Night Elf Posted December 17, 2019 Share Posted December 17, 2019 Right now we watch streaming on our laptops. No big deal so far. However, the exercise videos I stream from a subscription service and some Joyce Meyer videos off her website have gaps of silence. Most annoying is the exercise videos. I want to hear the music and her talking. So I think I might need to get something that allows me to stream to my tv. I'm thinking Roku. What am I looking for? I don't know how to buy one. There appears to be different ones. Also, do you think using a Roku or some other streaming device will correct my problem? I can see the Joyce Meyer video on my phone with no problems with sound. It's only on my laptop that I have problems. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris in VA Posted December 17, 2019 Share Posted December 17, 2019 Not sure about Roku, but we stream from our laptop to the tv just using a cable. /wire thing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted December 17, 2019 Share Posted December 17, 2019 (edited) My wife has a Subscription to DDPYOGA which is a Fitness Yoga program and is a true blessing for her. We have old (assembled in 2008-2012) Dell Laptops made for and sold/leased to Enterprise customers. They do not have HDMI Ports. They have a DisplayPort. She had an Adapter, to convert the DisplayPort to HDMI (one way) and that was connected via HDMI cable to our SMART TV. That worked perfectly, until the Adapter was damaged. And we live in South America, so getting another Adapter that works perfectly for that task is more complicated than for someone who lives in the USA. So, if your Laptop has an HDMI Port and you have a SMART TV (ours is a SAMSUNG) that should be perfect for you and you just connect them with an HDMI cable. Temporarily, until she can get another of those Adapters that works perfectly for her, she is using her Huawei Android phone to Mirror (?) onto the SMART TV, via WiFi. The Quality (Video and Audio) isn't as good as when she can use her Laptop or Mobile Workstation, but it is doing the job for you. NOTE: I am very puzzled, that when you watch those Videos on your Laptop that they are not perfect and wonder if that's because you have a very poor Internet connection or because the Videos have issues that have nothing to do with the Internet in your house or your Laptop. IF you can watch other Videos on your Laptop and they are perfect (or nearly so) and there are issues with the Audio and Video and Music on those exercise videos, then I would assume that the issue is on the server and if it starts out bad it will also be bad when you try to watch and listen to it. I understand what you mean about possibly getting the Videos directly onto your SMART TV, however, if they start out bad, because the Server they are coming from is slow or on a bad connection, you having them directly on your SMART TV, bypassing your Laptop or your Cell Phone, isn't going to make the problem go away. Assuming that you could do that with a Roku or another device, which may or may not be possible. ETA: If the quality of the Videos is bad, and they originate that way, there is nothing you can do to improve what you receive, because it is not on your end. ETA #2: Question for the OP: If you watch a Video on your Laptop for the Exercise program, where there are issues with the Video and/or Audio, what happens, when you try to watch that same Video on your cell phone. Is it OK or does it have the same issues with Video and Audio? Edited December 17, 2019 by Lanny Add ETA and a question for the OP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted December 17, 2019 Share Posted December 17, 2019 (edited) 5 hours ago, Night Elf said: I can see the Joyce Meyer video on my phone with no problems with sound. It's only on my laptop that I have problems. OK. I've had Lunch and another cup of (obviously Colombian) Coffee and I reread the OP again and got the above 2 sentences. OP if you can "watch" the video on your cell phone and the video and audio are OK and synchronized OK; and, when viewing on your Laptop there are problems, there would seem to be an issue with your Laptop or the Connectivity to the Laptop. I am assuming that your Laptop and your Cell Phone are both on WiFi when you do that? Question: Do you have another Laptop, or, a Desktop, that you can try that Video with? The probability is now that the issue is in your house, possibly with your Laptop. ETA: It could even be that your phone is using the DNS Servers of your ISP and that your Laptop is using some horrible DNS Servers and that could account for the issues on your Laptop. Again, I hope you can try the problematic videos on another Laptop or Desktop and see if they are OK or have issues. Suggestion: Use the DNS Servers of OpenDNS.com which are: 208.67.222.222 and 208,67.220.220 Edited December 17, 2019 by Lanny Add ETA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted December 17, 2019 Share Posted December 17, 2019 Your wifi speed may be too slow to stream. The devices can preload to help with that, but still it will be something to check. Or your computer could have an old card? You can call your internet provider and ask them to help you figure out why you're having trouble. Usually they can ping and tell you well your speed is low or it's your computer. My *guess* is it's your computer. Obviously they're motivated to tell you to pay for more speed, haha. If your tv has an HDMI port, you could try something like Roku Express HD Streaming Media Player 2019 It's only $25 right now. But if you need more internet speed, you'll need to make that happen too. So maybe call, see what the numbers are for the service you have, see what you think. We were grandfathered in on our plan (old, old, before the company was bought by a bigger company) and the speed is *barely* enough. I put up with it because it would cost tons more to up it. But if a boost is affordable, that may do the trick. And if you want to try the Roku first, at $25, it may turn out it was your computer. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Elf Posted December 18, 2019 Author Share Posted December 18, 2019 7 hours ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said: When you watch on your phone are you on wireless on your home connection or on 4G/data? my home connection. