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CrunchyRoll is run by incompetent fools

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Zolf

Member
I stream CR all the time, always 1080p with no problem. I used to have stuttering problems with Amazon Prime Video, but I think that was their Silverlight player being shitty.
 

Mononoke

Banned
Just for kicks... what they suggest:

Code:
Server:  google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address:  8.8.8.8

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    a156.vi5g5.akafms.net
Address:  69.31.132.213
Aliases:  cp150757.edgefcs.net
          a156.v1507570.c150757.b3.vi5.akamaistream.net

Reply from 69.31.132.213: bytes=32 time=95ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.31.132.213: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.31.132.213: bytes=32 time=90ms TTL=116
Reply from 69.31.132.213: bytes=32 time=99ms TTL=116

Ping statistics for 69.31.132.213:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% los
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 90ms, Maximum = 100ms, Average = 96ms
Tracing route to a156.vi5g5.akafms.net [69.31.1
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms     5 ms  192.168.0.1
  2    41 ms    23 ms    24 ms  10.65.2.113
  3    20 ms    28 ms    23 ms  10.65.1.133
  4    23 ms    25 ms    28 ms  10.65.1.178
  5    25 ms    38 ms    38 ms  63.245.91.61
  6    50 ms    78 ms    74 ms  63.245.106.160
  7    51 ms    58 ms    68 ms  63.245.5.190
  8    53 ms    63 ms    58 ms  xe-0-3-0-0.r04.
38.179.9]
  9    53 ms   115 ms    88 ms  ae-3.r21.miamfl
50]
 10   150 ms   108 ms   108 ms  ae-5.r03.atlnga
05]
 11   100 ms    97 ms    98 ms  ae9.ar1.atl1.us
 12    92 ms   108 ms    96 ms  69.31.132.213

The CR forums are filled with help requests but none. I am glad its working for you guys so for those of you who wanna try it out, go ahead, they have a free trial so test it out. You may not have issues. Try it out and support the industry somehow. At least for me, its a no go =/

For the record, I didn't mean for my post to come off as denying that you have an issue. I always feel terrible when people have an issue with a product/service. The same thing happened when the new consoles launched (where a lot of people had good experiences, but then some had awful experiences).

I hate when people try to act like because their experience has been great, that it must the fault of the person having issues. No one in this thread was doing that. I just mean, I feel for you. A service should work when you pay for it.
 
Do the console apps suffer from the same problem? I had lot of freezing and excessive ads on the PC but on the 360 it was smooth as butter.
 
I don't really have an issue with CR. I have Comcast so I don't know if that factors in at all.

Funimation never works right for me and hulu is just utter shit 99% of the time.

I just want to find new (as in haven't seen yet/undiscovered) anime without having to download illegally :(
 

Toad.T

Banned
I remember when they were just another piracy site with a mascot that had his own CBC show. How far have they come.
 

rpmurphy

Member
I do. I work as an IT Manager for a financial organization. What is it that I don't understand about how the internet works?

I can pull the tracert/ping I did to the servers as suggested by them and there were no long hops or connection problems. Besides, at the end of the the day its inexcusable when every other major streaming service works without issue (HBO GO, Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube). They just don't have good capacity/server locations, its as simple as that.
I'm not a network engineer, but your issue isn't really latency though, and measuring with ping or traceroute only gives you limited metrics that don't really describe the streaming quality that you're seeing. I don't think the forums you asked gave you the proper guidance if that's all they suggested...
 
I don't really have an issue with CR. I have Comcast so I don't know if that factors in at all.

Funimation never works right for me and hulu is just utter shit 99% of the time.

I just want to find new (as in haven't seen yet/undiscovered) anime without having to download illegally :(

Nah I have Comcast 50mbps and it was stuttering hard for me today when I was trying to watch Haruhi. Went to something else and it worked fine so I don't even know what's going on. This was on PS3 though and the app can have issues.
 

Mononoke

Banned
I have a lot of issues with Funimation. Well, the App always crashes on my iPad. And also the website IMO is poorly designed. I'm really not a fan of them at all. Which sucks, because I still sub them for some of their shows that are behind they pay wall. In comparison, CR has been really great to me.
 

