Google TV Streamer drop frames on all videos

[Skywalker27k]

I use YouTube, Prime, Disney and Crave. They all give drop frames, I first saw it with my eyes and on YouTube I confirmed with the stats. It's continuous and very annoying.

I tried to change the system resolution and refresh rate, none works.
My Streamer gets 360Mbps network speed, I have a fiber connection.
I have tried a few HDMI cables.

The TV is a Samsung S90D. I have tested the same apps the Samsung OS and on Fire stick, they have zero drop frames. On a second TV (2017 Panasonic 1080p) the drop frames are there too.

So my tests confirm the issue is not from the TV, not from network and not from the HDMI protocol.

More info: Regarding YouTube: there's another bug probably linked: in the stats the viewport is always "1920x1080" on 4K content. In comparison, on YouTube on fire stick and on Samsung OS the viewport is "1920x1080*2.00".

So why is the google streamer outputting 1080p and why is it having drop frames continuously? Visually it looks like a hiccup every 8 to 20 seconds.

Anyone else?

What could be the issue? Is there a firmware bug? Any fix coming?

EDIT: Steps to reproduce on Youtube and see data showing the issue:

• Open youtube on the Streamer plugged on a 4K TV
• Play a 4K video
• Display the "stats for nerds" in the Player options (or "advanced stats" depending of your language)
• BUG 1: Viewport is stuck to "1920*1080"
  BUG 2: dropped frames keep increasing. Test at least 5 minutes.

[Skywalker27k]

Please acknowledge reception

[chaconmorales]

Hi Skywalker27k,

I appreciate you taking the time to post this over the community space. I am sorry that your Google TV Streamer is not working as expected and is dropping frames in different apps. But no need to worry, help is here.

Our team is aware of this issue and is actively investigating to find a fix. In the meantime, please file your feedback in the Google Home app.

This is really helpful.

Best,

Mario

[Tony26]

What about Deinterlacing? It seems that the new Google Steamer does not support Deinterlacing. Due to this, deinterlacing does not work in videos! This is very sad.

I remember this problem was on the first Nvidia Shield 2019 firmware, but that was 5 years ago! Do Google developers really not know such basic things?

Can you take note of this and add deinterlacing support? 

Screenshot - https://radikal.host/i/lLkfze 

[Skywalker27k]

Thank you. Please keep us informed.

[cljackhammer]

You responded to this last year in October.

[Skywalker27k]

Just open youtube, play any video. Display the advanced stats and you'll see the 2 issues.
- Drop frames keep increasing.
- Viewport is stuck at 1080p

This picture was taken after 4min20 of playback. See low viewport and excessive dropped frames. (note: I paused and resumed at 4min, that's why the network bars have a little gap.)

I don't know about viewport in other apps, but I can see the drop frames in all apps.

[ByronP]

Hi Skywalker27k,

Thank you for your response and the detailed information. I really appreciate the effort to troubleshoot the issue. Help's here.

Another suggestion for frames is to adjust the display settings from your Google TV Streamer. Here are the steps:

1. Turn on your Google Streaming device, and then at the top right of your TV screen, go to All settings.
2. Select Display & Sound.

You can adjust the following display settings, depending on the features available on your TV:

• Resolution: Select your preferred screen resolution.
• Text scaling: Enlarge or decrease the onscreen text size.
• Dynamic range and color format: Select your preferred formats.
• Match content frame rate: Use this setting to allow your streaming device to match the frame rate to the source content you're viewing.

Let me know how it goes and keep me posted.

Regards,

Byron

[Skywalker27k]

Hi @ByronP ,

This is not an issue with my settings. I have already checked those settings.
I am actually an Android TV software engineer, the Google Streamer is among the devices I use for my testings.

Try to reproduce the issue at least on youtube please:

• Open youtube on the Streamer plugged on a 4K TV
• Play a 4K video
• Display the "stats for nerds" (or "advanced stats" depending of your language)
• BUG 1: Viewport is stuck to "1920*1080"
  BUG 2: dropped frames keep increasing. Test at least 5 minutes.

Other devices are able to have viewport at 4k or sometimes it is written "1920x1080*2".
Other devices have zero dropped frames.

[ByronP]

Hi Skywalker27k,

Thank you for posting. I really appreciate your insights about the device and the situation about the drop frames.

