Anyone not able to play videos on Video Plus. The player window is black.
Just checked here at 1:05 am and it appears to be working okay.
I have been running the videos since the service started without problems.
Are you logged in?
Joe
I had this problem when I was blocking flash player. Check that you are not blocking Flash player from running inside your browser. This can be found in System Preferences.
Hope this helps! [:D]
Brian
Problem fixed. Flash was allowed but local storage was not. Once I allowed local storage videos worked.
My system is iMac with OSX.8 and Safari.
Don’t know why they are using Flash as everyone is moving to HTML5.
Bruce,
Actually, when we launched we were serving HTML5 to everyone, but found that a surprising number of customers were experiencing problems with it, so we made a change. Currently we serve HTML5 to customers with iOS and Android devices, and Flash to customers using, IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, etc. on desktops and laptops. That seems to have made the desktop/laptop experience more consistent, while maintaining a quality experience for our mobile customers.
The spectrum of installed devices among our users is very broad, with customers using everything from desktop machines running Windows XP and older versions of browsers to the latest mobile devices. We’ll continue to test as thoroughly as we can, follow customer feedback closely, and work to maintain the best possible experience for the largest number of customers.
Thanks for subscribing to MR Video Plus,
Terry
Terry,
Could something else be at work here? I’m running the latest everything on MacOS 10.6.8 and am still getting stuttering and out-of-synch videos on both the MR and MRVP sites after the change you mentioned.
Videos were working fine, say, a month ago. Did you change anything else besides the move to HTML5? New server? New vendor? Move to HD? Another poster on another, similar thread noted that MRH videos play well. Assuming that’s accurate, there’s got to be an answer somewhere. Can you simply go back to the prior approach while you test and refine?
If we can send a man to the moon…
Rick Krall
Well Terry,
By making the change, you’ve rendered my account useless. I have to KILL the Firefox process because your videos hose my browser (Firefox 17) to the point that it basically freezes and I can’t even close it.
Seems your beta testing was a bit inadequate… leaving me one very annoyed customer.
By the way, I’m running a Dell Studio XPS laptop with Win 7. Nothing at all unusual or odd about the system or the software.
Also, I tried some of the videos NOT on Video Plus, which have worked for years on my computers. They’re hosed in the same way I described above.
Mark:
Why not upgrade to Firefox 19 or 20? It’s free and it works for my laptop running Windows 7. You may also want to upgrade your Flash player.
Joe
Geez, How fast do these Firefox updates come? I upgraded to 17 just a couple months ago, and I think the system told me it was the latest. Now they’re up to 20?
And Adobe is the latest - just updated it today.
We’ll see.
Just upgraded to Firefox 20 - no change at all.
Too frequently. Another reason I stopped using it.
It all works perfectly fine for me, always has. In fact going back to Flash for desktop viewers has gotten back a true full screen option again.
Try it with IE. IE and Chrome both work fine for me. I normally us IE though. It just WORKS and it is NOT a vector for viruses or spyware any more so than any other browser. The nutcase paranoids have really brainwashed a lot of people. I ALSO do not see ads popping up all over - just as with other browsers, you can block ad servers with IE!
–Randy
I must be the only person who prefers HTML5. I use OSX 10.8 and Safari. The HTML5 version seems to work more consistently for me than the Flash Version. Their new streaming partner Ooyala is more concerned with DRM enforcement than viewing experience and as such the Flash version is served in multiple fragments rather than a continuous FLV file whereas the HTML5 version is served as a single file. If you are using Safari and prefer HTML5 its just a matter of going to preferences → security and disabling plug-ins before using the site. This disables Flash so Ooyala serves you HTML5.
Cheers,
Steve
I did. Exactly the same results. HMPH!
Steve,
Thanks for the suggestion. Videos look a lot better than they did using Flash. Have no problem with using full screen mode either.
Bruce
Extremely helpful, Steve. I haven’t yet tried your workaround, but you do sound like you know what you’re talking about! One question, though–disabling plug-ins may work for MR, but disabling Flash would cause problems with the many other sites serving Flash–yes?