Flarin

Member
image.php


Dammit ohlawd, how do you keep finding all these sweet, kawaii avatars? Do you have a secret stash? X3
 

andymcc

Banned
I had issues with the new Hunter X Hunter last night. It would stop playing and exit back out to my queue (PS3) every couple of minutes.
 

Relix

he's Virgin Tight™
I'm not a network engineer, but your issue isn't really latency though, and measuring with ping or traceroute only gives you limited metrics that don't really describe the streaming quality that you're seeing. I don't think the forums you asked gave you the proper guidance if that's all they suggested...

Oh yes I agree, I just posted that since the CR's own guide suggests doing that (for some reason) so I complied. I also sent them that same information because I just know they are gonna request it. Now its a waiting game. I'll let my sub active this month until august and see if it gets better or I am quitting. The poor support is just killing me and I had to vent somewhere. I know for example Netflix has next to zero support but hey... it works. It has never failed me once. I am comparing David and Goliath here but if you are billing for a service and getting very good licenses (Naruto, Fate, Kill la Kill, etc) then damn... make sure your service is stable or at least upgrade your system to match something like Netflix's variable bitrate video.
 

MilkBeard

Member
Works for me most of the time. I watch a lot from my PS3 and sometimes from my laptop. OP, while there are occasional hiccups, I feel you are grossly exaggerating. Especially to the point where you'd tell people to not subscribe. I've had the subscription for over 6 months and have not had too many problems.

EDIT: It could be my location in relation to their servers that makes my service generally smooth.
 
Yeah, I had the same problem with Crunchyroll and really hated using it. Like someone else said, the worst part is that they only buffer like 2 seconds, so you can't even go "Well this is bullshit that I can't stream it right now, but I'll make a sandwich and then watch this episode". No dice. What pushed me over the edge of "well, I'll check back on this in a while, they seem like good people, maybe they'll get this sorted out" to "fuck this fucking bullshit" was that their subscription cancel page cancels your premium access immediately, and doesn't just turn off the autorenewal and let your subscription run to the end of the month. Fucking bullshit!

For the longest time they seemed like gods compared to Funimations website, though. That required refreshing pages 10 to 15 times to get the video player to actually load the video (usually you would just get a black box where the video is supposed to play). I think they did some relaunch of their service a year or so ago, but I have no idea how it is now, it was so terrible for so long that I really don't want to use their service again.

Hulu has some deal with Funimation where they have most of their shows, and most of the stuff that Crunchyroll has exclusively is the kawaii-waifu bullshit that I don't watch, so I usually just use Hulu for any anime I want to watch. Wish they had a subscription plan without ads though, but they're generally 30 seconds and occasionally 60 seconds long plus I get a huge portion criterion collection ad-free, so I'm okay with it for now.
 

Faiz

Member
This is how shitty a service I pay for is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJfOJTOxiuc

I am done with them until an alternative pops up.

Relix, I'm sorry for sounding like a broken record but since you haven't addressed it, I have to give it one more shot as the problem displayed in this video is exactly what I experienced previously on the CR website. I uninstalled and reinstalled (don't just run a new installation) Flash as per the guide I linked previously. This happened twice to me over a period of a year. It fixed the issue for me. I can't and won't say it will definitely fix it for you, but it's worth a shot as it only takes about 2 minutes.
 

JulianImp

Member
I've been using CrunchyRoll, but I only tried out 1080 and 720 streams when I got a 2-day guest pass. Despite being in Argentina and having a rather crapy 300 kb/s down speed, I didn't have any issues with 720p streams, but 1080 did stutter a bit at times; to fix it, I'd leave the stream paused for a minute or two and then come back to watch the rest of the episode issue-free.

It's quite a pain that my region doesn't get access to some series, but it's not like going premium would fix that. Still, I think I might end up subscribing eventually, but not yet, since I'm not using mobile devices and can cope with watching streams in SD quality.

