Can anyone help me get Netflix working smoothly on the PMID701C?

[SingleDad]

Hi everyone! I apologize in advance for the long winded introduction. I just recently discovered the forum in my search for a decent android based tablet under $100. Thanks to the site I discovered the PMID701C. I originally had my eye on a Kindle Fire but didn't want to spend the $199.99 for it. It looked like the 701C would do just about everything I would do with the Fire for about half the price.

I picked it up at Big Lots and I'm really impressed. This is my first tablet and it has pretty much done everything I wanted. The only 2 complaints I have so far are less than stellar battery life (I renamed phone.apk to phone.old which helped a little) and problems with Netflix.

I've installed Google Play thanks to instructions here and the majority of apps I try work well, except Netflix.

Can anyone help me get Netflix working properly on this tablet? Netflix downloads and installs just fine. I can log in and begin playing a video. During that time the audio is sometimes out of sync but not always. The big problem is the video always freezes. It typically happens within two minutes. I thought it might be a connection issue but pausing to let it buffer doesn't help. No matter what the video will freeze and then later attempt to resume playing. When it does it ends up being a stop and go horrible slideshow experience with the audio way out of sync with the video it's attempting to resume playing. Skipping forward or back will sometimes get things going again but never for long.

This happens even when the battery is near full charge or plugged into the AC charger. It does the same thing whether I sit 3 feet from my Belkin router or downstairs on the other end of the house. My connection never really has problems when watching Netflix over PC or any of our game consoles. (Sometimes multiple connections simultaneously streaming.)

I've tried some of the suggestions here in the forum. I downloaded and installed NoFrills CPU and set processor min and max to 1.0008ghz before attempting to watch something . It had no effect for me.

I also tried installing Flashplayer 11 which changed nothing.

Does anyone have any ideas on what else I can try? The lack of Netflix is so far the only thing keeping me from thinking I got the steal of the year!

[liverchip]

Hi everyone! I apologize in advance for the long winded introduction. I just recently discovered the forum in my search for a decent android based tablet under $100. Thanks to the site I discovered the PMID701C. I originally had my eye on a Kindle Fire but didn't want to spend the $199.99 for it. It looked like the 701C would do just about everything I would do with the Fire for about half the price.

I picked it up at Big Lots and I'm really impressed. This is my first tablet and it has pretty much done everything I wanted. The only 2 complaints I have so far are less than stellar battery life (I renamed phone.apk to phone.old which helped a little) and problems with Netflix.

I've installed Google Play thanks to instructions here and the majority of apps I try work well, except Netflix.

Can anyone help me get Netflix working properly on this tablet? Netflix downloads and installs just fine. I can log in and begin playing a video. During that time the audio is sometimes out of sync but not always. The big problem is the video always freezes. It typically happens within two minutes. I thought it might be a connection issue but pausing to let it buffer doesn't help. No matter what the video will freeze and then later attempt to resume playing. When it does it ends up being a stop and go horrible slideshow experience with the audio way out of sync with the video it's attempting to resume playing. Skipping forward or back will sometimes get things going again but never for long.

This happens even when the battery is near full charge or plugged into the AC charger. It does the same thing whether I sit 3 feet from my Belkin router or downstairs on the other end of the house. My connection never really has problems when watching Netflix over PC or any of our game consoles. (Sometimes multiple connections simultaneously streaming.)

I've tried some of the suggestions here in the forum. I downloaded and installed NoFrills CPU and set processor min and max to 1.0008ghz before attempting to watch something . It had no effect for me.

I also tried installing Flashplayer 11 which changed nothing.

Does anyone have any ideas on what else I can try? The lack of Netflix is so far the only thing keeping me from thinking I got the steal of the year!

Mine does the same thing. After searching through the forum, we're not the only ones.

[Finless]

I am not a user of Netflixs however do you know if it uses Adobe Flash player?

If it does I may have a solution for you. Most Gingerbread ROMs will not work well with Flash 11. You must use flash 10.x. I have a good working flash player 10.x for Gingerbread if you think that is the issue.

Bob

[SingleDad]

Mine does the same thing. After searching through the forum, we're not the only ones.

