I’m right there with you…the admins had been pretty cool…but haven’t heard anything in hours…I WANT MY DATA SAVER BACK…
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Sorry for the slowness, just replied in our other thread.
Just an update for Peter. I spoke with a tech at Sony and granted him remote access to my TV. After a short time, I realized that he only had the same suggestions that Viasat has offered about changing resolution per app. There is no “control panel” per se. My next thought was to use an old laptop to feed the Viasat wifi to and use it as a server to throttle the resolution to the TV. I’m old, so please excuse if the terminology is no longer relevant. It sure would be easier if Viasat would reinstate data extender…
Ok fair enough. I don’t think we have yet asked so can we have your consent to look at your usage? I would like to look at the data and see which of the streaming services are still consuming data at a higher rate than you would be with Data Saver. Also, we are looking into various options in response to those wishing for the return of data saver including yourself. I’ll post back here if anything materializes.
You have my approval to look at our usage. Just one night, April 23 (this month) we watched 1 movie (plus the normal amount of Youtube, etc) and our usage was 8.75G.
Hi @clcollum,
I looked into your usage and noticed that your biggest source of consumption on April 23 was Amazon Video. Can you please adjust your streaming settings for Prime and see if this helps to decrease your data usage?
You will find a gear icon while watching a movie in your web browser that will allow you to change your video quality:
Thank you,
Cat
Cat, I don’t have the below options. It may be because my Amazon videos are direct streamed through a built in Chromcast for my TV.
Hi @clcollum,
Can you please try going to your Chromecast settings and change the resolution? You can find some instructions here - Display settings for Chromecast with Google TV - Chromecast Help
Please let us know if that helps.
Nacho,
I really appreciate the help, but I have a Sony Bravia “Android” TV. I have no way to access the built-in Chromecast settings. I even had the Sony tech remotely access my TV trying to find a way to change the resolution and he ended up telling me I evidently have a model that does not allow you access to change the incoming resolution.
I did try and follow the instructions you sent, but do not work for this model TV.
I see. Interesting, that’s the first time I hear about a TV that uses Android.
So are you using some form of Amazon Video app within your TV? Or are you casting on your TV from the Amazon Video app on your phone?
Thanks,
Nacho
Nacho,
Although I don’t truly understand all of this myself, I believe I am using the video apps within the TV. We do not “cast” from any other device to our TV. The built-in Chromecast communicates directly with our satellite router via wi-fi. We don’t have access to change anything within Chromecast.
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Hi @clcollum,
We are working on finding a solution to your issues and we are very sorry that it is taking so long.
A couple of questions for you in the meantime:
- When you had the video data extender enabled, did you experience any issues with your rate of data consumption?
- How much would you say your data usage increased once the extender was removed?
Thank you for your help and your patience,
Cat
Cat, I really appreciate the fact that those of you who are support for the forum are actively working towards a solution.
I had only one issue with the data extender when it was available. I would find that it had been turned off on several occasions.
After the second or third time, I started checking our Viasat account daily or every several days to make sure it was still on.
I estimate that our data usage increased by about 30gb per month.
Several months I had to buy extra data and last month (May) I bought the additional 30gb and still ran out of high speed data about four days before a renewal cycle.
Thanks, Cheryl
Hello @clcollum,
We noticed that your antenna is mispointed. We will request a technician visit, you should receive a call to schedule the visit either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
Thanks,
Nacho
Great! Hope this cures the buffering problem and we can drop the Mbps back down to the lowest rate. Thanks to all for your diligence in solving this problem!
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Hi @clcollum
From what I can see the technician visit has been completed. If the situation does not improve, please don’t hesitate to reach out again!
Thanks,
Leonardo
@clcollum @Leo do the two of you mind if we post this one (the antenna mispoint) and the resolution (technician repoint the antenna) to a new thread? Its something that came up and is unrelated to the main topic. Thoughts? It might just help keep the different issues straight.
Sounds reasonable to post else where. Viasat tech came out yesterday and realigned our antenna. We watched a movie on YouTube last night and did not experience any buffering, so I would think that indicates the buffering was probably an antenna issue.
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@clcollum I just learned that after the technician came out and repointed the antenna, the automatic provisioning on the modem caused the data saver feature experiment to be reset. This is the likely cause of you not seeing any buffering. I think we should mark this topic SOLVED by your participation in the data saver feature experiment and then turn it back on again and continue iterating until we find a setting that gives you the data savings and also does not buffer. Does that make sense?