Netflix Problems

Just to chime in, I'm having issues only with HD movies and TV shows and only on the ATV. On my iMac everything loads quickly, but indicates it's not playing in HD, so that's not particularly helpful.

Markus Wernig wrote:
... the company who's actually responsible for delivering
the video stream down the pipe to our Apple TV boxes.
(Akamai - in Netlix's case).

This information is 100% wrong. Search this thread for the link to the story I posted about Netflix dumping their own infrastructure and moving to the Amazon cloud.

According to this report from a month ago, Amazon is still using Akamai, but is transitioning more of its video to Limelight and Level 3 over the coming months

http://blog.streamingmedia.com/thebusiness_of_onlinevi/2010/11/update-on-my-netflix-and-akamai-story-with-comments-from-both-compani es.html

So it seems quite possible that different people may be getting Netflix movies from different CDNs.
Needless to say, there is potential for glitches when transitioning from one provider to another.

I doubt that my apple tv box has a warranty issue. And my network is not the issue. I have other wireless devices that operate flawlessly on my network. The router is not more than 25 ft. from the apple tv device. And the apple tv signal meter indicates nearly perfect signal strength. I'm no IT expert, but I don't think efforts to troubleshoot my network or hunt down intermittent bandwidth starvation will yield much fruit.

Apple rolled this out with great fanfare. The marquee service on apple tv is Netflix. It's the only reason I purchased it. The delivery of that service has serious issues. To wit, a forum on their own web site with hundreds of customers who can't get their issue resolved. You ask, "how do I know for a fact Apple didn't do exactly that (beat up Netflix to get this fixed)." The answer is I don't know, and neither does anyone that works in their retail operations. Nor any of their customers. Because the company hasn't acknowledged that there is an issue as far as I can tell. And if Netflix sees this as their problem, their customer care people sure don't admit it.

I'm a huge AAPL fan. I own the stock, my company uses their iPhones and iPads, and have an apple tv in both of my homes. But I'm not an apologist for Apple. They are the 800 lb gorilla in this issue, and they should be communicating better about this and working faster to get to a solution, whether its an OS update or changes in CDN's at Netflix.

According to this lecture, Netflix is using Amazon for Web Services, but not for Content Delivery, which is coming from companies like Akamai and Limelight.

http://mysqldatabaseadministration.blogspot.com/2010/12/video-netflixs-migration -to-aws-cloud.html

tgibbs wrote:
According to this lecture, Netflix is using Amazon for Web Services, but not for Content Delivery, which is coming from companies like Akamai and Limelight.

http://mysqldatabaseadministration.blogspot.com/2010/12/video-netflixs-migration -to-aws-cloud.html

And you're absolutely right. Adrian Cockcroft, Netflix' chief cloud engineer" said the following in a recent interview (November 2010):

+ RLB: Could you describe at a high level what Netflix is doing on AWS?+

+ AC: Encoding movies for streaming, log analysis, production web site and API, most everything that scales with customers and streaming usage. Easier to say what we don’t have there: most internal IT that scales with employee count, legacy stuff, DVD shipping systems, account sign-up and billing systems. We use Akamai, Limelight and Level3 CDN’s for streaming the movies, which is a cloud based service. There is an AWS CDN service, but they aren’t a big enough player in this space at this point.+

So there we have it. Quite confusing, but all we really care about is that reliability improves.

Tried the new update. As before, no difficulty in playing Netflix videos. But the minor problems I noticed before persist--losing your place in the queue and being sent back to the beginning after you click on a show to read its details, and some shows failing to show thumbnails on FF and rewind.

Still no problems with Netflix for me either after the update. Movies start in 5 seconds and play all the way through without any hiccups in HD quality. The release notes didn't mention anything about Netflix anyway though.

With today's update I now have sound problems playing for first time. Watched Police Academy and it was fine until about a third in when the video continued with no sound for 15-30 seconds. Then at about the beginning of the last third, it did the same thing. You can't imagine how much the dialogue matters! Lol. Picture quality and load time were great.

I wish that was possible!! If we were allow to restore to 4.0 I will be more than happy. But as far as I know this is not possible now.
If I'm wrong please let me know, I will be more than happy to perform a downgrade.

Larry

still says 4.1.1

and doesn't appear, at least at first glance, that's fixed any of the netflix loading, pausing, issues. wonder what the update was...i was already up to date last night at midnight pst.

Mindful of your caveats, tgibbs, I guess I should've written "repeatedly". The odds are very very low that the ATV always (lately) connects to the "slow" server but the computer (reproducibly) connects to the fast server. Occam's razor and common sense suggest it is an Apple TV problem.

Ditto with everyone who can stream Netflix directly through a browser but not using ATV. Even using my crummy old Vista laptop and playing a movie directly from the Netflix website using Firefox and connecting the laptop to an RGB port on the TV and listening through the tinny speakers ... the movie plays fine (though not a great experience).

ATV gives a GREAT experience for the 30-60 seconds that the movie plays, before stopping to reload or whatever it is doing.

So, Apple, say it is your problem and step up to the plate. Just fix it.

ok this forum was helpful. i am having issues with the play now movie stopping evey min. or so. other play now movies work great .... tim burton's alice in womderland played non stop. i tried the google dns and it wouldn't connect.
any suggestions.... i am cablevison with boost....speednet says i am good..i go wired from cable modem to atv2.

I definitely will not be going to the "streaming only" netflix option...

For movies, I would recommend renting the physical DVD.

When I rent the physical DVD with Netflix there is NO time limit and it is usually delivered within 12 hours of ordering.

Most DVDs can now be purchased for around $10. I generally just buy them (zero restrictions then).