As for supporting the anime industry through DVD/BD purchases, it's nearly impossible to buy them locally (and import prices are ridiculous!). The only anime-related stuff I've ever seen that was being distributed locally was Cowboy Bebop, the EVA remakes (1+2 DVD pack, with 3 becoming available on news stands just a few months ago), and a giant robot space opera series (I think it might've been Robotech or Macross). So far, I've bought all of them but the latter, but it's very unlikely that I'd be able to actually pay for current anime series and others that aren't overly famous pop culture icons. Imports are doable, but then I still have to bypass the DVD region check (also, nobody I know has a BD player that isn't a PS3).
 
Streaming and quality has always been fine for me. The only issue I run into is sometimes an episode goes up that inexplicably doesn't have the subtitles on apps for several hours after the episode has gone up. If you watch it on PC the subtitles are present. It's kind of weird.
 

pepperzz

Member
I've used CR for about 2 years now and I'm just as fed up as the OP. Steaming 1080P via my Mac Mini hooked up to my TV usually starts out fine, but if I try to watch 2 or 3 episodes in a row it eventually starts to stutter or freeze. Every other streaming site that I use (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Twitch, Giant Bomb) all run perfectly fine at full HD.

Using the app on my PS3 runs slightly better, with no stuttering or freezing but it skips ahead in an episode randomly sometimes.

I've stopped my auto-renewal. Hopefully enough people stop their subs so that they realize that charging a monthly fee for a service that doesn't work consistently is a very bad thing.
 

Relix

he's Virgin Tight™
Relix, I'm sorry for sounding like a broken record but since you haven't addressed it, I have to give it one more shot as the problem displayed in this video is exactly what I experienced previously on the CR website. I uninstalled and reinstalled (don't just run a new installation) Flash as per the guide I linked previously. This happened twice to me over a period of a year. It fixed the issue for me. I can't and won't say it will definitely fix it for you, but it's worth a shot as it only takes about 2 minutes.

Alright will try this when I get home
 

Pandacon

Member
Yeah, I have a lot of problems watching crunchyroll on my pc. Usually I watch it with my ps3/4, I have less problems there, though the UI could use some work, and for some reason Flowers of Evil doesn't show up on the ps3/4 app.
 
Relix, I'm sorry for sounding like a broken record but since you haven't addressed it, I have to give it one more shot as the problem displayed in this video is exactly what I experienced previously on the CR website. I uninstalled and reinstalled (don't just run a new installation) Flash as per the guide I linked previously. This happened twice to me over a period of a year. It fixed the issue for me. I can't and won't say it will definitely fix it for you, but it's worth a shot as it only takes about 2 minutes.

I don't think you can uninstall/reinstall Flash in Chrome because it's integrated as part of the browser. I tried uninstalling/reinstalling Flash and using Firefox back when I used crunchyroll and it didn't have any effect.
 

Kangaboo

Neo Member
Howdy!

So, I was going to come home and log into FFXIV and do my dailies on WHM because it is almost 50, but I checked my email first and read through this post on the bus.

I'm Baker! I'm turning 34 in just under a month, which means I'm a Leo. I like MMO's and long walks on virtual beaches, and I'm also the Customer Support Manager at Crunchyroll.

It's been a little while since I've posted on NeoGAF so I don't really remember how to do multi tag quoting across pages, so I'm going to respond to several prior posts here.


First off, for those of you who are having issues with the site, I really do apologize, and I'd like to do my best to help figure out what is going on. If your issue is not addressed below, please feel free to reach out to me personally at baker@crunchyroll.com.

@Relix
- For streaming issues during peak hours. This is -definitely- a real problem that exists. I'm not an engineer, so I'm not going to act like I know what is going on, but I can tell you it is an issue we're aware of and something that we are actively working to resolve. I think that somewhere in this whole thread someone points out that our Flash player does nothing to direct you to a better server, and what I can say is that this is something that we're working on!!! We're working on improvements to the Flash player as well (although no HTML5, which makes me sad.) If you can email me I'll make sure to help out as best I can with the playback problems you're having.

@Wag
- We actually do currently support 1080p on Apple TV and Ouya. This is another area that we know we're lacking in and also something that we're working on. I'm really sorry that I have no dates as to when anything will be implemented, but I do know that it is on our road map.

@Fusebox
- PS3, PS4 and Vita have been really interesting for my team and I to support. The really great thing is that we finally have a dedicated Sony Engineer, so if you can give me any feedback on the app, any problems you're encountering I am more than happy to pass this on to him. He's been really great to work with and has really worked hard to get rid of a lot of the issues that folks encounter when streaming over Sony devices.

