Problems with videos buffering

General Discussion
1

I know that Viki has changed its video viewing system over the past year or so. One option I don’t see is the option to change the streaming speed of videos, and the ability to change subtitle fonts and colors has changed as well.

I just got a major overhaul of my desktop computer, and now all the websites where I watch videos are much better at streaming except for Viki which is much worse. All the videos I watch on Viki stop for minutes at a time. The audio is fine; it’s just the videos that are a mess.

Does anyone else have this problem? Is there a solution?

1 Like
2

Should be available in your profile’s settings, I know not logical for the “normal” user, but I learned it like you, another volunteer told me.
Hope it will be better soon!

3

I have the same problem :c

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@entwyfhasbeenfound @sugaswifewashere

Found the article you can change video resolution like this

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Always good to check with the Viki Fam about everything to do with “doramas.” I’ve been part of the VF for about ten years now, and the more I learn, the more I discover I need to learn.

It’s interesting that I had my computer tweaked by a really knowledgeable tech guy precisely so I could enjoy more Internet video and audio with less use of resources.

YouTube clips of Viki shows run absolutely flawlessly. Vimeo, same deal. I am watching a new Viki wuxia fantasy with Dilraba Dilmurat, and it is, by and large, running flawlessly but with a few major glitches so far.

She is so freaking pretty, funny, and talented that I HAVE to see what her character gets into–and out of. So when I sit looking at a still image of a nine-taled fox for fifteen minutes with playful subs and audio moving along just fine . . . I don’t know whether to feel frustrated, sad, or “awww, that’s so sweet!”

(Got to give much praise to subbers as usual. The dialog in wuxia fantasies is so complex in places, so full of subtle flirtatious jokes and setups for complex plot points, that I always have a hard time following what’s going on. But thanks to Viki subbers, I absolutely can follow. Wish I could offer you all endless chocolate brownies!)

I started watching Flower of Evil which looks to be a pretty gripping story of the kind Korean writers, directors, and actors always knock out of the park (pun intented?) And it buffers horribly.

Ditto with Gorgeous, a movie with Jackie Chan from the 90s that I found on Viki yesterday. For many of my generation, Jackie-Sifu is THE heart-melty action hero. And he is still acting up a storm these days. So I was super-frustrated when clearing caches, turning my router on and off, shutting my computer down for a half an hour or so . . . all had relatively little impact on buffering of that movie.

image
From https://aznbadger.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/newpolicestory.jpg – expresses my feelings!

Again, YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, and other video streaming sites now work perfectly on my computer. And if I follow the advice of my computer guru/sifu/seongsaengnim/sama, Viki works pretty much flawlessly except for the above-metioned items.

I am so sad.

image
From https://twitter.com/dlrebadilmurat/status/1000418778348322816/photo/4r – is she not pretty EVEN when crying?

My browser settings are configured so that everything is cleaned out every time I shut down my computer. I have to log in to Viki each time I boot up again, but that’s okay, because I really am zipping along now when I watch MOST videos.

In the big picture, so to speak, my problem is relatively minor, but I thought I would ask, and I am glad I did.

6

Oh, boy, so far so good. Flower of Evil seems to be working OK. I really want to see how this develops.

The show seems to be a much more serious examination of the origins of human evil and the healing power of love than Psychopath Diary (which I am happy to say pretty much met my expectations despite some fumbling by the writers). I am much less familiar with the male and female leads than with Yoon Shi-yoon (still my favorite flower boy even though he’s gotten some muscle and some serious acting chops), but I love the weird genre that K-drama has given birth to–sort of a ghost story/horror/story/chaebol drama/police procedural/love story/family drama . . . of course I am not going to be able to watch it after sunset, but I think I will be able to watch it comfortably and with great interest!

EDIT . . . Oh, dear. Spoke too soon. For security and performance reasons, my computer is set to clean out caches, delete browsing history, and get rid of some other information each time I log off.

So right now, as of this writing, in another tab, I have Viki playing Flower of Evil just fine with little yellow dots along the timeline indicating where Viki will monetize the experience with ads. No buffering whatsoever. Yay!

In a separate tab, I have signed in to Viki so I can 1) comment in discussions, and 2) change my playback settings under my account information.

