Seems that many people are having buffering issues. Just to clarify it is not our servers that are causing this. Here is a simple thing you can do that should fix the problem.
Open Windows Media Player
Goto Tools----->Options------>Performance Tab
Once in Performance look for Network Buffering, usually this is set to 5 seconds..which means that unless you have a great connection, you will find buffering issues. I suggest you place this around 30. It can go up to 60. This should solve the issues people are having with buffering.
Basically this is allowing the file to download in the background so that you are always 30-60 seconds ahead.
Excellent tip, I will definitely give that a try!
I was told by support today that nothing really short of pressing stop will stop the charging of minutes used. Pretty much from the time you start the video until stop is pressed you can assume it's charging. It's basically charging for the connection time, not anything else. That includes time spent buffering, extended pausing (whatever that means exactly) and even extra time is used if you simply close WMP before stopping the video. All of this was evident by extra deductions I noticed were coming from my account.
It was recommended to me to restart my entire system (cable modem, router, and computer) to stabilize the connection and reduce buffering. Then not to pause much and to always stop the video before closing WMP.
Thanks Haptic_Encoder, changing the Network Buffering setting to 30 seconds did the trick! It obviously took longer to buffer in, but once it reached 100% and the video started, there were no pauses or glitches at all.
If anyone is having issues with minutes going away because of buffering please call Customer Service.
I had the same problem being charged minutes for buffering and possibly other technical issues. I spent around 7 minutes of actual watch time according to WMP. But the minutes taken off my account was almost 15 min, so double the amount. There was a lot of buffering going on, but not enough to make up the other lost minutes, so not sure where the minutes are being eaten up. I've done all the changes that the support team suggested.
Customer service did credit me minutes, but I'm concerned about this going forward. This is my first time using VOD service. Is this loss of minutes typical for VOD sites?
In my case, I'm getting around 30 seconds of watch time for the cost of 1 minute, so it won't make sense for me to spend the cash on this. Hopefully a new billing system or membership system is created, or other support hints are provided to resolve the issue.
Yeah I'm having this same problem...
Are you SURE it isn't the servers Haptic_Encoder??
Got my unit today, used it twice so far, I like the unit but a bit disappointed with the website / streaming so far. I have a very good connection, on speedtest.net i get a ping of 32ms and download speeds of up to 17Mb/s.
This is with buffering in media player set to 15 seconds the first try, the second try I bumped it up to 25 seconds to buffer. It takes a rediculous amount of time to buffer now, and I shouldn't have to set it to buffer so long with such a fast connection, especially considering it still wouldn't play smoothly without rebuffering.
I also noticed that time spent buffering was definitely taken out of my minutes, so I too only get about 50% use out of the minutes I'm being charged for!! And before anyone asks, my computer is plenty powerful, Phenom II x4 955, Geforce 9800gtx+, etc.
I'm going to try again with only the HTTP protocol enabled in WM (multicast, udp, and tcp unchecked in network tab) and will see how that works later.
Please contact Customer Service about lost minutes. This is not a server issues, the same servers are used for our VOD content on the AEBN end.
I did finally have a chance to contact customer service, got a bit of help, It's still not perfect, but buffers very infrequently and doesn't take as long to do so.
I was told that buffering does not use up any time, yet I'm fairly confident it does. If it doesn't, then some seconds are magically disappearing every single time I use it, when it buffers, or I skip to another part of the movie, no matter what, more seconds are subtracted from my account than the amount of time that windows media player is actually playing the movie.
I was also told I would be credited some time, which I wasn't...
Not sure If I want to waste my time calling back trying to get free minutes, I was more concerned with the long term effect of having seconds disappear, and I will get no answer to that it looks like.
The device and the service is expensive enough as is, but it's frustrating to know I don't even get to use all of the time I'm paying for, I'm probably wasting about 25% of it. I pray for another solution that does not involve pay per minute!!!
I didn't make it clear in my post above (was still a little frustrated when posting) so I thought I should clarify that customer service was very helpful, she did whatever she could, and I'm sure that me not getting credited was an honest mistake (things happen.)
So while I am still a little frustrated with the way it still buffers a couple times each video, and mostly why my seconds are disappearing, I cannot complain about customer service, and apparently they are still trying to figure out this problem.