@Ramen
- I know you're banned, but you can turn off those emails here:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/email_subscriptions

@thepotatoman
- No, we do not throttle our users at all. The buffering window is pretty short which is something we've had to compromise on to keep the Publishers we work with happy, but we do anything like throttling. I would personally throw a shit fit and yell at folks if this happened.

@Xamdou
- Is there anything else you can elaborate on, or anything that seems like a pattern? Older content vs new?

@Brazil
- I'm sorry it's shit. :( Can you give me any more info?

@Shirahava
- The PS3 app was a nightmare. I know that part of the reason that it limped along for quite a while was because of issues in communication with Sony to get a patch pushed for it, however after the whole PS3 debacle a month ago we have pushed a new, more stable version of the app. If you're inclined to try it out at all, please do! Any feedback, comments, issues you encounter I would love to hear.

@Ferrio
- I am trying to have the achievements system changed completely. :eek: (In addition to support I also do a lot of community work for the company.)

@Dega
- Again, really sorry that you've had issues with the site. If you're still a user and want any help in improving playback, please drop me an email.

@xero273
- The dreaded Spanish Subs... T T This happens when the Spanish encodes end up finishing before the English encodes. I do not know why they tend to finish first, but they do. :/ I know that there has been thought of developing a system that prioritizes English Encodes, but the matter of fact is that we do server Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Turkish as well. (With a few other languages in the works!) This is definitely something that we're aware of and we're doing our best to figure out the best solution to it. If you DO encounter this issue, the best thing to do is wait 15-20 minutes and then try the show again. That is usually enough time for English to finish up.

@Ccrook
- How soon after the show went live did you try it out? Another issue (kind of like the one above with subtitles) is that we serve up different videos based on the device you're watching from. It is entirely possible that the video had not finished uploading so you were hitting a server, then jumping back a server to get a complete version of the episode. It can take upwards of 1-7 hours for videos to finish uploading. (For completion we're really around the 1 hour mark now, but sometimes things go a little wacky.)

@BigSkeet
- Again, how soon after the show posts are you watching? (Hunter x Hunter is the best btw.) If the video hasn't finished uploading in all resolutions it's probably going to settle on the shittiest and stream that. Again when this happens I do find that waiting another 15-20 mins helps resolve the problem.

@Kettch
- Manga is definitely a work in progress. I work pretty close with the Manga Brand Manager on a few things and I know that she would love feedback on the service. We did recently launch a completely updated version of the Manga app and the way it works on the website. So please please please send me some constructive criticism that I can send her way.

@Zee-Row
- Unfortunately at this point in time several of our apps are only available to Premium Members. We're working on a more robust Free viewing experience though... hate to be vague on that, but it should make a lot of folks happy! Most Simulcasts are available to Free Members one week after they air. If we're unable to negotiate a Simulcast time of under 7 days then we will air the show for both Premium and Free Members at the same time.

@Illusive_Juan
- You mean those 10-20 second jumps? And 'The Crunchyroll Server is Unavailable'? Guess what! I just tested a build and had several examples from one of our users and it looks like the update we're working on is going to fix that!

@moris
- That show is messed up. (And if you want to drop me an email with more info I'll see what I can do to help you out.)

@TheBatman
- I'm sorry!!! We are working on things behind the scenes. I don't know if my word as CS Manager means anything at all, but I really do have my fingers in a lot of pots and I am working my hardest to get things done. I do wish I had a magic wand so I could just fix it all. :/

@bigkrev
- We have two styles of streaming. Rtmpe on PC and then HLS on -everything- else. We're working on getting PC swapped over to HLS as well and I am PRAYING TO GOD that this is going to fix a ton of issues that folks run into. (But yeah. This can be why sometimes folks encounter tons of shit on PC and then no problems on our other supported devices.)

@nataku
- Definitely something that happens. If a cache is cold it'll more than likely stream like crap. I know this isn't ideal, but if it is, try something else and come back later and more oft than not it will play fine! We've also recently changed how long content is stored server side to avoid issues like this.

