Crunchyroll cuts South African prices

[Jan]

Crunchyroll video streaming service slashes prices in South Africa

Sony's anime streaming service Crunchyroll has slashed monthly, and annual subscription prices on its Premium plans in almost 100 countries, including South Africa.

The price adjustments come after the service terminated its ad-supported free tier for new releases in late March 2022.

 

[Lupus]

Hmm R39 is a better price

 

[VegOtter]

I initially saw this article on mygaming and was ecstatic. My only problem is that I used to be subscribed to Crunchyroll, but for a period you could barely stream anything at like 480p. 720p and 1080p was an absolute no go. Tried this on various networks and various connections, with and without VPN's and determined that is was clearly something wrong with the source not being able to provide the adequate throughput. Crunchyroll support also eventually admitted to having problems after a lot of back and forth.

After seeing this article I fired up the old free account and tested a couple of random episodes (old and new) and yeah, no streaming problems whatsoever at 1080p, so it seems they have resolved the problem which for R490 a year is not bad if you watch anime and best way to support the studio's.

DISCLAIMER: I haven't tried this yet at peak times or weekends. Will definitely do this before pulling the trigger.

 

[Magandroid]

Just last month I had crunchlyroll charge of R70 odd taken off my credit card. Hadn't even heard of crunchyroll before then. Don't have a playstation or xbox. Was cheaper just to cancel the existing CC and replace it with another one.

 

[Praemon]

I initially saw this article on mygaming and was ecstatic. My only problem is that I used to be subscribed to Crunchyroll, but for a period you could barely stream anything at like 480p. 720p and 1080p was an absolute no go. Tried this on various networks and various connections, with and without VPN's and determined that is was clearly something wrong with the source not being able to provide the adequate throughput. Crunchyroll support also eventually admitted to having problems after a lot of back and forth.

After seeing this article I fired up the old free account and tested a couple of random episodes (old and new) and yeah, no streaming problems whatsoever at 1080p, so it seems they have resolved the problem which for R490 a year is not bad if you watch anime and best way to support the studio's.

Have the exact same problem, however, it still persists for me. I have a 200Mbit fibre line and it constantly drops to 480p (or lower) and buffers. During the day it's fine if I test it, but if I try using it on the weekend in the evening it's a no go. The problem is the Limelight CDN in JHB - completely broken.

 

[VegOtter]

Have the exact same problem, however, it still persists for me. I have a 200Mbit fibre line and it constantly drops to 480p (or lower) and buffers. During the day it's fine if I test it, but if I try using it on the weekend in the evening it's a no go. The problem is the Limelight CDN in JHB - completely broken.

oh crud. Don't say that. I should have added a disclaimer that I still need to confirm this at peak times. I only tested it now during the day. Will definitely test it later and then decide if it is worth paying for it again. That is kind of the reason why I posted my findings, since I wanted to see if someone else responds that they having the same problem. So definitely more testing needed to confirm this first.

 

[Praemon]

oh crud. Don't say that. I should have added a disclaimer that I still need to confirm this at peak times. I only tested it now during the day. Will definitely test it later and then decide if it is worth paying for it again.

Btw, what DNS are you using and what IP do you get if you ping ll.v.vrv.co ? I'm using Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1, but I believe if you use Google's DNS servers you end up on the UK Limelight CDN node which fixes the issue.

Edit: Just tried with Google DNS but still got the local CDN (41.63.66.9). Erf. I'm getting around 3.5Mbps throughput from it, so can't stream at 1080.

 

[VegOtter]

Btw, what DNS are you using and what IP do you get if you ping ll.v.vrv.co ? I'm using Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1, but I believe if you use Google's DNS servers you end up on the UK Limelight CDN node which fixes the issue.

Edit: Just tried with Google DNS but still got the local CDN (41.63.66.9). Erf. I'm getting around 3.5Mbps throughput from it, so can't stream at 1080.