Per my earlier post “there must be a way,” based on your post it sounds like Ooyala, rather than the videos per se, could be the problem. If so, that is a problem, as expecting users to change their behavior rather than correcting the problem at the source is generally not the way to enhance the user experience!
Whatever the cause, it sounds like MR worked toward the April 1 date rather test properly and launch later. That, too, would be an unfortunate decision.
Rick Krall
This isn’t the first time someone has posted about problems with VP. I am still just a little teed off about the whole thing since my subscription is just about useless in being to view videos that I really enjoyed. I promised on another thread not to say anything about it again but when people start posting problems about something that requires additional money, it’s all the more reason why I decided not to enroll. Okay - I promise not to say another word…really I do…maybe…
Hmm, perhaps bandwidth requirements were underestimated? Video, especially anything approaching high def, requires a LOT. A 1-2Mb DSL connections is NOT going to be enough despite what the ISP might say. Perfectly fine for surfing though. I was at 20Mb, recently they upgraded me to 30Mb - I never have problems with this or other video sites.
Then there’s any additional equipment. My cable company is sending me an upgraded cable modem since the one I have is nearly at the limit anyway - pasrt of that being the 100Mb Ethernet port instead of a gig ethernet port. It won’t handle much more traffic that it currently is with only a 100Mb connection to the rest of my network - and I know some cable modems hook up with USB ports - BAD!
I might be interesting to see the actual speeds (using a site like Speedtest.net) for people who have and do not have problems. Actual tested speed - not what the ISP says you have - very often they are not one and the same. And if you’ve ever run one of those “speed up your PC” things - unless you’re still using dialup, they will SLOW your internet connection. Among other things.
Also how many systems you have connected and who’s doing what - for example even with my connection, if I am downloading a large file and allowing it unrestricted speed (limit usually at the sender side), and it is using most or all of my bandwidth, playing videos becomes an exercise in frustration. If you have say a 10Mb connection and someone else int he house is watching TV on Hulu or a similar service, and you are trying to watch the MR videos - there might be a problem.
The new videos definitely are a higher resolution than the old ones. The old ones at full screen were horribly pixilated on my system - because full screen was many times above the resolution they were posted in, atleast with my large widescreen display. The news ones at full screen look MUCH betterbecause it’s not nearly as big a difference between the native resolu
Extremely helpful, Steve. I haven’t yet tried your workaround, but you do sound like you know what you’re talking about! One question, though–disabling plug-ins may work for MR, but disabling Flash would cause problems with the many other sites serving Flash–yes?
Per my earlier post “there must be a way,” based on your post it sounds like Ooyala, rather than the videos per se, could be the problem. If so, that is a problem, as expecting users to change their behavior rather than correcting the problem at the source is generally not the way to enhance the user experience!
Rick, There are multiple factors in play here. They moved from Amazon to Ooyala as a service provider, they changed from Flash to HTML5 as a delivery mechanism and they upped the resolution of their videos which requires higher bandwidth.
To break them down and attempt to answer your questions:
a) I believe moving to HTML5 is the right long term decision. But you need to make sure you are on an up to date browser and it seems Chrome in particular doesn’t like it. Earlier versions of web browsers did not support HTML5. I am on the latest version of Safari and and Flash has always exhibited some issues in Safari on OSX. It periodically crashes and uses excessive system resources. So in my case HTML5 is better. If you disable add-ons in Safari, any websites that requires Flash will not show the flash video. So I just disable add-ons when visiting this site. MR believes and is probably correct that for the general public over many different web browsers, moving back to Flash as the primary delivery mechanism is the best thing to do in the short term.
b) Movement from Amazon to Ooyala. I can’t tell you why they moved to Ooyala, but I can tell you that Flash served from Amazon and a majority of other sites is very easy to copy. That is you can download it for later viewing. If you can do that you can also distribute it. While I am sure none of us
Was thinking about trying the video but after reading these posts I’ve decided against it. For one reason I’m not as computer savy as you are & not sure what you are even talking about, much less being able to make these changes to my computer that may or may not work. I use DSL & have to walk away from the computer & allow about 10 min. for Cody’s office to download or it stops every 8 sec or so.
Get back to me when I can just click on “PLAY”. jerry