A few facts that I hope clear up some confusion, and hopefull reduce some forum infighting too!
- The ATV does use a different "just in time" buffering scheme than other devices, which use schemes that buffer ahead.
- Netflix knows what device you are using, and sometimes treats it differently.
- Netflix uses several third parties (called CDNs) to cache and distribute its content. In a past incarnation of a problem with similar symptoms (and I suspect that this issue is back again), Netflix used a third party with the ATV that it did not use with the Roku, and that not only created a pausing/buffering problem, but did so randomly because the particular CDN vendor that you get is a luck of the draw.
- It is likely that none of the "fixes" described here, such as resets, changing DNS providers, etc. are really fixes. Since the CDN you get is random, when you wave the chicken over your head and it works, you think that doing so is the solution, yet you are really experiencing the hit or miss random nature of the underlying problem.
And, an opinion:
This is a joint Netflix/Apple issue because we are customers of both of them, and it takes both technologies working together correctly to deliver a satisfactory experience to us. When they point fingers at each other, instead of working together to fix it, they leave the poor customer wasting time trying "fixes" and dealing with both company's customer support channels. Even if this is purely Netflix's problem, the fact that the ATV does not have the diagnostics to help the customer identify it as such, means that it is Apple's problem too, in my mind.
My suggestion is that if you can get your money back for the products that are not working as advertised, do so. If you can't, then call customer service for both companies to make sure they hear about your problem. At some point, the financial product and service costs that affect both companies, and the resulting poor customer satisfaction, will exceed the cost of both companies working together to get it fixed.
-- Brad