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Elf Posted December 18, 2019 Author Share Posted December 18, 2019 5 hours ago, Lanny said: ETA #2: Question for the OP: If you watch a Video on your Laptop for the Exercise program, where there are issues with the Video and/or Audio, what happens, when you try to watch that same Video on your cell phone. Is it OK or does it have the same issues with Video and Audio? I have no problem on my phone which is on the same home connection that my laptop is on. I do not have a smart tv. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 3 minutes ago, Night Elf said: I have no problem on my phone which is on the same home connection that my laptop is on. I do not have a smart tv. So then it's probably your computer. Graphics cards, etc. get outdated. Have you tried rebooting your computer, just to see if it is a RAM issue? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 (edited) 12 hours ago, Night Elf said: I have no problem on my phone which is on the same home connection that my laptop is on. I do not have a smart tv. I am not sure if running an HDMI cable from your Laptop to a Dumb TV will work. I think we have a Dumb TV and I will ask my wife if she has tried that when her DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter was OK, to a Dumb TV. However, that assumes that you can get the videos to stream to your satisfaction on your Laptop, which, at this time, is not happening. It could be a defective WiFi card (or WiFi chip on the motherboard). It could be a corrupted WiFi Driver. It could be something else. If it is a Windows PC, I think in the Device Manager (?), I would "remove" the WiFi card, or at least the WiFi Driver, and then Shut Down the machine and then power it on again and see if it detects the WiFi hardware OK and let it install the WiFi Driver. I am also wondering if it could be something less obvious, like a defective HDD (Hard Disk Drive) that may be involved. But more obvious would be to try to check the WiFi. There is an App called SpeedTest https://www.speedtest.net/ that I use on my Android phone and you can click on that link in this long sentence and check the Download speed on your Laptop. We have 50 Mbps Fiber Optic service to our house so that helps a lot with the quality of the Streaming Videos here. If your connection is very slow, that would certainly degrade the streaming videos. However, if both your Laptop and your phone are using WiFi and the Laptop is problematic that seems to point to the Laptop. I would like you to test these videos on another Laptop or a Desktop if you have one available in the house. Or, your Laptop in another location on different WiFi. ETA: Or, on someone elses Laptop or Desktop. Check the same videos that are problematic on your Laptop, on another machine. Edited December 18, 2019 by Lanny Add ETA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Elf Posted December 18, 2019 Author Share Posted December 18, 2019 3 hours ago, Lanny said: I would like you to test these videos on another Laptop or a Desktop if you have one available in the house. Or, your Laptop in another location on different WiFi. ETA: Or, on someone elses Laptop or Desktop. Check the same videos that are problematic on your Laptop, on another machine. Good idea. I'll use my son's laptop first which isn't as good as mine, and then try my DH's which is his HP work laptop (he works for HP). I've had my laptop a while. It is possible something is going wrong with it. The other day it froze up completely. I waited about 30 minutes and ended up doing a hard reboot. I really don't want to spend the money on another laptop right now. I don't use mine nearly as much anymore as I used to so I can't justify getting a super nice one. I'm on an HP Pavilion and the only major annoyance is the sleep feature. When I close my laptop, it's supposed to go to sleep, but it shuts down instead. So I have to boot it up each time. We've checked the settings and see no good reason why this is happening. It's been doing it a long time. I got this laptop in June 2017. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 (edited) Great. Try to view the exercise videos that are problematic on your machine (which is brand new compared to the Dell Latitude E6400 I am using at this moment, which was probably assembled in 2008 to 2010) on other machines. And, with WiFi in other locations. My wife did say that she had issues with the DDPYOGA videos when she was trying to use a Linux Laptop and that she believes some videos are optimized for Mobile devices (phones and tablets) and not for Desktops/Laptops, although I would think that a competent company would try to make their product useful on all platforms, so their customers could use them on whichever platform they wanted to and get satisfactory results. ETA: Your Laptop is practically Brand New. If you need to to replace it after such a short time, I would NOT buy another HP Laptop. I would buy a Dell or a Lenovo machine. (Disregarding that your DH works for HP...) The Snooze and Sleep things with Laptops are (with my limited knowledge and experience with them) problematic and I try not to use them. What happened to your machine when it froze up is probably due to something in Windows and you should have your Windows installation updated at all times with the latest Security Updates from Windows Updates (I don't do the other, Optional Updates). If your Laptop was designed for "Enterprise" customers (and possibly even if it was only designed for the "Consumer" market) it should have some built in, basic, Diagnostics, that you can run when you boot that Laptop. If so, I would run all of them. Of special priority would be the RAM (memory) Diagnostics and the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) diagnostics, but I would run any and all Diagnostics available in your Laptop. NOTE: NEVER DEFRAGMENT AN SSD (SOLID STATE DRIVE) BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING TO DEFRAGMENT AND THAT WILL DESTROY THE HARDWARE Edited December 19, 2019 by Lanny Add ETA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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