Tech heads please help!!

[Guest dunbad]

Hi,

I'm desperate for some help or guidance from the tech heads amongst you. I've posted before regarding kinoma play and if anyone was or wasn't experiencing problems with the ability to watch video, but did not appear to get much response. So I'm gonna try and explain what's going on and hopefully the more experienced amongst you can help me understand what's happening!

I have kinoma play installed and when I'm recieving HSDPA signal I cannot view videos on kinoma. Wifi works fine, and 2g or edge, the videos at least try and buffer. However if I try and select a video that has a frozen frame, or still as the thumbnail I get a message "video URL not found". But this happens only when I'm on hsdpa. Some videos play fine like certain news channels, that are in the wmv format (on ANY connection method.) But anything connected to YouTube (that has the thumbnail icon) I get the error message but only on hsdpa? It appears to go wrong whenever I go over roughly 250 maybe 300kbps. Although wifi speeds isn't a problem. Kinoma are saying that because I can recieve videos fine over wifi, 2g or edge and because I'm the only person reporting this issue?? it must be specific to my device or it's a carrier issue. And it's not a kinoma problem.

Orange are saying that because I can view YouTube videos through different apps like the dedicated YouTube app, or Internet browsers. And I can view YouTube videos tethered to my laptop, or the fact I can view wmv formatted videos through kinoma, ALL, whilst recieving their hsdpa signal, this proves the issue is not with oranges hsdpa. Orange are saying the issue is a comparability issue with kinoma and YouTube?

Orange are claiming they have not blocked the website in any way and the tests I done prove this??

There is an update for kinoma which fixed an issue that gave the same error message on YouTube videos. That as I understand dealt with a change that YouTube made leading to a problem that prevented videos from being viewed with too high a bitrate that effected everybody. This update though has not cured my issue. And I now know of 3 other users in the uk who have kinoma installed and all 3 have the exact same problem and we are all at a loss as to how we can get it fixed if we don't even know were to start looking! 2 of us have the tg01 and one has the htc hd2. But unfortunatley were all with orange so can't say if other networks in the uk are effected.

Can any of you shed any light on this on where the issue could be? Or a solution from our handset settings?

Many thanks

[Guest columbo]

I experience the same problem, and I have no idea why. I too am on Orange. It doesn't always happen for me on HSDPA, and I seem to remember experiencing the issue on WiFi, although I can't be sure. Another possibly unrelated issue is that it doesn't always play sound when my device is connected to my bluetooth handsfree kit. Other apps are fine, but Kinoma goes silent. I noticed one time that it happened the same time as the youtube issue, but I haven't had time since then to test it further to see if this was always the case.

Warning: Rant ahead

In my experience, Kinoma support doesn't like admitting there is a problem. Although they are very quick to respond to queries, they tend to be a bit defensive.

It seems bizarre that they would tell you that you're the only person reporting the issue since one can see from their forum that others have had the same problem. Even if you were the only person with the issue, it's irrelevant. I hate it when so-called customer support say things like that as it just seems like they are trying to make the customer feel small and insignificant. I hate it even more when they say say something like that when it isn't true. It's known in civilised society as 'telling a lie'.

Kinoma Play doesn't play videos that have been recorded with the phone because, bizarrely, it doesn't actually support the amr-nb codec for sound. Funny how they're happy to boast about supporting the TG01 on their blog, yet fail to mention this compatibility issue anywhere on their website. I attempted to add a comment on their blog about it when my attempts to contact them directly met with polite arrogance, but my comment mysteriously vanished.

No doubt, Kinoma Play is an amazing piece of software and given all it does do, I would still be happy to pay despite the odd one or two limitations, but it sort of makes me sick when a company is too proud to admit weakness, preferring to brush issues on the carpet and mislead customers instead of being humble about it.

All they need to do is put a disclaimer on their website citing 'known issues' and allow the customer to make up their own mind.

Anyway, rant over. I'll let you know if I have any helpful suggestions.

[Guest dunbad]

Cheers columbo,

yeah I'm pulling my hair out as you can see. The bluetooth sound thing sounds odd. I have no idea why that happens sorry.

Regarding the hsdpa issue do you think kinoma is pushing out youtubes U.S frequency bands for hsdpa? Rest of world uses 900/1800/2100. I believe the U.S uses something like 850/1900/2100. If the mast near you happens to be picking up the 2100 signal then your good as it's compatible, But what if it's picking up one of the other 2 frequencies? Is your issue location dependant? Orange haven't been too bad over this to be honest, but yeah kinoma seem very defensive to say the least!! They have a strange way of making me feel like I'm the problem! But say it's my carrier and there's nothing they can do with oranges problem!!!

[Guest Charles@Kinoma]

I have kinoma play installed and when I'm recieving HSDPA signal I cannot view videos on kinoma. [...] Kinoma are saying that because I can recieve videos fine over wifi, 2g or edge and because I'm the only person reporting this issue??

If you've contacted our support folks about this, you're one of two people worldwide who has since August (when we first heard of it).

...kinoma seem very defensive to say the least!! They have a strange way of making me feel like I'm the problem! But say it's my carrier and there's nothing they can do with oranges problem!!!

I apologize if anybody's made you feel like it's your fault. We'd love to figure out what the problem is.

-- Charles Wiltgen