserve ...

[Jethro_uk]

Happy memories of a box of valves my Dad had, and swapping them around to get one of the TVs he picked up from the tip to work.

Funny ... in the 70s you waited a minute or so for the TV to warm up. Nowadays you wait at least 2 or 3 for all the streaming services to connect. And the TiVo isn't usable for at least a minute after power on (from standby, not cold)

[Jethro_uk]

I don't disagree with any of that, but it doesn't explain the consistency of the problem I'm having. In particular why it was so happy to show 10 minutes of a video, and *then* "pack up" ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Anther option is to use it as a monitor for a PC with an internet connection and a TV dongle and invest in a radio keyboard/mouse.

That can always run the latest Linux/kodi or whatever.

Or you can simply rip the videos to the PC and install a dlna server on it and watch them later on that. That's the only 'smart' bit I use on my TVs. They are rotten web browsers. Bu they cam play my recorded/ripped videos allright

[Jethro_uk]

I already have that :). I can cast SWMBOs iPad or my Android to the TV, if needs be ..

I already have a 4Tb media server on the network that I access via a ...

I've never used the TV as a web browser. 80% of the time it's either playing direct from a memory stick, or from the DLNA server. The other

20% will be YouTube Amazon Prime or iPlayer via the LG apps.

I know 7 years is a bit long in the tooth, but 4K doesn't seem to bring much to the party - bearing in mind SWMBO is partially sighted. We had quite a browse a few years ago when 4K was new, but she really couldn't notice any difference, making it a "nice to have".

The YouTube issue isn't a show stopper. I'm more curious as to what it could be ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

I agree,when it comes to watching a movie sometimes HD looks too sharp.

Probably html5 as against adobe flash

No...that wouldn't cause it to fail halfway through? Video is weird. I record off air and one in ten of those Openshot wont touch till I transcode them.

Then there are DVDS that handbrake wont rip but VLC will play (and record from).

A lot of encryption and transcoding going on.

Might even be a transport layer thing. That's what happened top me on a homeplug network when the microwave or the central heating boiler fired up :-)

[Jethro_uk]

Ah ... well the network feed to the TV, TiVo and BluRay player is fed from a Homeplug. But as I said, other vidoes play, iPlayer works, Amazon works ...

Incidentally, I almost forgot, but the BluRay player is another way to get content onto the TV. I think it's codecs are more up to date as there have been some files the TV won't play natively, but the BR player will.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yeah, but Ive had experience and sometimes certain sites will depending on what kit they are going through send indigestible TCP fdrames, and then it goes bad on you

Yup.

[Jethro_uk]

Some more data ...

YouTube app on the TiVo does play the video OK through the same TV.

That said, the TiVo is so crippled (took over 3 minutes to load) you wonder whether it's worth it ...

[Jethro_uk]

Hmmm ... I can't buy that.

I wonder if there's a bug in the TV app, and it can be hit with a "frame of doom" or at least "frame of freeze". The very select set of circumstances it occurs in would suggest that as an educated guess.

Alternatively at the YouTube/Google end, there's some weird logic at play about which servers deliver which content to which device that is at play.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yup instead of a tcp frame its an H264 frame

Also very possible

[Caecilius]

A packet sniffer like wireshark would be the best way to determine if it's some sort of protocol issue. It might be easier to use Ethernet for this rather than WiFi, but many ways to do this depending on what resources you have and whether it's worth the time spent.

But if it is some kind of protocol support issue, there won't be any easy way of adding the needed support. That's why I think a Fire/Roku stick is probably the simplest and lowest cost option to extend the life of a smart TV once it's out of support.

[Jethro_uk]

Indeed.

It's a tad galling that despite no evidence *everybody* wants a "Smart" TV, that's all that's on offer. And yes, I know you don't need to use the "Smart" bits, but you are still paying for them.

I wonder if there will ever be a move to separates like 1970s HiFis ? Screen, tuner/decoders, soundbar all separate. You mix'n'match.

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

The amazon fire smart tv we bought just before the lock down is crap we are on the second one and I have told currys that they are getting the second one back as well after this is all over....