Why does the ITV Player suck???

Season 74 · 19/04/09 - 14:57

Hi all,

Does anyone else find the itv player to be completly useless. I have tried to get to work on different computers with a brilliant internet connection and it just plays advert for 3 minutes and then finishes, when you press play again it just shows new adverts.

Just as annoying is there live service. If i try to watch any of their channels live at itv.com it just loads for a few minutes and then stops.

I'm guessing this isn't a rare problem for them but i was wondering if anyone new why their player was so rubish when some websites that have a budget of five quid can produce better.

Also if there is something obvious that i have been doing wrong then please could someone suggest ideas to get it to work.

I've always seen ITV as a bit of a joke but if this is a well known problem then it seems to me they have just given up.

Thanks for reading

Skylover4life · 19/04/09 - 16:37

May I add that the ITV Net Player on Virgin Media also sucks compared to BBC iPlayer and the other catch up demand services.

I watched Britians Got Talent on the TV and when the camera panned over the audince, all you could see was a number of blocks ude to poor bitrate!

The advantage of it being on Virgin is no buffering, just the blocky picture!

[Deleted User] · 19/04/09 - 20:15

ITV Player is the epitome of garbage. I tried to watch Law and Order: UK on it a couple of weeks back, and the first time I tried, I got nothing but a black screen. The second time, my browser crashed. The third time, the quality was so damn poor that I didn't want to waste anymore of my time.

Utter shite. They should have taken a look at how simplistic and easy to use BBC iPlayer is.

eddieh · 19/04/09 - 20:37

I have to use STV's on demand service for ITV1 one content. It's a shame the rest of ITV content is only on sucky ITV Player with sucky Sliverlight.

parkyz · 21/04/09 - 12:08

Skylover4life wrote: »

May I add that the ITV Net Player on Virgin Media also sucks compared to BBC iPlayer and the other catch up demand services.

I watched Britians Got Talent on the TV and when the camera panned over the audince, all you could see was a number of blocks ude to poor bitrate!

The advantage of it being on Virgin is no buffering, just the blocky picture!

Ive just watched Britians Got Talent through virgin catch up and i think the pictures amazin on a HDTV anyways

[Deleted User] · 21/04/09 - 21:36

Season 74 wrote: »

Hi all,

Does anyone else find the itv player to be completly useless. I have tried to get to work on different computers with a brilliant internet connection and it just plays advert for 3 minutes and then finishes, when you press play again it just shows new adverts.

Just as annoying is there live service. If i try to watch any of their channels live at itv.com it just loads for a few minutes and then stops.

I'm guessing this isn't a rare problem for them but i was wondering if anyone new why their player was so rubish when some websites that have a budget of five quid can produce better.

Also if there is something obvious that i have been doing wrong then please could someone suggest ideas to get it to work.

I've always seen ITV as a bit of a joke but if this is a well known problem then it seems to me they have just given up.

Thanks for reading

I have to agree, ITV Player is pretty sucky. I've has similar issues with it not going past the adverts or just blank screen. Even when it does finally work, it sometimes pauses as if its trying to catch up, suggesting my connection isn't powerful enough but thats not the case. BBC iPlayer is fine and in fact, I can even watch HD shows on iPlayer with no lag issues. The BBC real need to make the technology behind iPlayer available to other companies. 4OD is okay but ITV and Five's on demand service are just terrible.

noise747 · 26/04/09 - 18:14

Silverlight is the main problem, it is a heap of junk, how on earth MS think it is better than Flash I don't know. Flash is not perfect , but at least it works with Linux and Mac. Moonlight which is the opensource version of silverlight is worse than Silverlight if that is possible.

come on ITV use Flash, better than Microsoft crap.

soulboy77 · 29/04/09 - 21:20

I hope every one is feeding back to ITV how shite their player is?

Foxy Rhino · 04/05/09 - 22:06

The buffering problem seems to have gone now.

alcockell · 04/05/09 - 22:28

jaxconrad wrote: »

I have to agree, ITV Player is pretty sucky. I've has similar issues with it not going past the adverts or just blank screen. Even when it does finally work, it sometimes pauses as if its trying to catch up, suggesting my connection isn't powerful enough but thats not the case. BBC iPlayer is fine and in fact, I can even watch HD shows on iPlayer with no lag issues. The BBC real need to make the technology behind iPlayer available to other companies. 4OD is okay but ITV and Five's on demand service are just terrible.

They tried, under Project Kangaroo.

OFCOM, not having a sodding clue, knocked it back as "it would be bad for competition". What - like the way that the Beeb putting in all those transmitter sites around the country was "bad for competition"? ITV RODE that network, and so dod Channel 4...

Same difference..

The Phazer · 04/05/09 - 22:48

alcockell wrote: »

They tried, under Project Kangaroo.