@nephilimdj
- It's awesome to know there is another streaming site out there!!! That said, I'm gonna chime in here and talk about licensing a bit.

I personally could give two shits if you use a VPN or a Proxy to access content that is not available in your country.

HOWEVER. Please please please turn it off to watch the shows that are available in your country. This is going to make sure that video views show up for their respective regions and it is going to help US make the argument to be able to expand licensing areas and bring more and more content to more and more folks world wide.

I know that a lot of countries really get the shaft, (I'm sorry UK) but we really do make bids on every show every season for worldwide availability.

@KdMgMan
- Yes and no? Buying merchandise and home release BD/DVD is good, but the profit margin is actually really really low for the Publishers / Studios. (I do not have exact numbers, but it's actually quite disparaging.

CR is $7 bucks a month for just the Anime Membership. That's like... Subway for lunch. We just had a presentation from Licensing this last weekend on what goes back into the industry and while I can not give #'s or %'s I can say that it is a fairly sizable portion.

Want to make sure that your favorite Studios/Publishers get their share? Watch their shows. Video Views are where it is at with us.

@ThreePiMatt
- I'm sorry about the quality on some shows on Android. I have been fighting to have the entire library reencoded because there are a lot of issues around this, but it's been deemed a pretty low priority.

@ohlawd
- :( I think we're pretty tied to Flash.

@Halo2
- *inappropriate joke*

@Flarin
- If you want to email any feedback, comments, issues you encounter when using the PS3 app I would love to hear them!!!

@Blacksafs
- If it is right after the show goes live, just give it a little time and then try again!

@ohlawd
- We're currently on Xbox 360 and I know that Microsoft announced it so I can say we're coming to Xbox One, however I have no time line on that.

@sonikokaruto
- That's absolutely correct. We try to get the streaming rights for content worldwide, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. We will only air the content we have the license for in any given country.

@newshinycd
- One of the issues that we have with Sony products is that the Trilithium system has a slow memory leak. This has been mostly patched up, but is still lingering. We're working on that!!

As far as One Piece goes... (not a licensing issue, but look at the episode we're up to and then look at what has been released for home consumption...) I can't say much more than that but it should be pretty easy to figure out now! Also from my understanding we're going to be starting to upload new episodes at the same rate, 20-30 each Sat when the new one airs, very soon. (I will have to double check the 20-30 but this is what I know we were doing prior.)

@Necrovex
- :( Email me. If I can see that your prior emails haven't been responded to at all I'll help you out AND hook you up with a 1 year membership.

@June
- Probably because you're kind of wrong? (That's my one sassy comment for this.)

@effingvic
- Again any feedback, comments, issues with Sony stuff, drop me an email.

Something that does tend to sometimes be an issue as far as Chrome goes, is their built in Pepperflash. I would try disabling that to see if it helps at all.

@Kvik
-For Android is it giving you the 'We're currently preparing this episode for your device.' message? If it does, just log out and log back in! It means the list of available media hasn't updated properly. This is something that I have our Android guy working on.

@Jintor
- A lot of this has to do with video ping. :/ I know that it goes by 30 second increments for that fill up of the orange bar. This is also something that we're working on.

@kasane
- Please please send us that delicious manga feedback. I know the Brand Manager would love to hear it.

@Elfforkusu
- Just like above, please send us that feedback!!!

@M3d10n
- Yup, there are issues. We are working on them though, I promise. Not sure if you've read up to here but I'll try to highlight them again. We're working on building out a more robust CDN selection. We're working to change from Rtmpe to HLS streaming. We're doing some massive overhauls to the player in general which will build in things like the ability to recognize if there are issues streaming and then swapping you up to a better CDN to help make sure playback is more stable. (And I do know it's an issue because I have my resolution set to 480p because it pisses me off too.) I howl about this a lot at our lead engineers and I know they're listening.

@Fbh
- Please don't use Horriblesubs. :( Or if you do, open up the shows that we also have on our site and let them run in a window with ads. (Don't gotta watch.) Those views do help.

@-Horizon-
- Hopefully these issues will be resolved with some of the work that we're doing behind the scenes.

