Streaming Question

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I have Amazon Prime Video, a by product of my wife's effort to get her packages faster. Don't use it much but have no complaints with the streaming quality, including HD shows. I use a MOCA connection not Wi-Fi.

My question has to do with fast forwarding (and backward). When I fast forward, the screen goes black except for the time line at the bottom of the screen. When resuming play speed, the picture reappears at the new location. Thus, one has to be able to fast-forward based on time location rather than looking at the picture. Is this something unique to Amazon prime or is true for others such as Netflix?

[smith6612 · Accepted solution]

A lot of other services operate like this too. If a video doesn't buffer ahead, often two requests are made to the streaming server; one for video, one for audio. Video can take a second or two to display depending on how the video was encoded, the video player, and your graphics hardware. Often times when services, like YouTube or Amazon use the DASH format, the delay is caused by the player having to fetch data, mux it together, and begin decoding it.

Audio, being the lesser of the two to both download and process, can start playing well before video can.

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Thanks for your help.

The main problem with the fast forward function was that it was very fast, making it impossible to move a short distance. Amazon Prime Video has now introduced a new interface that is significantly better in many ways. One being that the fast-forward function speed can be controlled much like a DVR, although the screen still goes black during the fast-forwarding. At least, under the new interface, it is workable to make short moves.