ShowMax video and sound problems, app support

Naspers recently launched ShowMax, a Netflix-like subscription video on demand service priced at R99 per month.

In addition to a free tier which offers limited access to the TV shows on the platform, ShowMax also has a 7-day free trial of its premium service.

ShowMax said it couldn’t disclose any numbers, but did say that the number of trial users who have converted to subscribers has exceeded their expectations.

“It looks like people are enjoying the service,” said ShowMax.

While many may be enjoying ShowMax, some users have complained about issues they are experiencing with the service.

We forwarded the complaints to ShowMax, and this is what they had to say:

Users are complaining about sound sync problems. Is this something ShowMax is aware of?

We’ve picked up a transient issue impacting some subscribers. We’ve been busy on a number of fixes, including re-encoding some of the content – this will be fully resolved shortly.

Users running a DNS unblocking service (e.g. UnoTelly) are reporting they have to switch regions to download ShowMax apps. Are you considering making the app available in the US regions of app stores?

The ShowMax app is available in the US app stores (Apple and Android). The smart TV apps are only available from the SA stores.

Using UnoTelly will confuse CDN routing – it would cause people to be served from Europe. We are looking at ways around this.

Some users are reporting throughput issues, saying they are getting low-quality video streams on ShowMax, while Netflix is performing fine. What is the cause, and will it be addressed?

We’ve had a small number of reports of this happening – we’re urgently investigating. We’re working through a number of possibilities and are hopeful that we’ll have it resolved shortly.

Users with jailbroken iOS devices reported that the app is not working. Is this intentional?

This is a digital rights management issue – our agreements restrict our ability to stream content to jailbroken or rooted devices.

Why isn’t there an app for Roku, Apple TV, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and other media devices?

We wanted to launch with a core set of apps that would suit the needs of the largest group of users we could fit into our development timeline.

Support for other platforms is being investigated and we plan to roll out to more platforms according to subscriber demand.

We are currently working on offering Airplay support to Apple TV from other Apple devices.

Why are you using Flash?

While we are able to use an HTML5 player on Chrome, our digital rights management software requires that we use Flash in other browsers.

Our licensing agreements with content providers require that we use digital rights management.

Having said that, we’re doing some cool stuff with Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) and the Common Encryption Scheme (CENC).

Why not offer videos in 1080p?

Due to the bandwidth challenges in South Africa, we decided to launch with support for video streams of up to 720p.

We do plan to offer 1080p streaming in future for content available in full HD.

Poor video quality and DNS unblocking services

On the issue of some users getting poor video quality, our experience with UnoTelly seems to be in line with ShowMax’s warning that the region unblocking tool confuses its CDN routing.

With the help of a Netflix and UnoTelly user, MyBroadband was able to test the effects of the unblocking service on ShowMax.

We found that when UnoTelly was enabled, ShowMax content appears to stream from Germany at very slow speeds.

Disabling UnoTelly seems to result in video streaming from South African servers, and dramatically improves the quality of the stream.

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