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We are streaming HLS video via Amazon s3 and CloudFront. It works very well for most customers, but we are getting comments from a few of them that the video stalls. This one arrived today:
“Loving the tutorials, but seem to be having alot of trouble streaming them, constant stalling and then not playing at all. Does not seem to be an issue with my device or provider as I do not have this issue with any other online courses that I have taken from other instructors.”
I have occasionally noticed some stalling on our own system even though we have well over 100mbps download speed.
We are using FV Player Pro (version 7.5.23.728).I initially thought it must be a Browser Cache issue, but about half of the reports mention that they’ve tried other devices or browsers, so I don’t think it’s likely to be that.
Any help gratefully received!
Andy
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Hello Gillian,
please let us know if you are using MP4 videos or HLS.If it’s HLS, is it also encrypted? Are you using separate audio and video tracks? If you are not sure, then please provide a demo page.Are your users running into these issues also when using Safari or iPhones?
Thanks,
Martin
Thanks for the speedy reply, Martin.
The videos are not encrypted.
You can see an example here
I have experienced the issue with Safari, but not iPhone. I have not asked my users what they use.
Hello Gillian,
it played perfectly fine for me. Do you actually see that the player runs out of buffer when it happens? In my case the white part (buffer) of the timeline is always ahead of the red part (progress), but perhaps in your case it just fails to load a big enough part of the video on time.
The issue could be between CloudFront and some of your users, somewhere in the internet routing. To improve that you could be using a backup CDN for your videos. We have a plugin which detects a playback issue and then offers the backup CDN.
Reliable video streaming can be challening, for example Vimeo is using different CDNs to ensure stable video playback and Netflix is operating their own network of CDN servers, which of course only makes sense in large scale.
Thanks,
Martin
It plays perfectly for me too, at the moment – with a healthy level of buffer. I’ll make a point of asking more questions (such as, about the amount of buffer) in future.
I should say that I have recently suggested to some that they check the HD setting is on Auto (in case they have a slow connection and have set it to something high). In all these cases where I have suggested that, there has been no reply from them…