@Kite
- That Saturday.... Sailor Moon and SAO2, everything just took a huge shit. I'm sorry for the issues experienced but we're totally going to be better prepared going forward.

@Winterfang
- It seems like right now folks either have it one way or the other. PC works great and everything else sucks, or PC sucks and everything else works great. We are working towards swapping the streaming style on PC because we do find the HLS experience superior.

@sabertoothzombie
- If you want to find something new this season I would suggest Aldnoah Zero.

@ActuallyHulk
- Was this an old show to a new show? This could be the cold cache issue. :/

@andymcc
- How many shows had you watched prior to firing up HxH? And again, any feedback, comments, issues, please feel free to email me.

@chickdigger802
- What happened when you were trying to watch?

@JoeyJungle
- Yes. And that actually pisses me off a lot. It's also something I've been telling them to change for the past two and a half years. Good news though is that we actually have an analytics team and they're doing work for me on how it would not be a big fucking deal to actually give people what they pay for. I am really hoping to have that antiquated business practice axed by the end of August.

If you did end up cancelling and lost some time, drop me an email and I'll hook you up.

@Kyzer
- I'm sorry. Want to drop me an email with whatever it is that ails you?

@chickdigger802
- Free, Free Eternal Summer, Beyond the Boundary, Nichijou ((My Ordinary Life) Which is the fucking best.), Love, Chunboiadgoih and Whatever

@JulianImp
- Hello Argentina! We've been doing a lot to expand and give a better experience for folks in Latin and South America so I'm happy to hear streaming has been good! I also know we've been doing a lot to give you guys more access to the shows we're simulcasting! I think there are only a few this season that we didn't get the rights for in Latin & South America. As far as the catalogue goes, we're working on it!!!

@forgeforsaken
- Yup and this is something that we're really working to reduce / eliminate. It's a 1-7 hour window where subtitles can be unavailable which is less than ideal.

@pepperzz
- I'm sorry. If you wanna try to hash things out, please email me. This text break up really breaks my heart. :(

@Pandacon
- If you want help troubleshooting the PC stuff please drop me an email.

As far as Flowers of Evil not showing up (another really great show btw, it make me so uncomfortable) go here:

https://www.crunchyroll.com/acct/?action=video

And turn on 'Show Mature Content'

Sony and Apple have mature content policies.

@JoeyJungle
You can do a general uninstall/reinstall of Flash and then disable Chrome's built in Pepperflash. This is certainly something that has affected other users playback when using this browser.



GUH!

So at this point, I'm sorry for the wall of text. :/ Really I am, but I kinda just like my job a little too much to just sit back and let a thread like this go. I really want Crunchyroll to be the best, so thought I'd chime in.

TL:DR
If you need help, I am the Customer Support Manager at Crunchyroll. Email me: baker@crunchyroll.com


If you did manage to read all this, shoot me an email and I'll hook you up with a 90 day All-Access Membership (Gonna limit this to 5 though. :p)

Also, if you just have any questions in general, please feel free to post them here (I'd like to keep the personal emails to gifts and help or feedback) But I'll try to be as transparent as possible.

1.5 hours later I'm missing out on XIV, but off to have dinner instead.

Folks, have fun gaming, and have fun watching Anime (where ever you watch it, preferably a legal venue.)

Best,
Baker McDonald
Customer Support Manager
Crunchyroll, Inc.



OH YEAH!

If you play FFXIV and you're on Goblin, please say hi!!!
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/2189879/
 

Relix

he's Virgin Tight™
^^ now that post is massively helpful. Much better than the forums or the support tickets, so I thank you for that Baker. Actually today I could stream two episodes without issue so I was happy for that.

Its good to know that a fix for the player is in the works and I eagerly await that update. Just as a suggestion, maybe you guys should try to be more open about that with the community and let people who have problems know its coming soon. Just those little sentences were enough to appease me and just shut up.

Also, join us at Ultros, its where the cool GAF guys are :p
 
I like it. I find that it is FAR better on apps on consoles than on the website itself. The stuttering on PC is a problem though, given that it should be its the primary method of show watching.
 