OFCOM, not having a sodding clue, knocked it back as "it would be bad for competition". What - like the way that the Beeb putting in all those transmitter sites around the country was "bad for competition"? ITV RODE that network, and so dod Channel 4...

Same difference..

The problem was that Kangaroo was going to collectively sell advertising for all three channels, not them sharing a video player.

The somewhat pointless plan to "share" iPlayer (ie hand ITV a peice of paper saying "use flash and buy some peering bandwidth") is still going ahead.

Phazer

Skeet Ulrich · 04/05/09 - 23:20

I've found that it sucks monkey balls too. I've got a badass connection and it was still buffering every couple of minutes.

ITV all over really. Shoddy and behind the times.

alcockell · 04/05/09 - 23:47

The Phazer wrote: »

The problem was that Kangaroo was going to collectively sell advertising for all three channels, not them sharing a video player.

The somewhat pointless plan to "share" iPlayer (ie hand ITV a peice of paper saying "use flash and buy some peering bandwidth") is still going ahead.

Phazer

There's a bit more than that - there was the dynamic transcoding etc, and all the indexing around it.

I know one of the guys in BBC research personally, and there was a LOT of work that went into it.

From what i gather, Kangaroo was also going to offer a common tech platform and streaming service... rather than hitting multiple websites..

Tadpole · 05/05/09 - 08:13

I find it odd that itv player uses silverlight, but ITV F1 uses flash.

It would have made more sense to expand on tried-and-tested technology.

http://forums.itv.com/tags/ITV+Player/default.aspx

eddieh · 05/05/09 - 19:16

soulboy77 wrote: »

I hope every one is feeding back to ITV how shite their player is?

Yeah, Send your complaints to broadbandhelp@itv.com

eddieh · 08/05/09 - 16:59

Good news everyone, they are scrapping the current website in a couple of months.

Thank you for contacting ITV.

Please be assured that we are planning significant improvements to our video player over the next few months. One of the primary reasons for this is to improve video player stability for all ITV.com users.

We understand a proportion of our users suffer from poor performance issues when viewing our content and that this may be frustrating. However we are working hard on a completely new solution to provide you with the very best programmes that the ITV Player has to offer.

ITV's video content is streamed and not downloaded, and as such your computer needs to collect (buffer) the content in order for it to play. The adverts however run off a separate server and are temporarily downloaded. Please keep in mind that other websites may use downloadable software that enables your computer to temporarily download their content. This is not what ITV use and therefore the requirements are different.

The following are a few reasons as to why you may experience problems while trying to stream our content.

If you experience any of the following:
Looping adverts

Interference

Freezing content

Parts not loading

Series of stills

Sound but no/jittery content

This may be due to your bandwidth. Keep in mind that your internet connection is shared amongst households and not individual homes, and therefore if your bandwidth drops while you are online due to heavy internet traffic in your area, this will interfere with the streaming process and result in the above symptoms.

To watch our video, you need a broadband connection with a download speed of at least 786Kbps. Your internet service provider can tell you what speed connection you have signed up for, but you may also test your current connection speed at;

http://www.speedtest.net/

Please note that your broadband width may change during the streaming of video content and may be limited by multiple computers connected to your modem or other programs running on your computer, including multiple browser pages.

Programmes such as web accelerators can interfere with streaming/buffering. These programmes can be installed onto your system without your knowledge, so please ensure that you do not have any such applications enabled on your computer. In addition Pop-up blockers, anti virus and firewall security applications can all affect video players. Please make sure that pop ups are not blocked for itv.com and that exceptions are made for ITV.com on your security software. It is also vital that you have the latest updates of your anti-virus/firewall security applications, as old versions may prevent you from streaming any content.

It is advisable that you do not have any other applications running in the background (hidden) that maybe downloading/updating software, as this can affect the streaming of the videos. Applications such as MSN Messenger or even having another web page open at the same time; can take up bandwidth which is required to ensure the smooth running of our video streaming. If there is heavy internet usage/traffic in your household/local area at the time, this can also affect the buffering speed on your system.

Thank you for your patience.

Kind Regards

Charlotte

ITV Customer Support

KennyT · 08/05/09 - 20:23

About time. I like the list of "reasons" why you may experience problems, none of them ITVs fault! (So I wonder why they are changing their setup!)

K

soulman1949 · 01/07/09 - 00:41

Would anyone happen to have the e-mail address for addressing compaints regarding the ITV Player, please?

I started using one of their poxy forms and frustratingly that has a character limit that stops me entering the whole of my complaint.

Thanks

Alan

Zapomatic · 14/07/09 - 14:05

I'm using a Macbook on a Tiscali connection and ITV Player has always worked just fine for me. Picture quality is poor compared with iPlayer, 4OD and Demand Five, but it does work with no buffering or stuttering.

Hey there!

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Why does the ITV Player suck???

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