Amazon Video is... different?

[Jecht_Sin]

Just to be clear I immediately checked the app version: 4.1.121 that as far as I remember  is the one we have got since the Android 7.0 update.

To me it's different. I am quite sure that pressing "Back" on the remote it showed a popup window (something like Confirm/Cancel). Now instead it closes the video we are watching (and I prefer it in this way).

On the good side it seems it staggers much less! I mean, I can even change the volume or go into settings and it keeps playing smoothly. No audio distorsion either. Something that iI wasn't used to. And I am talking about American Gods (UHD) which always gave me an headache when starting.

On the bad side my history is instead messed up in some TV shows. Like "The Grand Tour". I know I reached episode 4, selecting the TV show it correctly jumped to Episode 4. But then there is no bar for the position I reached. And I can't watch anything, selecting the episode it simply doesn't start. "Z" has similar issues but at least it plays. Other TV shows/Movies are just fine (well, the few I checked).

What I don't understand is how this (if real) would be possible. Especially the thing about eliminating the popup window to confirm to stop watching a video. The app version didn't change. Is it downloading pieces of code from the Amazon servers? Does anyone else feel any improvement?

[Kuschelmonschter]

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But Amazon Video with the AVR is the worst of all. I see the audio disappearing in the AVR display

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Same here. Amazon Video experience has gotten worse again for me too. How can a company sell such a mess.

[Jecht_Sin]

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Kuschelmonschter wrote:

I wonder why Sony has this app updating mechanism beside the Play Store (see Settings > About > App updates or Help > App updates). I pretty much assume that this is for stock apps that are not on the Play Store, just like Amazon Video. I have never seen anything coming in via this channel though.

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Actually there isn't that option in 7.0. I have Settings/About/System Software update. It should be for the automatic download and installation of OS updates, but I believe I have got the Guide/Help update coming through it.

Still it is true. From the technical point of view all Sony needs is to have a system app (thus running as superuser) enabled to download and install apks. Which should be that option. I get system apps updates for apps not available in Google Play all the time in my Xperia.  But I am afraid the matter is more commercial than anything else. I blame Amazon this time. They would just need to add the app in Google Play, then manage the list of devices allowed to do an installation. This is beyong awful.

[Jecht_Sin]

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Kuschelmonschter wrote:

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But Amazon Video with the AVR is the worst of all. I see the audio disappearing in the AVR display

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Same here. Amazon Video experience has gotten worse again for me too. How can a company sell such a mess.

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Last night I was Google casting the screen using Prime Video on my phone, and it was quite messy there as well. Not the audio, but the frame rate was going down probably to 15-20 fps.

Still on my TV nearly everything slowed down to a crawl. SPMC once in a while stopsplaying videos for a second or so. Amazon Video is even worse, losing the audio. What I don't understand is why checking the usage monitor in SPMC while playing a video when there are issues (I use the Estuary MOD skin which allows it), the CPU usage can be well below 100%. But it is also true that last night I had HDR videos showing as HDR in the picture Settings but playing as SDR... This with both SPMc and Plex (which I checked to be sure it wasn't an issue with the player).

I think it is time for yet another Reset to Factory Settings. And the thought of it doesn't please me a single bit. I am so tired of this that I checked to buy the Apple TV 4K for real. At least the audio passthrough and bandwidth for streaming wouldn't be an issue anymore. Too bad it is sold out until November 7...

[Kuschelmonschter]

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Last night I was Google casting the screen using Prime Video on my phone, and it was quite messy there as well. Not the audio, but the frame rate was going down probably to 15-20 fps.

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Thought the Chromecast feature was not supported at all by Amazon? At least it is not available via iPhone. I assume you are casting via Chrome? It is like mirroring. So it really encodes what is displayed on the phone screen and streams it from there instead of only handing over the link. At least that's what I think.

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What I don't understand is why checking the usage monitor in SPMC while playing a video when there are issues (I use the Estuary MOD skin which allows it), the CPU usage can be well below 100%

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You don't really want to check CPU usage via Kodi or SPMC. OSDs in those apps eat up quite some CPU time.