Yeah I know. At first I thought it was just one of those deals where the tablet just wasn't capable of streaming Netflix. However Polaroid/southerntelecom even specifically recommend installing the Netflix app in the user guide.

I've also come across a couple posts that indicate the 701C streams Netflix just fine. I was considering taking it back and swapping it for another tablet but I'm pretty sure I'll end up with the same thing since there are so many of us with Netflix issues.

Kinda sucks because it's really the only thing keeping me from loving this thing right now!


I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that someone here knows a simple solution to help us out.

[SingleDad]

I am not a user of Netflixs however do you know if it uses Adobe Flash player?

If it does I may have a solution for you. Most Gingerbread ROMs will not work well with Flash 11. You must use flash 10.x. I have a good working flash player 10.x for Gingerbread if you think that is the issue.

Bob

I'm definitely an android and tablet noob, but I'm almost positive that Netflix uses flash. However I'm not convinced that's the issue since it acts the same way after I installed flash 11 as it did before flash was installed.

I'm more than willing to try the flash player 10 if you'd be kind enough to pass it along. I doubt it will help but I'm grateful for the reply and will definitely give it a try.

[Finless]

Again is Netflix using Flash? If you installed Google Play and Google play told you there was an update to Flash and you applied it, or you installed the latest yourself, well this very much could be your problem! It sure is for a lot of other Gingerbread users!!!!

Bob

[SingleDad]

Bob, I'm pretty certain Netflix uses/requires flash. I've read that is why many of the el cheapo budget tablets can't stream netflix (because they don't support flash that is required for Netflix). Whether or not Netflix is using flash on MY tablet I have no idea.

The very first thing I did with this tablet out of the box was set up wifi and then downloaded Netflix via the amazon app store to see if it would stream Netflix video.

Everything loaded up but it froze as I described after a minute or two.

I then unistalled Netflix, installed Google Play and downloaded Netflix free from the market to see if it made any difference. Nope.

I then decided to install Adobe flash player 11 to see if that helped. No improvement there either.

So I'm not sure it's a flash issue but I'm definitely willing to try the older version of flash to see if it makes any difference.

[Finless]

Also let me remind you of SD cards and performance. SD cards have a "class". And this is the speed at which they can perform. If your SD card has no number outlined by a C printed on it. You have a crappy slow "unrated" sdcard. I have found flash uses the sd card to buffer and anything less than a class 6 sd card performs like crap with Flash.

OK if you want to try a previous version of flash you have to get rid of the old version and this is not as easy as it seems. You do not just uninstall flash 11.

1) Go to settings and manage apps and select all. You should see flash if you installed it. Click that and CLEAR DATA. Then back out and uninstall it.
2) Look on your SDcard for a folder called adobe. Delete that! Also check the internal sdcard mount! You may have to eject PROPERLY your sd card and then again look in the internal sd card for adobe. You must delete these folders.
3) You must be rooted for this. GO into /system/dalvic-cache and delete any folders that have flash in the folder name or adobe in the folder name! If you do not do this, good chance the older flash will work badly!
4) After doing the above reboot.
5) Now install the older flash APK.

Here is the download:

http://video.freaktab.com/?subpath=f...=flash10_3.zip

Bob

P.S. if you think your SD Card is the issue PROPERLY remove it (unmount it), reboot and try netflix again running from internal nand sd card.

[SingleDad]

OK if you want to try a previous version of flash you have to get rid of the old version and this is not as easy as it seems. You do not just uninstall flash 11.

Yeah I know fully removing flash isn't simple on a PC..so i figured that was coming

I've been doing some googling and it seems a lot of the bargain tablets are having trouble using this newest version of Netflix. I'm going to try an older version and see if there is any difference.

If that doesn't work I'm going to try your steps to remove flash 11 and run the 10.x version and see what happens.

Thanks so much for taking the time to try to help. It is greatly appreciated!

[SingleDad]

Weird. So the latest version of the free Netflix app is Version 1.7.0 Build 510. Since I've read many people are having issues with it I tried installing an older version of Netflix.

