Why can PlayOn show a “loading” graphic while waiting for the video to start?
This is one of the most common suggestions we receive. Unfortunately, it’s essentially impossible. PlayOn needs to send one single and contiguous video stream to the device for each play. This means that the resolution and stream parameters of the source video must be known beforehand — which is something that is not available until PlayOn actually starts downloading the stream to begin with. By that time, transcoding starts immediately anyway, and the video can be served. We encourage all our users to write to Microsoft, Sony, and the other manufacturers of DLNA devices to change their buffering logic to accommodate servers like PlayOn that are streaming realtime transcoded videos!
