Netflix slow on MAC, speedy on Win 7 PC

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Netflix slow on MAC, speedy on Win 7 PC

Hi,

I am trying to get my macbook pro i5 to play streaming netflix.

I used to do it on my win7 HP laptop for some time and it works nice.

on my mac, quality went down, when I tried to figure out why, I found out that the netflix stream is of lower quality.

I used ctrl alt+shifts when in the netflix playback window and see the actual bitrate and what is it buffering into..

on the PC it goes from 500->1500->2600->3800->2600->3800

on the mac it does 500->1000->500->1000->1500->500->1000

they are both connected wirelessly to the same setup:

mac - Airport N (transmit rate 117MB/s)
pc - internal wirelless G 45Mb/s

TP-LINK 1034ND Wireless N router (very strong one) - 3 antenas

Thomson cable modem on a 12Mb/s connection

and two ISP subscriptions were attempted, I also tried each computer connected directly to the cable modem.

still the PC provides me with superior streaming bandwidth. how come mac is having hard time ?

macbook pro i5, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Jan 14, 2011 6:21 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 14, 2011 6:42 AM in response to moshem

I don't live in the US or use Netflix but is it flash based?

If so it's probably more to do with the performance of flash on the mac than your ISP.

Regards,
John

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Answer 2

moshem Author

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Jan 14, 2011 6:55 AM in response to JohnAlanWoods

No. is is not based on flash, it is SilverLight based.

and the mac is much more powerful than the PC, so if the PC can handle it so can the mac.

during playback, CPU is 30% utilized, so that is not that, it has something to do with network capping I don't really get.

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Answer 3

a brody

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Jan 14, 2011 7:06 AM in response to moshem

It may need a newer version of Silverlight from http://www.microsoft.com/mac

It may have other network programs using the same bandwidth at the same time. Leave iTunes, Quicktime, iPhoto closed to see if it makes a difference.

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Answer 4

moshem Author

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Jan 14, 2011 7:09 AM in response to a brody

I just did, uninstalled it and download the latest version from microsoft website.

also cleared the caches for silverlight and for the browser (safari).

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Answer 5

lowfokus

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Jan 14, 2011 8:57 AM in response to moshem

Run traceroute and see if you are using the same hops to get to the netflix servers on both computers.
Also, do you have any special ports forwarded, and are they the same on both PCs?

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Answer 6

moshem Author

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Jan 14, 2011 1:50 PM in response to lowfokus

OK,

I did a traceroute on both computers...

the first 9 hops are identical, after that, the windows PC just report the next hops as Request timed out while the mac:

10 77.67.108.34 (77.67.108.34) 167.007 ms 166.900 ms 177.202 ms
11 72.21.220.67 (72.21.220.67) 174.870 ms
72.21.220.71 (72.21.220.71) 166.169 ms
72.21.220.67 (72.21.220.67) 166.046 ms
12 72.21.222.155 (72.21.222.155) 177.455 ms 170.238 ms
72.21.222.145 (72.21.222.145) 165.270 ms
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *

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Answer 7

a brody

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Jan 14, 2011 2:05 PM in response to moshem

Usually what this means is the router is giving different lookup tables for each computer that is on it.
Change routers if you want more consistancy, and make sure its firmware is known to work with your Mac OS X version.

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Answer 8

a brody

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Jan 14, 2011 2:08 PM in response to a brody

And in event that does not work, your internet access provider is having trouble being consistent. To overcome that, use OpenDNS numbers in your setup on both router and Mac

http://www.opendns.org/

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Answer 9

lowfokus

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Jan 14, 2011 2:11 PM in response to moshem

I'm not sure if you can, but instead of using netflix.com in the browser try using the actual ip address of the server. The posts above me will also probably help you, as it appears to be a DNS issue between you and Netfllix, somewhere along the network.

If you say directly attaching to the cable modem yielded the same results, seemingly it's your ISP's DNS servers, or Netflix itself.

Trying to go directly to the site without using any name resolution at all will tell us if we are on the right track.

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Answer 10

lowfokus

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Jan 14, 2011 2:13 PM in response to moshem

Here is what I got for the direct address:

http://208.75.76.17

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Answer 11

moshem Author

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Jan 14, 2011 2:14 PM in response to lowfokus

since the first hop is :

merchweb-frontend-1502974957.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com (184.73.234.205)

going directly to the IP address won't yield anything... it's just an AWS bucket..

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Answer 12

moshem Author

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Jan 14, 2011 2:25 PM in response to moshem

I just changed my mac dns config to google public dns servers

the result is identical

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Answer 13

lowfokus

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Jan 14, 2011 2:29 PM in response to a brody

Not necessarily the case of the DNS providing different results, though, with 177ms times shown. TTL on his xp box probably isnt that high.

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Answer 14

lowfokus

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Jan 14, 2011 2:32 PM in response to moshem

There a few things I can suggest then I'm stumped.

One:
Uninstall Silverlight with a third party uninstaller, such as AppZapper. This will remove all files associated with it, not just the app itself. It is free the first five times you use it.
Reinstall it, reset Safari, and try again.

Two:
Use Chrome instead. Still uninstall and reinstall Silverlight though.

Three:
Call Netflix and provide them the information you have regarding the traceroute and DNS changes.

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Answer 15

moshem Author

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Jan 14, 2011 2:58 PM in response to lowfokus

1. Done, no change

2. Done , no change

3. probably won't help

can't get why the mac is slow while the PC is fast...

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