PrimeCast buffering and stability — community Q&A and solutions

DorisStream

DorisStream

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Jan 8, 2023
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Thread for PrimeCast users to share buffering issues, causes, and solutions. UK, Ireland, US, Canada, and Australia users welcome. Please include your setup details for context.
 
UK user, 200 Mbps fibre, Ethernet connected Android TV box, TiviMate. Noticed buffering on 4K channels specifically during evening hours. HD channels completely fine.
 
4K-specific buffering on otherwise stable HD is almost always a bitrate issue. 4K HDR streams need sustained 25-35 Mbps. Even a good connection can have variance during peak times.
 
That makes sense. Ran a 30-minute sustained speed test and my actual sustained throughput dropped to around 18 Mbps during 9pm — not enough for 4K. Nothing wrong with the service, just my peak-time ISP capacity.
 
Many ISPs oversubscribe and peak hours show it. On my ISP I see similar drops. Switching to 1080p during busy hours is a practical workaround.
 
Ireland — 100 Mbps broadband, Wi-Fi 6 router, Samsung Galaxy TV app. Occasional brief buffering around 8:30pm. Switched the streaming device from Wi-Fi to a powerline adapter and it improved significantly.
 
Powerline makes a big difference. The consistency is what matters for streaming, not peak speed.
 
Canada — had buffering issues that turned out to be a misconfigured QoS on my router. Had streaming devices set to normal priority. Moved the TV box to highest priority. Buffer events dropped to near zero.
 
QoS is one of the most impactful settings most people never configure. Prioritising the streaming device over everything else makes a real difference.
 
Asus AC-86U. QoS is under Adaptive QoS in the advanced settings. Set device priority to High for the TV box MAC address.
 
Asus routers have excellent QoS implementation. On other brands look for Traffic Control, Bandwidth Control, or Media Priority settings.
 
Australia — my buffering was evening-only and resolved when I changed DNS from ISP default to 1.1.1.1 on the router. Unexpected fix but worked.
 
DNS can affect streaming CDN resolution. Some ISP DNS servers return non-optimal CDN nodes. 1.1.1.1 often resolves to better-optimised servers.
 
USA user — buffering on a Firestick that did not occur on the same service via an Android TV box. Same network, same Ethernet connection. The Firestick was CPU-throttling on the higher bitrate 4K streams.
 
Firestick processing limitations on high-bitrate 4K is a known issue with older models. The Fire TV Cube or Firestick 4K Max handles higher bitrates much better.
 
Confirmed the difference. Upgraded to Firestick 4K Max and the 4K buffering is completely gone on the same streams that were problematic before.
 
Packet loss is insidious for streaming because 2% does not feel significant but live streams cannot recover lost packets the way downloaded content can. New cable is cheap and worth trying.
 
Always worth replacing the cable as a first step. Costs nothing and eliminates one variable.
 
Ireland — after all the troubleshooting tips I tried Ethernet. Buffering is essentially gone. I was resistant because routing a cable was inconvenient but it was absolutely worth it.
 
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