Notice Any Netflix Streaming Sound Issues?

John writes, "HEROES had its season finale this past week, so I wait for it to come to my Roku player since I dropped cable and my DVR.  Anyway, I go to watch it, but there is no sound.  There is an orchestra-type layer of sound that matches the show.  It’s like one of the layers of the sound package, but not the important dialogue layer.  So I tried it on my PC and it worked fine, sound and all.  I tried several other movies and TV shows and they all worked fine through Roku.  Not sure if it was a Roku, NetFlix or personal PC issue, I called NetFlix support.  She was very nice and helpful in the sense that she passed the information to the proper people who would fix it.  She said it was probably loaded wrong and it would have to be reloaded and may take 3-5 days."

My kids noticed that a recent episode of Sonny With a Chance lacked dialog (but the laugh track was working), and the audio on an episode of Suite Life on Deck was slightly out of sync. 

Have you noticed any sound problems with streaming titles?

Comments

[Philip in Florida]

i am having the same problem but on my pc. i tried watching the new jonas brothers disney show and i get no dialog, and also with sonny with a chance

[Patrick]

I streamed "Let the Right One In" a few days ago and had no sound for most of the movie. Subtitles supplied the dialog and the silence actually made it creepier. I watched it by myself at 2AM in a dark room, so it was a very happy accident.

[Tyler]

It's likely that some of the channels are going out or not being compressed correctly during transcoding.

[Gir]

I noticed the issue with the recent Heroes episode. I hope they get it fixed.

Perhaps more odd are titles where the video is messed up. I ran across an episode of Doctor Who (part 1 of a two parter - Rise of the Cybermen I believe) with the video corrupted into a bunch of diagonal bands - almost exactly like an old style TV with misaligned vertical sync. It was just the one episode that was messed up; the rest of the series was fine.

[snowmaiden]

I had a problem with an episode from Family Ties (The Fugitive, Part 2) this weekend. I got caught in a loop; every time I got to a specific point about 7 minutes in, I'd get dumped back to the very beginning of the video again. Fortunately, I know Family Ties is also available on the CBS site, so I was able to finish watching the episode there.

[MCW]

I watched that specific Heroes episode as well... no problems on my end when watching via Roku.

[db]

The pilot of "Painkiller Jane" - while maybe not a great show - had the sound lagging a good two seconds behind the video on my PC.

[sarah]

the sound issue i seem to run across most often is a slow de-syncing where at the beginning of the episode it's almost imperceptible that they're speaking before they open their mouths but by the end of the episode it can be so bad that the dialogue is 30 seconds out of sync with the action on screen. seems to happen more on TV episodes than movies (for awhile it seemed every Doctor Who was doing this).

BTW I do all my instant watching on my Roku box.

[John]

I watched Timecrimes via my Roku and about 20 minutes in the sound dropped out completely. It came back about 10 minutes later but was now about 10 minutes out of synch with the movie. It was a foreign flick with subtitles so I watched it through to the end anyway.

[Jay]

I had the same problem with the last Heroes episode on my Roku. I "fixed" it by going to the hidden menu and forcing the player to use the "main profile" streams. This ususally fixes most problems, but you lose high def, and use more bandwidth.

[DoogieHowserMD]

Netflix Instant Watch Queue Report Problem

On the Instant Watch Queue there is a link next to viewed titles to Report Problem.

Do this so Netflix gets the message that the stream needs to be fixed.

[Eli]

Same issue with "Let The Right One In". No center channel audio on my Mac, then the next day, watching on XBOX, all was well. Not sure the platforms can be implicated. Could just be a timing thing.

[Nathan]

Last night I watched Timecrimes. About 30 minutes in, the sound went out and I got these clicks for about 3 minutes. Then the sound came back on, but it was the sound for the movie from three minutes prior. So I was watching the rest of the movie play with sound from three minutes before for the rest of the movie. Good thing it was a foreign movie with subtitles.

[moviejs]

I've most recently noticed sound issues on the feature "Bottle Shock." The dialog track is much lower than the music/sfx track making the viewing experience quite unpleasant: changing volume levels constantly. I finally gave up and ordered a DVD.

[asdf]

Had the same problem with JCVD on my pc. Got the sound effects layer but no dialog. I tried rewatching it a few days later though and it had been fixed.

[Del]

The original Twightlight Zone had a couple of them that the sound was off by about 30 seconds. They have been fixed since then.

[Wooster11]

Interesting. I tried to watch Dan in Real Life this weekend via my Xbox 360 and the sound was ridiculously low volume. I had to turn my TV up to about 3 times what I normally do to even just hear the dialog. But I wasn't missing any layers - it was just overall streamed with low volume.

[Mike B.]

I have had trouble on my Roku with Jericho and a few other series.