Here are a few suggestions to consider with Google TV Streamer:

1. If you're currently casting content to your Google TV Streamer, disconnect the cast session and then re-cast:
   • Mobile Device:
     • Open the Google Cast-enabled app you’re currently casting from > select the Cast icon > Click Disconnect or Stop Casting.
     • Try casting your content again by pressing the Cast icon, selecting your Google streaming device, and then starting the video.
   • Chrome Browser:
     • In the top right corner of your Chrome browser, click the Cast icon and select Stop Casting.
     • Close the Chrome tab.
     • Relaunch the Chrome tab and open the same website/content you were previously casting.
     • Cast the tab again by clicking the cast icon in the top right corner of your Chrome browser, select your streaming device, and start playing the video.
2. Toggle Wi-Fi off/on the casting device (make sure to reconnect to the same Wi-Fi network that your streaming device is connected to).
3. Decrease the distance between the TV, casting device (phone, tablet, or computer), and Wi-Fi router

The streaming device and Wi-Fi router should be less than 15-20 feet (5-6 meters) apart, ideally within the same room.

4. Reboot the streaming and your Wi-Fi router. Here are the steps:

• Open the Google Home app.
• Tap Favorites or Devices.
• Select the streaming device.
• Tap Settings, then Reboot.

5. Reboot your router. Here are the steps for an alternative option:

• Unplug the router from the power outlet and leave it for at least 2 minutes.
• If there is a battery pack, remove that as well, and make sure no light is turned on.
• After 2 minutes, plug it back in and wait for it to completely reboot.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Regards,

Byron

[Skywalker27k]

Are you a bot @ByronP ? This is not helpful.

It seems like you did not read my last message.
I gave you steps and asked you to reproduce so you can see by yourself the Streamer is underperforming.

Please reproduce, or transmit to developer team. Here are the steps again:

• Open youtube on the Streamer plugged on a 4K TV
• Play a 4K video
• Display the "stats for nerds" (or "advanced stats" depending of your language)
• BUG 1: Viewport is stuck to "1920*1080"
  BUG 2: dropped frames keep increasing. Test at least 5 minutes.

[ByronP]

Skywalker27k,

Thank you for your response. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

I'm here to help in any possible way to isolate any situation and provide steps to fix your concern. 

We are always looking for improvements. I really appreciate the steps you provided. Please share your feedback, your experience, and your thoughts so we can address it better for future updates.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Regards,

Byron

[Skywalker27k · Accepted solution]

@ByronP  it seems you did not read my message because you did not confirm reproducing the steps I gave.

This is very bad support.

[Skywalker27k]

@ByronP You are still not trying to reproduce the specific steps I gave?
You need to try and confirm if you get the same result.

[pabulous]

Getting the same problem with dropped frames on my new Streamer. My old Roku works fine.

Also I don't think the viewport matters - that refers to the resolution of the UI, which remains at 1080p. It's the same on my Roku.

[Skywalker27k]

Your Roku should show "1920x1080*2", not "1920x1080"? I have never seen "1920x1080" on a 4K device except the Google Streamer.

[Ray14]

Yes, there are visible frame drops on this device. If you turn qms and vrr off and keep only frame rate switching on, and do a fresh restart it's better but there are still visible frame drops Evey 20-30 seconds.

Ggctw had similar issue but it was fixable by disabling hardware overlays, this fix is not working on this device.

This definitely is an issue which makes the device unusable for a daily streamer 

[Kralj3gs]

I have the same problem, is there any new news or will it be fixed, it's very frustrating?

[djaani]

Same problem here. Switched from Chromecast to the Streamer and noticing this now too. Very annoying and finally found a post where people are experiencing the same thing, dropped frame(s) every 10-20 seconds resulting in a short stutter in my content. I'm on a Samsung 90c.

I'm not getting my hopes up that Google will fix this though, they will not.

Happy to hear some potential workarounds from the community though...

[carlcamper]

Same problem here, will try a factory reset

[carlcamper]

Same results, dropped frames in Google TV Streamer Youtube stats for nerds, unlike my LG WebOS Youtube app, which has none.

[Kranichstein]

Same here. Tested on a Samsung and a Hisense TV. Frame drops ever 20 seconds. Awful when watching Soccer.