I removed the current Netflix version and went with version 1.6.0. It's a big improvement but still has playback issues. The good news is the video doesn't completely freeze with this older version. However the audio does become out of sync with the video.

The video will start to lag behind slightly and it will continue to get worse to the point where the video is about 3-5 seconds behind the audio. It will then suddenly resolve and everything is synced together until it happens again several minutes later.

It's highly irritating and borderline unwatchable, but at least more watchable than the disaster i had before. Of course I'm not going to be satisfied with this...but reverting to an older version of netflix might help some of the others who are having this same issue.

I think I'm going to try following Bob's Flash 11 removal and install 10.3 version and see what happens.

I'll keep everyone posted.

[SingleDad]

Also let me remind you of SD cards and performance. SD cards have a "class". And this is the speed at which they can perform. If your SD card has no number outlined by a C printed on it. You have a crappy slow "unrated" sdcard. I have found flash uses the sd card to buffer and anything less than a class 6 sd card performs like crap with Flash.

I was going to ask whether the presence of an external SD card would affect Netflix performance. I tried Netflix on this tablet bone stock out of the box without any external MicroSD in it.

I then later tried a 1GB Micro SD (a crappy slow unrated card) before and after installing flash 11 and the sd card made no difference. I think this tablet supports up to a 32GB card but this little 1GB is the only one I have available right now. At any rate Netflix hasn't ran any different whether it's been installed or not.

[liverchip]

Attempting to run Netflix version 1.7.1 build 532 and still running into the audio/video sync issue. No SD installed to eliminate it. I have not changed/upgraded Flash in my 701C.

[SingleDad]

No change with Adobe Flash 10.3 either. Thanks so much though Bob!

Since Netflix version 1.6.0 ran a little more smoothly for me I decided to try setting processor min and mix to 1.08 GHZ via Frills CPU before starting a netflix vid to prevent it from slowing down while running Netflix. That didn't improve anything either. Still have the audio video sync problem.

I'm not convinced Netflix is even using flash player though....When I deleted Flash player 11 it said 0 for data and cache storage in settings. It still says that for Flash Player 10.3 even though I've been streaming Netflix for about 15 minutes?

I'm running out of ideas. I just wish this thing would play Netflix like even Polaroid/Southerntelecom claims it can.

[sabercatpuck]

Good news and bad news

Good news is I can confirm that I have the same problem using my stock Polarid tablet (The one running the 'borrowed' Onda ICS firmware plays just fine (it seems to be a little pixelated for the first few seconds and then cleaned up, did the same when I installed it on my stock unit so it might be just finding the right settings). While it seems to be working fine, I would still consider the Onda ICS ROM experimental untill we play with it more though.

The bad news is I am out of time for the day, still much to get done that doesn't involve Polaroid tablets so it might be a little bit before I come back, probably later tonight if I can.

[SingleDad]

Good news is I can confirm that I have the same problem using my stock Polarid tablet (The one running the 'borrowed' Onda ICS firmware plays just fine (it seems to be a little pixelated for the first few seconds and then cleaned up, did the same when I installed it on my stock unit so it might be just finding the right settings). While it seems to be working fine, I would still consider the Onda ICS ROM experimental untill we play with it more though.

The bad news is I am out of time for the day, still much to get done that doesn't involve Polaroid tablets so it might be a little bit before I come back, probably later tonight if I can.

I'm sort of following the whole man up/ ice cream sandwich thread and am excited to see what happens. I was also sort of hoping that I wouldn't need to resort to that since I'm a total noob. This is my first tablet and if it would just run Netflix it does everything else I need it to do for now.

That being said I'm probably stubborn/dumb enough to jump in with both feet if that's what needs to be done. I just can't afford to replace this one if I brick it.

As for Netflix running pixelated and blurry at the beginning of a video...that is perfectly normal from my experience. Every gaming console, pc and device we have around here that runs Netflix does the same thing. Once it loads up the first 30 seconds of video is fuzzy and pixelated but it quickly resolves into a crystal clear video stream.

Thanks for the feedback saber! I guess maybe this is more of a Gingerbread issue than anything else?