So, based on my not always exactly correct method of logically thinking things through . . . This means that I can have a better overall watching experience by NOT paying $9.99 per month and providing the salaries and cold-brew coffee of the adminstrative staff who oversee the volunteer staff.

Does this make sense?

I personally don’t mind ads; my childhood experience of viewing any movies or shows at home was back when there were only three American television companies, and they paid their staff and bought their equipment and whatnot by showing ads at regular intervals during various TV shows.

My mother had an automatic reflex. When an ad came on during a TV show, she would pick up the remote, mute the ad, pick up a book she was reading, and progress a little farther through a chapter. My sisters and I would race for the bathroom or spend the time insulting each other. Then when the ad was over, my mother would automatically un-mute the show, and we would continue to watch it.

Compared to today’s ads on video streaming websites, the ads on TV when I was in high school and college were 30 to 60 seconds long, often at the start of an hour on the clock and/or at the half-hour mark. These were for hour-long or half-hour shows. Movies had ads that showed more frequently.

So the message that the movers and shakers in the chaebol ranks at Viki seem to be sending me is (based on what I am currently experiencing): “we don’t want your money, we are willing to give you a BETTER streaming experience if you let us annoy you with fluffy ads every ten to twenty minutes.”

My account shows that I have paid $9.99 for 40 months since I signed up to shell out disposable income. I may have miscounted, but it seems I have wasted enough money to be able to buy myself a Microsoft Surface Pro on sale.

Again I ask, does this make sense?

If there is anyone at the top of the Viki hierarchy virtually looking over the shoulders of the volunteer staff who are coughing their lungs up making Viki work . . .

Can you pleez splain 2 me . . .

Would you really prefer that I save my USD and cancel my paid subscription so I can have a better viewing experience? I’m sure that’s not what you are saying by the way you have set up your viewing experience and your fee structure . . . but it’s what I am receiving.

Again, Viki Fam and especially subbers . . . Gamsahabnida! You rock!!! You are my island of comfort and joy when I log on to Viki.

(Speaking of which, I-Land buffers worst of all when I am logged into my account. Which is a great sadness because it looks like the coolest, most fun thing on the whole Viki website.)

7

You can still give feedback from about the video while it its playing and tell what you experience. What OS, device, browser, resolution you chose, maybe there will be some changes. I don’t think you get a feedback this way, but well we never know.
Or send a request but I think I heard that the techies prefer the information through the video player’s function.

Sometimes complications can also come after new updates of the system but these most of the time vanish after some hours or days. Whatever it is in your case I hope it will be gone soon. :smile:

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Hi, Lutra,

The guy who just did amazing work on my computer said that, becasue things are changing so fast these days, and because tech people are often struggling to keep up the pace, there are always things in updates that aren’t backward compatible with the parts of a system that don’t need to be immediately updated.

He said that is why his company believes in using the simplest possible apps and getting rid of as much bloatware as possible.

He’s absolutely correct.

Over the past year, I have tried myself to find The Secrets to No Video Buffering by reading tons of articles online and following tons of instructions from tech blogs and vlogs. And nothing has worked.

Both my parents were very tech savvy people. They believed in getting the best possible, easiest to understand and use, most useful tech they could afford to help them lead their lives well and take care of their family. I learned not to be afraid of tech, and I learned that, with patience and persistence, I could accomplish a lot by myself.

Thing is, I am paying $9.99 a month so that tech people much smarter than I am can deal with buffering and all the other problems that I want to take a break from.

As things stand, basically Viki is lagging behind in upgrading, monitoring, changing, fixing, inventing, and doing whatever it can to deliver to its PAYING customers the hassle-free experience it keeps promising with such excitement.

If Viki tech people were held to the standards that poor performers in K-dramas are held to, the people who are unable to address the buffering problem I am having . . . would be slapped savagely by their frustrated supervisors. They would have their ID badges ripped from around their necks. They would be shamed in front of their entire department. They would be ridiculed by everyone in their cluster of cubicles while taking their few personal items from their desk and putting them in a cardboard box to carry out. They would walk five miles to get home rather than get on the bus and sit in the middle of a sea of whispering passengers. They would be met at the door of their house or apartment by tearful, angry, frightened spouses, siblings, parents, or roommates who would threaten to kick them out if they didn’t immediately go out and find a McJob . . .

