Anyone had to change there DNS to stop buffering in Vudu? (NEED HELP)

[xavier32178]

My wife and I were watching the 99 cent movie of the day last night around 10pm est and we had buffering issues on HDX. We have pretty fast internet...around 40mbps down and 3mbps up. I ran speedtest.net on my Box and it's only running at 6mbps and 1mbps up hardwired. I wanted to see if anyone changed there DNS to fix that issue. Here is the email Vudu support sent me

I would start by changing your DNS on the bluray player. You can get to this by starting in the main menu (before entering VUDU, YouTube, Netflix etc.) and going to settings. Under settings, go to network set-up and chose wired or wireless, whichever you are planning on using. From here you should see the option to change your DNS, try changing it to:

Primary: 4.2.2.2
Secondary: 4.2.2.1

You may also need to change your DNS in your router's settings as well. This should use the closest servers to stream our content to you. Please let me know if this helps or not and we'll take it from there.

I wasn't able to change the DNS on my Router from Charter cable that is a SMC SMCD3GN. SMC doesn't allow the user to change there DNS. If I make the changes only on my Boxee Box and my Vizio TV will it still work right if the router's DNS isn't changed? I am also running Windows 7 home premium 64bit and didn't know if there was a way to change the DNS some how in Windows. Any help someone can give me would really be appreciated

Thanks,
xavier32178

[aaronwt]

My wife and I were watching the 99 cent movie of the day last night around 10pm est and we had buffering issues on HDX. We have pretty fast internet...around 40mbps down and 3mbps up. I ran speedtest.net on my Box and it's only running at 6mbps and 1mbps up hardwired. I wanted to see if anyone changed there DNS to fix that issue. Here is the email Vudu support sent me



I wasn't able to change the DNS on my Router from Charter cable that is a SMC SMCD3GN. SMC doesn't allow the user to change there DNS. If I make the changes only on my Boxee Box and my Vizio TV will it still work right if the router's DNS isn't changed? I am also running Windows 7 home premium 64bit and didn't know if there was a way to change the DNS some how in Windows. Any help someone can give me would really be appreciated

Thanks,
xavier32178

I haven't seen this issue with my Boxee Boxes, but I did have it with my LG player with VUDU. By changing the DNS addresses in the player it solved the problem. It did not affect anything else. This is the info they have been publishing for a while and it seems to usually work for people.

[xavier32178]

I haven't seen this issue with my Boxee Boxes, but I did have it with my LG player with VUDU. By changing the DNS addresses in the player it solved the problem. It did not affect anything else. This is the info they have been publishing for a while and it seems to usually work for people.

So there is no need to change the DNS on your router then? Changing it on the Boxee Box and my Vizio only might work then? Thanks for your reply!

[ScottAllyn]

Don't put too much stock into the test results that you get with the SpeedTest.net app on the Boxee Box or with the SpeedTest.net website via the Boxee Box Browser. There's been a LOT of discussion on this already and I think most of the participants are now convinced that SpeedTest.net in not a good way to gauge your Box's capabilities:

http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=27477

Have you had issues streaming other Vudu movies, or was this the first time?

You're not going to hurt anything else on your network by changing the DNS settings on the Boxee Box (or on your TV). By making those changes, you're basically telling Boxee to ignore the DNS settings that your router tries to assign. You can always set things back the way they were if it doesn't work.

Be warned... while 4.2.2.2 is DNS server that can be used by anyone, Level 3 (the owner of said server) isn't obligated to actually provide that DNS service to anyone outside of their own network. Remember that if you suddenly loose the ability to connect to the internet on and computer/device where you're using the 4.2.2.1 - 4.2.2.6 addresses as your DNS servers. Having said that, I've been using 4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.3 for years.

[xavier32178]

Don't put too much stock into the test results that you get with the SpeedTest.net app on the Boxee Box or with the SpeedTest.net website via the Boxee Box Browser. There's been a LOT of discussion on this already and I think most of the participants are now convinced that SpeedTest.net in not a good way to gauge your Box's capabilities:

http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=27477

Have you had issues streaming other Vudu movies, or was this the first time?

You're not going to hurt anything else on your network by changing the DNS settings on the Boxee Box (or on your TV). By making those changes, you're basically telling Boxee to ignore the DNS settings that your router tries to assign. You can always set things back the way they were if it doesn't work.

Be warned... while 4.2.2.2 is DNS server that can be used by anyone, Level 3 (the owner of said server) isn't obligated to actually provide that DNS service to anyone outside of their own network. Remember that if you suddenly loose the ability to connect to the internet on and computer/device where you're using the 4.2.2.1 - 4.2.2.6 addresses as your DNS servers. Having said that, I've been using 4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.3 for years.

Thanks man! This is the first time I had an issue with Vudu on my Box. This was the 3rd movie I watched in HDX. I played some of the same movie this morning around 10am est and it didn't buffer at all on HDX. So do you recommend changing the DNS on the Box to those numbers? Also what option do you have to click on to change these settings. I have never had to change anything like this before so sorry I sound like a noob lol Will changing these settings slow anything down on my Box since the router will have a different DNS? Thanks for your help!

xavier32178

[ScottAllyn]

Thanks man! This is the first time I had an issue with Vudu on my Box. This was the 3rd movie I watched in HDX. I played some of the same movie this morning around 10am est and it didn't buffer at all on HDX. So do you recommend changing the DNS on the Box to those numbers? Also what option do you have to click on to change these settings. I have never had to change anything like this before so sorry I sound like a noob lol Will changing these settings slow anything down on my Box since the router will have a different DNS? Thanks for your help!

Honestly, I'd hold off until you run into buffering issues again. You could have just picked a bad time to stream that movie (maybe there was a problem on the internet somewhere between you and the Vudu server). To make the change, you'll have to go into the Boxee Settings/Network/Network section, change "Configure" to "Manually" (which should fill in all of the fields with your currently assigned settings) and then put that new address in the "DNS server" field.

I doubt you'll see any slow-downs related to making that DNS change. The 4.2.2.* servers are so blazingly fast that they almost seem to give you the ip address of the host you're trying to resolve before you even ask for it.

[xavier32178]

Thanks! We are watching Juno on Vudu tonight so I will see what happens. Thanks for all your help!

Xavier32178

[darcilicious]

Also, if/when Vudu is buffering, you can run the Vudu speedtest in the app instead of a generic speedtest -- I think the Vudu one is more accurate for the content/speeds you need for Vudu.

[xavier32178]

Also, if/when Vudu is buffering, you can run the Vudu speedtest in the app instead of a generic speedtest -- I think the Vudu one is more accurate for the content/speeds you need for Vudu.

Yeah I am at the top of the scale on there test

We started to watch Juno tonight and it started to buffer. I changed the DNS on my Box to the one Vudu said to and it worked, but at the end of the movie I was reminding it and pressed play and then it kept buffering over and over. So I pretty much made it till the end of the movie before it did that when I was rewinding it.

Also I noticed I am having an issue with the sound going low and I turn the volume up on our Vizio Speaker Bar and then it ends up getting loud again throughout the entire movie. Not sure what could be causing that

[Jesseblue]

so i tried changing the dns server on my box as well to see if it would help on some of the stuff that buffers on my network as well...can't see any difference yet...