Did a quick test. I get the same CDN (41.63.66.9), streamed fine at 1080p with speeds ranging from 3.5Mbps - 25Mbps. I left it playing for about 5 minutes and it constantly jumped between those speeds and mostly averaging about 4Mbps once it has buffered enough.

I suspect I need to check this at peak times to confirm over like a week period to make sure it is sorted. Initially when I was having the problems, I also tried Cloudflare and Google DNS, but they both always resolved to the same IP which was local.
I'm also at work at the moment which is a commercial business fibre and ISP, so it might be worse when I get back home on normal residential ISP.

I really want to support the service, because I don't mind paying for something I enjoy. That said, I don't want to pay for something that doesn't work or I won't use *cough cough* tv license.

 

[Praemon]

Did a quick test. I get the same CDN (41.63.66.9), streamed fine at 1080p with speeds ranging from 3.5Mbps - 25Mbps. I left it playing for about 5 minutes and it constantly jumped between those speeds and mostly averaging about 4Mbps once it has buffered enough.

I suspect I need to check this at peak times to confirm over like a week period to make sure it is sorted. Initially when I was having the problems, I also tried Cloudflare and Google DNS, but they both always resolved to the same IP which was local.
I'm also at work at the moment which is a commercial business fibre and ISP, so it might be worse when I get back home on normal residential ISP.

I really want to support the service, because I don't mind paying for something I enjoy. That said, I don't want to pay for something that doesn't work or I won't use *cough cough* tv license.

Completely agree. I want to be able to support the service and show there's demand in SA, but it does my head in that they're not willing to fix the CDN issues. So I went and blocked 41.63.66.9 on my router, and now it's resolving to the UK CDN node 87.248.214.8. Tested it out and it works flawlessly - 1080 and no buffering (getting great speeds - 100mbps). So will test it further and see how it goes.

 

[BeerIsNotGood...]

Crunchyroll video streaming service slashes prices in South Africa

Sony's anime streaming service Crunchyroll has slashed monthly, and annual subscription prices on its Premium plans in almost 100 countries, including South Africa.

The price adjustments come after the service terminated its ad-supported free tier for new releases in late March 2022.

Lol

 

[ArmatageShanks]

Came here expecting sweets

 

[MikeaMatrix]

Crunchyroll never streams correctly for me. Try a sub every couple of years. Still the same.

 

[William1102]

Anyone unable to add a virtual card on Crunchyroll ? Says unauthorized request

 

[VegOtter]

Completely agree. I want to be able to support the service and show there's demand in SA, but it does my head in that they're not willing to fix the CDN issues. So I went and blocked 41.63.66.9 on my router, and now it's resolving to the UK CDN node 87.248.214.8. Tested it out and it works flawlessly - 1080 and no buffering (getting great speeds - 100mbps). So will test it further and see how it goes.

This is actually not a bad idea. I didn't think to just block the local IP.

 

[Lupus]

Just last month I had crunchlyroll charge of R70 odd taken off my credit card. Hadn't even heard of crunchyroll before then. Don't have a playstation or xbox. Was cheaper just to cancel the existing CC and replace it with another one.

Ah man that explains why my account was suspended

 

[VegOtter]

Yeah no. It isn't even proper peak time yet and can barely stream at 720p. Blocking the IP of the rubbish local CDN is an option, but you shouldn't be expected to do advanced changes like that to use a service. Also you aren't always going to be on a network you control, which means you have to do this on every device you use the service on and just.... no.

 

[rh1]

My main issue, was that they did not have English for their anime, not English subtitles but spoken English. My daughter and I rather watch the limited age appropriate anime on Netflix which is in english.

The second issue, was their lack of support for devices which you can use to watch. We are not in the early 2000s.

 

[ShaunSA]

Wtf is a crunchyroll?

 

[rh1]

But at that price, might be worth a relook.

 

[Lupus]

My main issue, was that they did not have English for their anime, not English subtitles but spoken English. My daughter and I rather watch the limited age appropriate anime on Netflix which is in english.

The second issue, was their lack of support for devices which you can use to watch. We are not in the early 2000s.

They have dubbed also they work on android TV?