[Jecht_Sin]

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Kuschelmonschter wrote:

Thought the Chromecast feature was not supported at all by Amazon? At least it is not available via iPhone. I assume you are casting via Chrome? It is like mirroring. So it really encodes what is displayed on the phone screen and streams it from there instead of only handing over the link. At least that's what I think. 

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 We can still transmit the screen (for mirroring) via Google cast. The Xperia has a quick setting for it, but in case you just need to download in your phone Google Home (I don;t know if it is available for Mac as well). The major issue is that the display stays always on, draining the battery. 40-50% in a couple of hours. But being at home one can keep it charged.

You don't really want to check CPU usage via Kodi or SPMC. OSDs in those apps eat up quite some CPU time.

Well, yes, I imagine that. But usually it has no issues. Even with 4K videos. It's just that everything went to hell (again!!). I am resetting the TV right now, it was unbearable. And for once I didn't do any crazy stuff this time..

[Jecht_Sin]

@Kuschelmonschter So I did a reset and immediately after Amazon Video was just fine. Smooth and no audio issues. It kept being like that for a couple of times. Until.. I changed the DNS in the network settings. That actually slowed down the whole OS. I went back to DHCP, I tried to use the Static IP with the local DNS server (the router) and nothing, always an awful mess.

So it came to my mind that I could try a trivial thing that I overlooked before: delete all data of the Amazon Video app. So far it seems fine (I tested two 4K/HDR shows, the second for few minutes). It had a bad start (low res and stuttering) but then after it probably cached something it went to UHD after 30 secs or so. Skipping isn't giving any issue either, apart from going back to 1080p.

I am trying now a third 4k HDR show and it is still fine. They all start at 1080p. So, I don't know. You may give it a try. Very far from optimal but if it fixes it for a couple of days i can well go through the hassle to input the credentials with that idiotic keyboard. I just know that I won't touch the network settings in a long time...

[Jecht_Sin]

Obviously it didn't last long. So I turned the AVR off and it seemed fine (I didn't test it for long, though). But I don't remember having the issue before buying the AVR (thus always using the TV speakers). Then I attached the optical cable and disabled ARC in the AVR. I made it sure the audio signal was coming via optical, disconnecting and reconnecting the optical cable.  It still was losing audio, but much less frequently and for a much shorter time. Lip sync seemed in line too. But skipping back/forward then the AVR wasn't receiving any signal.

So I switched back to ARC I noticed that turning the AVR OFF and then ON it partially fixed the issue. Then doing similar tests  with Kodi the HDR has got messed up again. It gets fixed rebooting the TV.

Seriously, how could Sony/Mediatek deliver such a broken piece of junk. Sure, Amazon has its fault as well, but it seems to me that it is the underlying system to be faulty. That would also explain why the audio stutters still having the Amazon Video app not using much of the CPU (less than 50% usually).

[Kuschelmonschter]

Did you try switching digital audio output to PCM in Android TV settings? The TV will then decode Dolby bitstream and output as PCM. This works for both, optical and ARC.

It improved sync (stutter/lip-sync) with Amazon a lot for me in the past. This is of course no real solution as you lose multi-channel audio this way.

[Jecht_Sin]

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Kuschelmonschter wrote:

Did you try switching digital audio output to PCM in Android TV settings? The TV will then decode Dolby bitstream and output as PCM. This works for both, optical and ARC.

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Yes, I meant to add my last findings but then I have got very busy.

I had done various tests. Using PCM I only get 2.0 channels. And I tested it again now, the video started just stuttering and breaking the audio.

Instead what I've found working the best with Amazon has been to use "Auto 1", and then in Advanced Option/Output Dolby Digital Plus select Dolby Digital. Like in here (it's in Italian, but many terms are quite similar):

It still get few intermittent moments with no audio (once each time), but they seem much shorter and more sporadic. Still not optimal, but it makes the videos watchable without much distress. Even the  video resolution/quality seems to catch faster (but this may be a placebo thing). The AVR shows DD audio instead of DD+ indeed.

Oh, and it doesn't affect Kodi/SMPC. Probably because that's the sound setting for App(video) while Kodi is categorised as "App"and, at least in 7.0, the different categories (App(Video)/App/HDMI n/etc) use different settings.