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It's normal.Just installed new version and trying to download Love & Death from Max. 1st episode will do 1280 x 720, 2nd through 6th will do 1280 x 692 and 7th episode will only do 1280 x 640. All are 66kbps stereo. Is that normal? I'm pretty sure I was getting 1080 and dolby before. Including a logfile if that helps.
I suppose, I'll have to write this answer in some or another form many times in the next few weeks:
People will think, that HBO took their old platform and simply slapped a new label on it, so why are things different?
For all intents and purposes: max is an entirely new provider.
The change had a more profound cause and purpose. A number of problems, some of technical nature, lead to the change. The new name is merely a byproduct and is probably just supposed to take "HBO" out of the picture, because the streaming service is not limited to HBO content.
I know the former protocol. It was extremely messy and inhomogenous, probably a result of changes over time, that demanded "creative thinking" when adding features, that weren't anticipated in the beginning.
So what they actually did, was to create a new streaming service from the ground up with the previous flaws in mind. They redesigned the database and the server-client protocols.
The new protocol is really well made, makes logical sense. It also requires less individual HTTP requests per action, transports more information in one, so I assume they had performance issues in mind (users experiencing slow page buildup).
Addressing the "odd resolutions": they re-encoded all content and removed black bars. Possibly one complaint from their customers: "on my odd-sized phone display, I'm seeing black bars top, bottom, left and right". By removing black bars, you'll always get the best possible fit.
So that's not AnyStream it's max. And it's not a bug, it's a feature.
About the sound: well, keep in mind, this is the initial implementation for an entirely new provider. We had to start somewhere.
We'll work on improvements.