Dealing with "Video Error"
Video Error is displayed by our premium Brid.tv video player in a number of circumstances, but they all mean that the player couldn't get video data quickly enough or smoothly enough for the player to continue. Other players which we offer don't display the Video Error message, but will freeze or go blank when playback cannot continue.
Reasons : - Broadband or networking issues at the camera site, can cause breaks in the stream - this will always affect all users.
- Streaming server problems. This will affect all users and many other cameras. This is very rare indeed.
- Internet routing problems. Very, very rarely, ISPs have routing problems that can affect all users of one ISP.
- Broadband at the viewer end. This is much more common. Insufficient speed or other people on the same network consuming the available bandwidth.
- Wi-fi speed issues. A device connected on wi-fi, but receiving a poor signal, will have a slow connection to compensate. This is a common problem, particularly in areas where there are many wi-fi networks competing for "space" and interfering with each other - particularly in flats and other dense housing.
- Browser / operating system issues.... This is the most common reason and some known problems and solutions are listed below...
Hardware Acceleration - Turn it off!
This seems to be at the root of many playback problems. Fortunately, many browsers allow this to be turned off :
Apple iPhone / iPad (iOS) + Safari browser
We strongly recommend using Chrome rather than Safari for Railcam, but in some versions of Safari, the following setting change may help.:
1. Click the Settings option.
2. Scroll down and click the Show advanced settings button. (It's at the bottom of the screen.)
3. Scroll to the System section at the bottom of this menu, then uncheck the box to the left of Use hardware acceleration when available.
Windows (7,8 or 10) - Chrome browser
It seems that turning off Hardware acceleration will solve the problem.
1. Copy the following into the address bar of Chrome : chrome://settings/system
2. Switch off Use hardware acceleration when available and click Relaunch
Failing that, Firefox seems to work well as an alternative on Windows.
Windows (7,8 or 10) - Edge browser
There are two completely different browsers.
The original Edge has a solid blue "e" icon and is not recommended for use with Railcam.
The current version of Edge has a blue-green multi-coloured "e" icon and is actually part of the Google Chrome family, with a Microsoft "skin". The same Hardware acceleration issue seems to affect Edge and can be fixed by disabling Hardware acceleration as follows :
1. Open Microsoft Edge.
2. Click on the menu button with three dots.
3. Select Settings from the menu.
4. In Settings, click on System on the left.
5. On the right, turn off the toggle option Use hardware acceleration when available.
6. Now click on the Restart button.
Instructions with screenshots are available here :
