Q: Netflix quality HORRID after update

Lost internet(comcast) last nite, now 10:43 am 12/02 ihave 5800 on my atv which ramped up quickly using wifi. I would be curious as to what isp people are having the most problems with netflix. By the way roku, blu ray, samsung tv had basic bad results with netflix. The atv is not the problem, its a combination comcast & netflix.

Maybe... but...

I have a TiVo HD player and I have AppleTV.

My TiVo has a horrible Netflix interface, but the movies play pristinely.

My AppleTV on the other hand has that great Netflix interface, yet the movies play horribly (otherwise I wouldn't be in this thread).

Both connected on different HDMI channels to a stereo receiver. I get cable through Comcast.

If you're right, that would suggest that Comcast is OK with TiVos, but not AppleTV's? It's possible. Someone did suggest earlier that there may be some kind of conspiracy to hurt Netflix on other devices, vs. a TiVo which uses Comcast's cable card. Perhaps they view my TiVo as safe since they're getting money off the cable card?

ericfromin wrote:

 

The atv is not the problem, its a combination comcast & netflix.

The OP and presumably this thread is about a specific, repeatable and ISP independent ATV3+Netflix problem.  Strictly speaking it's not even an Apple+Netflix problem because other iOS devices don't appear to have the same problem.

Posts about other problems (say the brief multi-platform Netflix glitch I had on Time Warner last night) should go in other threads to minimize confusion.

Spent a little time on chat with Netflix support this morning. Rather a shame but not terribly surprising that they wanted to put this problem squarely on the ISP or on my network. I won't go into detail but I've convinced myself it's not my network, and I can download from many sites on the internet at 20mbps+ even while watching Netflix.

At any rate, I hope everyone here takes the time to complain to Netflix, if they receive a large number of complaints about the same issue they may realize that there is something on their end.

Sunday night (12/1) prime time was only getting 256 Kbps on both ATV3 and iPad Air using Netflix app.  On the Mac using the Silverlight plugin I managed 512 Kbps.

This morning at 9AM pacific I'm getting a solid 5800 Kbps on ATV3 and 3000 Kbps on iPad Air app (guessing this is max for iPad).

For those who are seeing good prime time data speed on another device, has it ever crossed your mind that the streaming servers are *different* depending on the client device?  We know that iOS will use an h.264 stream, but what about the Chromecast or other non iOS devices? The difference in prime time speeds could simply be the result of connecting to a different, less utilized streaming server.

My take is that this is specific to iOS/ATV simply because there are a lot more of us using that client, and we are overloading Netflix's ability to handle iOS client requests during prime time.

I agree 100%

Considering the number of people having this problem with Comcast and Apple TV and Netflix perhaps it's time we all start calling hour ISO's and Netflix. Perhaps if they get enough people complaining of a problem they will do something about it.

I've already spent time on the phone this Netflix. They told me I could take a couple of days to figure out the problem.  Today I will try to call Comcast.

Yes, I think more people should contact both their ISPs and Netflix.

Definitely contact Netflix! At my house, we did the live chat w/ them so that we could just paste in the URL of this discussion. After they gave us the usual suggestions (power cycle, reset, etc.) we asked for a supervisor who actually said they are aware of the issue and that their engineers are working to fix it! Let's hope that's true. I'm a little skeptical because they also said that 99% of the time, power cycling corrected the issue, which is just not true based on the experiences of everyone in this thread. So yes yes yes - contact Netflix. The supervisor person even stated they were glad we sent this in so they could forward it to others there. (I don't think ISP has anything to do with it but I could be wrong. Plus, Comcast customer support is an incredibly painful experience - slow, not helpful, unintelligible. You would save yourself time by just hitting yourself in the head with a hammer.)

DustyStorm wrote:

 

UPDATE

 

Last night I was able to get a movie to play in 1080p. Not Super HD but close and the only time anything has been acceptable quality for me in two weeks. It took me two tries of the same movie but the second time it played in HD. So maybe we're getting somewhere, but still no Super HD.

 

Will try again after work.

Is there any way while viewing a Netflix movie on AppleTV to know the resolution being received, or a flag for Super HD or anything?  Kind of like we can do with that test image.

Thanks!

Well, it actually pains me to say this, but I just bought a Roku today specifically becasue of this problem. And becasue the Cyber Monday deal made it $20 cheaper.

I don't want to give up on AppleTV, but last night Breaking Bad looked half as crisp as a Georges Seurat painting.

Apple is dropping the ball on this product so badly.
These quality issues are a shooting themselves in the foot-level disaster, and there should have been an AppleTV app store open over a year ago.

J. D. L. wrote:

 

 

For those who are seeing good prime time data speed on another device, has it ever crossed your mind that the streaming servers are *different* depending on the client device?  We know that iOS will use an h.264 stream, but what about the Chromecast or other non iOS devices? The difference in prime time speeds could simply be the result of connecting to a different, less utilized streaming server.

 

My take is that this is specific to iOS/ATV simply because there are a lot more of us using that client, and we are overloading Netflix's ability to handle iOS client requests during prime time.

It is a certainty that Apple TV streams are different to other devices. Only the Apple TV gets DD from Netflix. All other devices that support 5.1 audio from Netflix get DD+

The point to remember is that this issue started around November 11th - before that I always got 5800 kbps on my Apple TV - now I never do. So unless you think Apple TV streams passed some magic threshold on November 11th - and never since have gone below that threshold - I think what Apple told me is more likely. Something got broken on the Apple TV Netflix app at that time - hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Trying this at the in-law's house, ATV3, Software up to date, ver. 6.0.2, Comcast 14 up 2.15 down, wireless connection.

Watching same show, same episode, currently working fine, resolution appears HD or very near it, a far cry from eiter my ATV2 or 3 at home, with faster speeds.