A bad bug with Youtube app video quality on 55XE7005 TV

[Tecred]

Hello,

Quick overview of the problem: Youtube app defaults to sd quality and doesnt go back to hd ever. Frustrating!!

Longer description: I recently bought Sony 55XE7005 partly on the premise that it has easy access to youtube with the button on the remote, however there is a bad bug with youtube app, which makes it horrible to use.

When first opening the app, all seems fine, videos play in hd and 4k quality, as indicated by the little icon near the top of the screen below the video name, next to view count (4k for 4k videos, hd for obviously normal hd videos) and the quality of the videos is obvious. However at some point, sometimes less than an hour, the quality of the videos degrade to sd (seems to be 480p or 360p) as obviously can be seen by the awful quality of the videos on screen, and the 4k and hd little icon that would indicate the video is hd is missing as well. My internet connection is rock solid, my other devices that can stream youtube never go below 1080p resolution, so its not the issue with connection, I even have ethernet wire to tv (the problem occurs with wifi as well though). The issue is that it seems to never go back to hd and 4k, even switching tv off and on again does not solve it, the only way to make youtube “remember” that it can actually play hd videos is to go to tv setup, privacy policy and click initialize personal information, BUT it resets the youtube app by forgetting all linked devices and logging out of my account, so it is a real pain to link and register all over again after like an hour of watching youtube, and after a short time the quality drops again of course...

Please fix this, as this makes youtube watching experience awful! Watching youtube was one of the main reasons I bought the tv, and currently it is not fullfilling this function properly to put it mildly, as you might imagine watching sd video quality on 4k video is just ridiculous! Just checked that its still a problem in the new 8.500 firmware version as well!

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

Thank you for your feedback. We will pass this on and get back to you.

Best wishes,

M

[Tecred]

Thank you so much Michael for passing on my feedback. Looking forward to hearing from you on how this problem will be fixed, so that I can enjoy my Sony TV fully

[Owen_G]

Hi there,

Could you please check if your YouTube app is up-to-date? This issue is unlikely to be related to your connection – it's probably because a server is too slow to provide the video content with enough speed.

Thanks,

Owen

[Tecred]

How do I know if it is up to date? Does the app update along with the main firmware, or does it update separately? If it does update separately, is there a manual update process? I have the latest 8.500 firmware for the tv. Btw, I checked the stats for nerds popup in the youtube app, it says my connection is 77MB/s and buffer health is good, so it is definately not my connection issue. What the popup says is that the current resolution is below hd, even though it of course also says that the optimal resolution should be hd (original resolution of the video) Very strange that it doesnt itself go back to the optimal resolution given the good connection. I checked the stats for nerds popup for several other devices I have, and no problems there, plays hd all the time. So is it really a server issue? And what server? youtube server? Then why all my other devices have no such problem, as they too use obviously use youtube servers I assume, no?

There was one other post made by someone else some weeks ago here, also complaining of no hd quality video in youtube, so this is not an isolated problem that only I have! So please give my feedback to whomever is developing the youtube app for xe7005 series TVs (who is it btw? Sony? Opera? Google itself?) so that this issue gets fixed, otherwise the fancy youtube button on the remote is just taking me to a faulty app!! Honestly had I not thrown out the packaging for my tv, I would have taken it straight back to where I bought it, as this is just ridiculous, the youtube and youtube button is one of the main things mentioned in the ‘product info’ says that “we made youtube faster than ever on this series of tvs” and its just one click away.. sorry for my rant, but I am angry!

[Tecred]

I just compared a different device’s (fire tv stick) youtube app “stats for nerds” info with the Sony Tvs youtube app info, loading the same video the sony tv says the codec is vp9 (243) / mp4a.40.2 (140), while the other device shows codec avc1.4d401f (136) / mp4a.40.2 (140). Could it be an issue with codecs? Please keep me updated on any info you get about this issue.

[Owen_G]

Hi again,

The YouTube app should update automatically, but this can be forced when selecting “Refresh Internet Content” in the Network menu. If it doesn’t change then you'll probably have to wait for the next update from Google (YouTube) for this player.

Hope this helps.

Owen

[abroone]

 Could this be your BROADBAND operator 'constricting' your bandwith ?

some telco companies will throttle your bandwidth, if they think you are using too much, or too fast (4K is very data heavy).

 Netflix has Adaptive rendering, so it will try and keep the highest reolsution, but equally downgrade if the bandwith falls insufficient....

[the7artsx]

I can confirm the problem that Tecred is having, i have an 43XE7077 and after a while youtube losses it's quality, even if stats for nerds shows a very good connection (70mbs), i think that the problem has nothing to do with servers because the problem is fixed instantly if i unplug the power from the tv and plug it bag in (turning it off and on has no effect on the problem, i have to completely remove power and then power it back up), so the problem is with the youtube app or the TV.

[the7artsx]

Also the bug happens when skipping ahead, sometimes the quality drops and remains forever at the lowest quality, this is unacceptable