The point is that, I LOVE Viki because it has helped me endure some hard times by distracting me from my daily worries. I have paid enough in fees for the past FORTY months that I could have bought myself another hybrid tablet/laptop with that money.

In short, for 40 months, I have been ripped off over and over.

At this point, the only reason I hesitate to close out my paid account is that, without it, I cannot enjoy the Viki discussion boards. I have had some of the best, most intelligent “conversations” on the discussion boards that I have ever had in my whole life.

And I would not be able to give virtual hugs and praise to the hardest working people anywhere: the subbers without whom the Viki chaebols would have no Viki.

I continue to find it incredible that Viki chaebols pay nothing for the hundreds of hours of work–probably thousands of hours–done by subbers every single month, and yet when it comes to dipping into their profits just a tiny bit to ensure their video viewing system actually works . . . it doesn’t seem to concern them at all.

That is why, for the time being, I will be cancelling my paid subscription.

It’s this way: I love soju and gimbap, but I won’t die if I have to drink plain water and eat cup noodles. I WILL cry a lot because I will miss the Viki Family.

So, for the time being, with a big hug from Giphy . . .

너무 미안합니다

1 Like
9

@entwyfhasbeenfound

I am so sad that you feel so frustrated to the point that you gave up on Rviki site and will be cancelling your subscription. But let me add that I understand your frustration because I have days (especially on weekends) that I can’t watch dramas on Rviki site bc of the continuous buffering in the dramas.

It gets worse when I do the 10 second skip (when in a scene they don’t talk and just stare at each other for more than 10 sec I skip, and buffering comes into place) or the site itself kicks me out of the drama and I have to reload the page again (sometimes I get log out!) Can you believe that?

That is the most annoying thing that happens here a lot lately (to me mostly on weekends). I do volunteer work here, and since I don’t pay cash I never bothered to complain about it (well I did once or twice? but no one has done anything about it)

Even on my own TV; the Rviki site does so much buffering I can’t watch it on weekends. Oddly enough, is mainly on weekends that the buffering happens to me a lot or like explained before when I do the forward 10 second skip, which I do very often in dramas that have scenes I dislike.

I hope they find a solution to your problem so they don’t lose a paid subscriber that has been so loyal for 40 months. It’s a shame that this would happen to you, and they don’t do a thing about it. Hoping for the best.

10

Thank you for writing to me, I hope the suggestions worked somehow for you.
I am not really a techie, it’s just enough to get around. So hopefully your technical support is doing a good job.
Why you complain about Viki service to me? Well don’t know, if I have a problem I need to rely on the other volunteers or Viki’s support too, so I know how it usually works, but there is nothing much I or the other volunteers can do about it. We can suggest things from experience, but we do not have the technical inside knowledge either in the end we are users of this platform always hoping that everything works fine. I don’t know the schedules of the staff at Viki, or how their working conditions in these times are. Over the years I got in contact with many of them and so far I can’t say there wasn’t any situation that wasn’t taken care of for the technical stuff.
I am not getting on board badmouthing the staff, I can imagine the ratio of incoming requests from customers to staff, but that is not the staff’s fault. Anyway I do not want to write about internal information I am not totally aware of, assuming things and then being unkind to staff members.
Your love for Viki is good to hear, we all can use a little distraction in these times. I am not someone who judges anyone’s love or admiration by the money one spent. Spending money should always be carefully considered, if you can’t afford something at the moment or are not satisfied with the product, then it is your right to refuse it.
I hope we will see you around again in the future, canceling your pass, doesn’t mean you have to delete your account or can’t use discussions anymore.
Stay happy and healthy!

11

I left Viki for a while because it was ALWAYS buffering with chromcast. I tried wifi screen mirroring, no buffering but the screen quality on the tv was not as good but at least no buffering.

I happen to buy an amazon fire tv stick for under 30 dollars. I was able to get the viki app to download and now I can watch very clear bright dramas on viki without buffering through the fire tv stick. very happy