Amazon Prime Streaming Quality

[RamFan]

When streaming shows and movies on Prime, I always experience momentary pixelation for the first few seconds. Could be 5 seconds, could be 25-30 seconds, just randomly happens. Once the pixelation goes away, the picture is great.

Last night I tried watching the NE v SD game as a live stream and the stream would pixelate for 5-10 seconds every so often (but consistent) during the broadcast. It occurred often enough to be annoying.

We cut the cable cord about 5 years ago and Amazon has been the only streaming source to give me these issues. Doesn’t matter which tv I stream on, the issue persists.

Anyone else experience this?

 

[RazorsEdge]

No issues with audio/video using a TIVO 4k box

 

[Zee09]

I'm running it on DSL only
No issues.
But if you have other devices on like your cell using WiFi etc
and a tablet it can bog you down and do that.

 

[PandaBear]

When streaming shows and movies on Prime, I always experience momentary pixelation for the first few seconds. Could be 5 seconds, could be 25-30 seconds, just randomly happens. Once the pixelation goes away, the picture is great.

Last night I tried watching the NE v SD game as a live stream and the stream would pixelate for 5-10 seconds every so often (but consistent) during the broadcast. It occurred often enough to be annoying.

We cut the cable cord about 5 years ago and Amazon has been the only streaming source to give me these issues. Doesn’t matter which tv I stream on, the issue persists.

Anyone else experience this?

What is your internet speed? This usually means the bandwidth isn't sufficient and they need to reduce the quality to compensate for the congestion / insufficient speed. It could be your wifi, it could be your local internet provider, or it could be amazon content delivery on your region.

 

[RamFan]

What is your internet speed? This usually means the bandwidth isn't sufficient and they need to reduce the quality to compensate for the congestion / insufficient speed. It could be your wifi, it could be your local internet provider, or it could be amazon content delivery on your region.

Up to 150mbps. Typically in the 40-70 range. Tested right now and I’m at 58.

It certainly seems like an internet issue but it’s only on Amazon. Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and others don’t act up at all. Also doesn’t matter if I’m streaming 4K or HD.

 

[PandaBear]

Up to 150mbps. Typically in the 40-70 range. Tested right now and I’m at 58.

It certainly seems like an internet issue but it’s only on Amazon. Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and others don’t act up at all. Also doesn’t matter if I’m streaming 4K or HD.

This likely means your region's Prime Video content is not having as much bandwidth. This is something you might be able to complain to Amazon.

 

[RamFan]

This likely means your region's Prime Video content is not having as much bandwidth. This is something you might be able to complain to Amazon.

Thanks for the tip. Didn’t know that could be a factor.

 

[ctechbob]

It's part of the tradeoff they make to make the videos start playing faster. You could have perfect playback if you let it buffer for a good long time before it starts, but it looks as though Amazon chose to make the video play faster for you at the expense of quality since the first bit of a program is likely credits they figure it won't matter as much.

Also, sports tend to take more bandwidth as you have more of the image that is constantly changing, vs a movie or tv show where only a small % of the screen is actually needing to move. It's harder for the compression algorithms to handle sports, so you get quality issues from time to time when the bitrate jumps through the roof as the scene is changing much more often.

 

[92saturnsl2]

Mine does it as well and I have 1 gigabit fiber.

For the first 10-30 seconds the image is grainy, pretty much SD quality. Once it locks into HD, it's as good as Netflix or any other service I've used and stays that way for the duration of the movie/show.

 

[Trav]

No problems with it on Fios.

 

[JHZR2]

No problems with it on Fios.

+1

 

[MNgopher]

I have not used prime for live shows or sports, but we get the same issue when shows/movies start - they are grainy for 10 seconds or so.

As others noted, I've viewed that as a response to starting the videos sooner rather than buffering long enough at full resolution. OK for non-live shows in my book...

 

[tbm5690]

Up to 150mbps. Typically in the 40-70 range. Tested right now and I’m at 58.

It certainly seems like an internet issue but it’s only on Amazon. Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and others don’t act up at all. Also doesn’t matter if I’m streaming 4K or HD.

Outside of your streaming issues, those speeds are pretty far off of your supposed mark for speed you're paying for. Router might be the culprit?

 

[RamFan]

Outside of your streaming issues, those speeds are pretty far off of your supposed mark for speed you're paying for. Router might be the culprit?

I wish it was the router, which is good for up to 300mbps. It’s good ol’ Xfinity in our area and their lovely “up to” internet packages. Unfortunately in our area they’re still the best for internet, ATT is the only other option, but where I am they don’t even offer high speed as the fiber hasn’t been laid past the hub/node.

 

[JC1]

Also check how much space you have on your firestick. Clear cache from apps etc and there is this app called "background apps and process list" you can install which lets you kill other apps loaded so the firestick will operate at its peak every time. Also make sure you periodically check for new updates from Amazon.

You can. Force close each app a f clear cache. The screen saver app from amazon also chews up a ton of storage. There is not way to uninstall that app, but by clearing up your firestick you can have a faster running one. I get some pixelation rarely, but try these things first and report back.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Has to do with a few things. The first part is it just building up a buffer; so it's downloading a lot more than it normally would be as it was streaming to get you started.

But we've noticed there is a quality difference depending on the device we're using to access it. Seems that the XBox One X and the LG Smart TV have a lot better quality playing Amazon Prime than the PS4/5 do. Not quite sure why but we've definitely noticed that .

 

[JC1]

When streaming shows and movies on Prime, I always experience momentary pixelation for the first few seconds. Could be 5 seconds, could be 25-30 seconds, just randomly happens. Once the pixelation goes away, the picture is great.

Last night I tried watching the NE v SD game as a live stream and the stream would pixelate for 5-10 seconds every so often (but consistent) during the broadcast. It occurred often enough to be annoying.

We cut the cable cord about 5 years ago and Amazon has been the only streaming source to give me these issues. Doesn’t matter which tv I stream on, the issue persists.

Anyone else experience this?

Forgot to ask, what are you viewing prime on? A firestick or fire cube or something else? Also what generation of hardware is it if it's the firestick. Also try not to load a ton of apps onto the stick, less is better.

 

[RamFan]

Forgot to ask, what are you viewing prime on? A firestick or fire cube or something else? Also what generation of hardware is it if it's the firestick. Also try not to load a ton of apps onto the stick, less is better.

It’s done this across all our streaming sources over the years.

Past:
Gen2 or 3 AppleTV
Sony BD Smart player
LG BD Smart player
Vizio 3D Smart TV (forget the series)

Currently:
Vizio D series TV
Vizio E series TV

 

[tnt_motorsports]

When streaming shows and movies on Prime, I always experience momentary pixelation for the first few seconds. Could be 5 seconds, could be 25-30 seconds, just randomly happens. Once the pixelation goes away, the picture is great.

Last night I tried watching the NE v SD game as a live stream and the stream would pixelate for 5-10 seconds every so often (but consistent) during the broadcast. It occurred often enough to be annoying.

We cut the cable cord about 5 years ago and Amazon has been the only streaming source to give me these issues. Doesn’t matter which tv I stream on, the issue persists.

Anyone else experience this?

We have a local fiber company as an internet provider with 25MBps and no issues. I suspect your internet or WiFi is the problem not Prime. If all 4 of us are on our phones then it can be a problem streaming and that is related to the WiFi. We bump a couple to LTE and motor on...

Just my $0.02

 

[Andrew1972]

It’s possible your TV apps is not well written for Amazon Prime Video. At work I have been told players vary widely as we have about 65 including TVs for testing purposes on apps we write for Firestick, Roku and another major player.