Vylash

Member
CR's web player is a bit wonky sometimes but that's about it. If you want a service that's actually run by incompetent fools allow me to direct you to literally everything else. Funimation, Daisuki, and Hulu
 
I've oddly had no problem with Crunchy. Which is weird because I live around a ton of anime watchers and people use the Internet in general.

I probably just jinxed and I won't be able to watch any episodes without a migraine now.
 

mjontrix

Member
It's their service:

- Their player and/or servers tries (very aggressively) to not use more bandwidth than it estimates as needed for the selected resolution. It doesn't matter that you have 100/10 fiber: if their client/server miscalculates you'll run out of buffer;

- They claim their licensing terms require them to keep a very small buffer;

- Their Flash-based player is terribly coded: it won't try a different CDN url if the current one is hammered, it won't adjust it's buffering to adapt to connection issues, it won't retry the connection if data simply stops arriving (either stops streaming completely or it thinks the episode has finished).

I gave up on watching 720p (1080p is just upscaled 720p for 99% of their series), but sometimes I stumble upon something that refuses to playback properly to the end even at 480p and I need to randomly switch resolutions to find one that gives me a good connection.

So essentially, their coders are crap. All they need is a rewrite and they should be good.

Edit, the mega post above answers this.
 
Yeah, I have a lot of problems watching crunchyroll on my pc. Usually I watch it with my ps3/4, I have less problems there, though the UI could use some work, and for some reason Flowers of Evil doesn't show up on the ps3/4 app.

Change your video preferences under account settings on the website to allow mature content, then Flowers of Evil and other "mature" content will show up.
 

DarkFlow

Banned
My GF just signed up for the 14 trial tonight. She's a huge Fairy Tail fan, and wanted to watch the new season. So far everything is running great here at least, so she might keep it since she needs new shows to watch and she's ate up everything worth a damn on netflix already.
 

99hertz

Member
I don't like anime much but do they fuck around with the availability of shows like Netflix? I pickup shows/movies and then finish them months later, so it's annoying when licensing issues and crap like that don't let me finish stuff.
 

Pein

Banned
I've been subscribed to them since the beginning, support used to be great shoot them a question and it'd be answered in a couple hours. I haven't had a issue with them in years so can't say whats going on there, the streaming could use some work though because sometimes you have to switch res mid stream to get it going again.
I don't like anime much but do they fuck around with the availability of shows like Netflix? I pickup shows/movies and then finish them months later, so it's annoying when licensing issues and crap like that don't let me finish stuff.

not really, they'll usually give you a month warning if something is leaving though.
 

M3d10n

Member
So essentially, their coders are crap. All they need is a rewrite and they should be good.

Edit, the mega post above answers this.
I get the impression their web player was outsourced, because if they had a resident coder the player would improve over time, but it doesn't.

I haven't worked much with streaming, but I wrote apps that had to download data from CDNs and it does require a bit more work than simply opening a connection and requesting the data, because all sorts of crap can happen to an individual connection to the CDN: abnormally slow/throttled connection, a connection that randomly stops sending data but remains open and doesn't time out, etc. The client code need to be hardened to deal with that shit and an one off contractor job is unlikely to cover all situations, as only live software that is constantly iterated on and records all sorts of usage metrics from real users (because there's always bugs that only happen with customers and you can never seem to reproduce) can become robust enough.
 
I really like Crunchyroll, but yes, I generally have to watch at 480p for a decent stream.

I'm not really too bothered by that, since I watch on a 27" screen and from a couple of feet back you can barely tell the difference with anime.

Edit: I'd also truly love a Crunchyroll App on the WiiU so I could watch anime on the small screen whilst my partner watches football :p
 
Never had issues outside of the PS3 app. Roku works a-okay!

Funimation's app on different consoles on the other hand...Xbox App is garbage.
 

Piccoro

Member
I've discovered CrunchyRoll recently, and I like it. I'm watching Jojo's and will watch Sword Art Online next.
But I have to always watch it on PC, because the PS3 and Vita apps are not available here in Europe :(

And a hint for Wii U owners: CrunchyRoll is compatible with the Wii U's internet browser! Haven't tried it in Vita's browser yet.
 

Marow

Member
Glad to see someone from Crunchyroll reply in this thread.