[joe hobson]

I just finished both seasons of Jericho and at least 3 episodes were out of sync by as much as 1 second when viewed on my Tivo. Tried restarting the box but that didn't fix it. Had to finish watching on my laptop.

[Mileshake]

I had this problem with episodes of Knight Rider. All I could hear was Reed Hastings singing in the shower.

It was odd. Did you know there was a Netflix theme song? I didn't.

[Dan]

My daughter attempted to watch the new Jonas Brothers show, and there was no dialog.

[Ryan]

I had the same problem as the original poster with the Heroes finale on Roku. I went to a different episode, which worked, then back to the finale - which then worked as well. At some point, my wireless signal dropped speed and Netflix went from the HD to SD stream. At this point, dialogue went out again. Going out to the menu, then back into the episode fixed it.

[maubs]

Had the same problem with Dan in Real Life -- ridiculously low sound volume. I was watching on a laptop and had to pick the thing up and hold it close to my head to hear.

[Mark]

I have had a chronic issue with Eddie Murphy Raw, in which the sound drops out every few seconds. I tried deleting it from my WatchNow queue and re-adding, but same issue. My Roku is cabled to the internet, so it's not a wireless or connectivity issue. All other titles have played without that issue.

[George]

Yea, just another instance of Netflix messing up. I dropped my cable thinking this was a cheaper alternative. Now I pretty much sit at home on quiet nights with my wife thinking how bad of an idea it was.
So its now Goodbye Netflix, Hello again Cox!

[Uosdwis]

I don't have Roku, but I can say there were at least two airings of PBS' Nature via over-the-air ATSC-HD where the center dialogue channel was gone, but the 2ch mix on analog cable was fine. I wrote to the station and at first they suggested I was on SAP. Nice try, but I'm not stupid.

[noor]

yeah i try with jonas series no dialog and the other disney shows i watch like sonny with a chance and the suite on deck and hannah montana and suite life of zack and cody also heroes finals. i call them, they say is many the roku or my computer. i love netflix that why i drop my cable , tivo , directv , comcast whatever i got netflix because it more cheaper. they need to go faster, 2010 is coming in 7 months.

[VinnieDelpino]

I agree with my good friend DoogieHowserMD you gotta report the problems....

Netflix Instant Watch Queue Report Problem

On the Instant Watch Queue there is a link next to viewed titles to Report Problem.

Do this so Netflix gets the message that the stream needs to be fixed.

[Gir]

Good to know, but it'd be better if there were a way to report issues from the Roku itself. Waiting till the next time I'm on my PC - I'll never remember.

[Bradley M.]

I had the problem with the series finale of Heroes but after a week and a half the dialog track was back. It had been missing so that only the background music was playing originally.

[Rick]

Ditto for Timecrimes. I'll have to order the DVD to finish seeing it.

The 1974 exploitation flick Hands of Blood is completely out of sync, by a couple of minutes... unwatchable.

I wish there was a convenient way to report bad transcoding to Netflix; it seems to occur a lot.

[Rick]

I just tried to "Report Problem" for Hands of Blood, but it's not listed as recently viewed, though I watched it 15 minutes ago.

Looks like you have to wait a few minutes/hours/days for the system to add the movie to your history before you can report it.

[n9yty]

Just tried to watch "*batteries not included" and it has no sound on HDMI output, nor on the analog audio outputs. Streaming it on my Mac works fine, but I don't have the TV Hookups for that. :(

Is there a place to report these to Netflix online? I couldn't find anything on their web site.

[Jeri]

2nd season, last episode of Heros - sound and video are out of sync

[Joe]

How has this not been resolved?

Watching Jericho through PS3 and several episodes randomly have no sound, but works fine through computer for all episodes.

[Ali]

I tried watching Sonny with a Chance, and there is no dialog. It is actually interesting, because you can hear all the sound effects/applaud, but the dialog itself was gone. This has happened for EVERY since SWAC episode I've watched so far, but then in a couple days it works...quite frustrating. It shouldn't even be called Instantly Watch if you don't get to watch it instantly!

[New Netfilx customer]

Yes I have had many sound out of sync problems as well with Man vs Wild and Dirty Jobs and a few others. I use mostly PC's and have tried with several web browsers and Windows 7 media center. I've tried pausing so the buffering could fill up before the show begain and that doesn't help either. I have at least 10 mbps download speed availble at all times. Does Netfilx not respond to anyone about this? I am a new customer but seems a lot of people are complaining.

[bighog]

i think it's flunies in the tech dept not loading stuff in correctly..this cuntry sux

[Danny]

I had this problem with the roast of bob saget

[Linda]

I have a problem with all sound on all instant watch movies, the sound is very low, and adjusted all sound on computer to high. Youtube and all other sound is fine. Any suggestions?