[Bratvish]

I'm observing the same issue on my Google Streamer. Tried playing a 4K video on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_GYDjKyBPA&pp=ygUMc29ueSA0ayBkZW1v). Viewport/Frames on "Stats for nerds" shows 1920 x 1080 / 30 dropped of 13401. Tried changing TVs/HDMI cables and WiFi networks but nothing seems to help. I also confirmed that Fire TV stick / apple TV plays at 4K on the same video. 
@ Google support: Is this a known issue? When do you plan to resolve this? Do we have the same issue with other apps like Netflix/Amazon Prime Video as well?

[Skywalker27k]

It's been a month and a half and it's not resolved.
Will a software update fix the issue or it's the device capabilities that are bad?

[Cacha21]

I'm having the same issue.

[andrewtjb]

I'm glad I'm not the only one with this issue. 

I recently picked up the Google TV streamer and the first thing I noticed was something weird going on with the frame rate. It looks like it's a dropping frames every now and again I've seen this happening on YouTube and Plex.

[Wam1]

I'm having the same issue as well. I really hope this is going to be fixed, I thought maybe Google had finally made a decent streaming device but I guess I'll just plug my Roku back in until I hear an update about this. 

[Wam1]

I've been searching trying to find fixes for this and I saw a post that said when this was an issue on other Google TV Chromecast devices, you could fix it by going into to developer options and turning on Disable HW Overlay. I tried this and did the YouTube stat test and I was now dropping way more frames than before. So I went back and turned it off and now it's not dropping frames as much. I'm currently watching a 4K video on YouTube with stats on and after 10 minutes it dropped 6 frames. It had only dropped 3 frames until about 9 minutes in and then it jumped to 6, which I'm guessing is a bad sign that it's going to drop more and more as time progresses. Obviously this isn't a fix by any means but I thought this might be worth sharing as it's a mild improvement. 

[Kralj3gs]

unfortunately every customer has this problem and unfortunately we were cheated by google, as you can see none of the people who should help are responding and they don't care about the customers. I bought an Amazon fire tv max 2 today and I am impressed with the performance and everything works as it should.

[Skywalker27k]

I wrote this post 2 months ago, still no fix and still no announcement for a fix.
I can confidently say that I acknowledge google is not helping.

I actually prefer the old Chromecast with GoogleTV, easy to travel with and no dropframes.
I have no hope for this device.
BTW it's actually running a SoC from 2021, the same that is in the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, which is one of the worst fire TV sticks for video processing. Even the Previous Fire TV 4K (non max) works better, despite having slower hardware. (I get to test most of them for my work).

[Vinteg1]

Just got my streamer as well

Currently dropped 200 frames on 42k frames. Way more then my philips built in app to google tv. Quite ironic since i bought this to get rid of the slow os on the philips....

[Crun]

Same issue on my S90D. App and other sources play without frame drops. There is some minor audio sync issue too I think.

Streamer was fine with LG B9. Some compatibility issue on streamer 's side. Is this even being investigated?

[Crun]

Actually managed to fix the issue by reducing refresh rate from 60hz to 59,4hz.

[carlcamper]

Where did you change this setting?

[Crun]

In Google streamer settings, under resolution. Changed it from default automatic(4k 60hz) to 4k 59,94hz. Let me know if it helped in ur case too

[carlcamper]

Nope, still getting dropped frames in Youtube 😞

[cljackhammer]

Google, you need to respond to this. This support is worthless. Returned the item and went with an Apple 4K box.

[Ray14]

What happen is that at 59.94 hz, 3:2 pulldown works better for 23.976 fps content without switching panel to actual 23.976 hz.

Problem is that we have frame skips even if you switch panel to 23.976 hz.

Bandaid, for 24 fps use 60hz and for 23.976 use 59.94 hz, this would make drops less visible when using pulldown but this is not a solution! Device this price should be frame perfect with no drops and frame matching should be viable.

[Andy_degan91]

Gibt es Neuigkeiten zu dem OFFENSICHTLICHEN technischen Problem. Der TV Streamer macht jede App unbrauchbar - DAZN sport Übertragungen sind eine Katastrophe. Disney + und Prime Frame Drops   lassen sich nur ein wenig durch die HZ Einstellung von 59,94 verbessern.

Aber die Tatsache, dass die Hauptfunktion des Streamer, nämlich alle Apps auf einer Plattform zu erreichen wird mit diesen Gerät völlig verfehlt. 

Schade.