As for my own experience with the service, well, I have the issue where it randomly freezes no matter the video quality or time of the day. I cannot figure out why, as it happens no matter the quality and browser. I've sent an email about it before and they said they'd check it out, so hopefully something will happen. This has been going on for years and it's not really that fun. Surprises me nothing has been done about it and whenever people have asked about it in the CR Forum the reply has been nothing at all.

The latter is something I'd harp on, as the support is not good in my opinion. It's essentially only made up of nonsense canned replies. I remember a payment security issue from last year, which was met with apathy and then soon ignored. Not to mention the few times I've got actual replies with "We're looking into it", I've never gotten an update (leaving me in the dark). When I renew my payment I'll contact them about it again :/

Overall, there's lots of things I'd improve on when it comes to Crunchyroll. Everthing from the streaming, support to website design. It's a shame it hasn't gotten a proper update in years. I could write a long detailed text on what needs to be fixed. It's still the best site for legal anime despite of this, though.

On another note: if you read this Bjaker, do you have any plans on bringing the CR app to other platforms? Like Wii U or Sony TVs?
 

link4117

Member
I cancelled my sub because it wouldn't play 720/1080 during peak show hours. It wasn't me, everything with my internet and streaming from other websites worked fine. I had been a drama and anime membership. Frankly the drama portion of the website is very lacking. I assume licensing can be a hassle since shows appear and disappear fairly quickly, when compared to anime, on the site.

I mainly joined to support anime getting more attention in the West, but I've also noticed that the translations are pretty hit or miss lately. There are some good ones, but the bad ones are extremely terrible. Quality of the translations seem to change per episode too. Not to mention the "?'s" or untranslated lines that you can occasionally come by. I assume they fix those before the proper free release though.

So yeah. Streaming being finicky and the translations being hit or miss, I couldn't bring myself to support that anymore. Still better than Funi's translations and typesetting though.
 

Kangaboo

Neo Member
Uguuuuuuuu~~~

Umm. I'm gonna keep this one shorter and less @ @ @

Again seriously, rather than 'have impressions', feel free to ask me. I'll be as candid about shit as I can.


I know that a lot of stuff is tossed at Crunchyroll as far as it not being as up to snuff like Hulu or Netflix. Or why it takes so long to address certain issues.

I'm not trying to make excuses, but up until the end of last year we were a company of only 40 people. Growth before was also very slow. I joined the company in 2011 as the 21st employee.

In the last half a year we have grown to over 100 employees. We've built out much needed groups like QA (THANK GOD), Analytics, Marketing, more Engineers (Also thank god), so yeah... we're working on it!! (CS hasn't grown as fast, but I'm really pushing for more reps. You can't just hire more engineers and no one to support them at the base level.)

But yes! We're much smaller, we're not making oodles and oodles and oodles and oodles of bucks like some of these bigger guys.


But what the hell does this all tie to!?! The Flash Player... Nope, wasn't outsourced. I can actually see the engineer who worked on it right now. But, having only had 30-40 employees for the majority of our working life has mean that we have had to be strategic in where we focused effort. As I mentioned in the prior, more massive thread, we are actively working on playback for PC right now and I'm hoping that we're able to roll out some of these changes very soon.


Umm.... I guess the other things to note from the few posts that came in after my gigantic post last night.

-I can't talk about platform releases. :( I was able to mention Xbox One before because Microsft themselves have already announced this. (Again, no date on when it'll be out.)

-Translations - If you have beef with them, please.... use the report a problem button. There is a section JUST for subtitles & y'all reporting issues is a great way for the manager of the Translation team to get feedback on the performance of his employees. You may say, 'Why should I do this mans job!?!' but really all you're doing is help us help give the best experience to everyone and also hopefully weed out some crap translators if they're not making the bar.

-FFXIV - D: D: D: But I'm 3 jobs away from being 50 in everything!!! I guess there would be server transfer, but I'm currently playing with all of my friends from XI. Maybe I can make a tinker toy character to futz around with Gaffers.



Again, if anyone has questions please ask! I will do my best to answer in as much detail as possible! (Or less. :eek: I know my little wonky wandering above about company size / income is weird, but it's also 9 AM and I need coffee.)

Best,
-Baker
 
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