Q: Netflix quality HORRID after update

skywlkrsnd wrote:

 

I think the issue somehow seems to be more prevalent on ATVs, but I don't know if that's real statistics or just perception, but I still think the underlying issue is at Netflix.

It neither statistics or a perception.  It's a fact.  This thread is about the fact that it's a recent change.  It's a new problem.  I don't know what "the underlying issue is at Netflix" means but for more than person (and that's all it takes) the problem is clearly a software issue uniqe to the ATV3.  Either Apple or Netflix could be at fault.

Presumably almost anyone posting here can run Netflix on a computer if they want to make a comparison.

bodosom wrote:

 

 

How do you know what the resolution is?

Since it doesn't display the bitrate for actual movies and TV shows, I had to go off my own eye for them.  I maybe can't tell the difference between Super HD and HD visually, but I certainly can tell the difference between either of the HD levels and the SD or worse qualities.  And I've been consistently getting one of the HD qualities now for over a week (sometimes after one or two attempts).

I have also tested with the example shorts and have seen the same exact behavior (5800 kbps consistently, either on first try or after one or two stop/starts).  The consistent 5800 on the shorts perhaps gives credence to the idea that I am actually getting 5800 on the movies/TV shows as well.

JJ_man wrote:

 

Oh I forgot to mention I couldn't stream anything high-definition with AppleTV. That goes for Vimeo, Yahoo screen, and my iTunes music videos .

Your problem isn't related to the problem raised in the first post.  The ATV doesn't "stream" iTunes content the way Netflix streams.  If you start playing iTunes content and press pause you should see the buffer continue filling until it's full.

OK - I got the Netflix example short and ran it. Started at 1750, dropped to 350, then went to 750 forever. What should it be?

How do I do Chromecast speeds?

I've been following this thread since the beginning. I think we have a couple issues going on here that obviously all come down to Netflix. Some people saw an issue after the most recent firmware update on their Apple TV. Some saw it as a general issue. I can tell you from my testing / observations that this is seems to be a Netflix / bandwidth issue, not necessarily a device issue. I also think there's some coincidence here as far as firmware releases and other changes, such as Netflix opening up Super HD to everyone.

I have 2 Apple TV 3s , a PS3, a PS4, an iPad, an iPhone, a PC, a laptop, and so on and so forth. I have Comcast, 50Mb/10Mb. Speed tests to various tools (there are a million out there, and they are all relative) indicate my speeds consistently at 50-100Mb down and up to 30mb up depending on the day / time. I have plenty of devices to test from, and my results are pretty consistent across the board.

As of the time this thread started, I too started seeing terrible quality on Netflix with no concrete evidence other than my own eyes. After reading a bunch of forums, I was pointed to the Example Short people are using as a guideline for Netflix performance. This short is a good guage in my opinion as its behavior and results obviously coincide with my own visual results as far as poor quality goes. I decided to do some more tests.

First I targeted my Apple TV 3 units. I then used my iPad, PS4, PS3, my PC, and so on. All these devices give me similar results in picture quality and change dramatically depending on the time of day. Consistently I get 5800Kb early in the day on each device. At night, each device is at 256Kb and ranges but never goes above 500Kb according to the Example Short.

After seeing this result, I decided to actually toss down some bandwidth monitors on the switch each device is plugged into when streaming Netflix. In my case I used SNMP bandwidth monitors. I had monitors up on the ports on each switch I have at home, as well as on my firewall itself. Keep in mind, my results to / from various Internet speed tests don't change much at different times of the day.

Times of good / HD quality (early in the day) produce speeds from Netflix to me at around or above 5Mbit. During peak times at night, the bandwidth from Netflix goes down under 1Mbit. While testing Netflix, I ran a few other streaming type apps. iTunes from the cloud gives me about 30Mbit. This is staggering, but also works slightly different than the other streaming apps per a previous post, as it downloads / caches more information than is currently being used. HBO Go is consistent during both off and peak times at around or above 5Mbit. Amazon Instant Video is the same at or above 5Mbit at off and peak times. This is the one that I'm particularly wondering about. Since both Amazon Instant Video and Netflix are hosted at Amazon, why would I get such dramatically different results from both services at the same time?

This issue across the board seems to be related to streaming during peak hours. Since the complaints here involve multiple ISPs I think we're looking at a Netflix infrastructure issue rather than a particular device issue.

Has anyone else done some actual bandwidth testing / monitoring and come up with similar results to mine?

Zarach wrote:

 

Has anyone else done some actual bandwidth testing / monitoring and come up with similar results to mine?

Yes and no.

My Asus Router allows me to see the real-time bandwidth and get a 10 minute average.

I have posted much of this before - but in summary.

Chromecast at any time of day gets 5800 kbps on example short and the 10 minute average on actual Netflix titles is a liitle below 7 Mbps.

Apple TV until 11 November at any time of day got 5800 kbps on example short  and 10 minute average on actual Netflix titles of almost exactly 7 Mbps (I think the slight difference may be due to different buffer sizes + a small effect of DD+ on the Chromecast vs DD on the Apple). As I posted yesterday the shape of the download is different with the Apple TV looking like a saw tooth showing peaks for a couple of seconds at high speed (16 Mbps which is my provisioned Comcast speed) - then stops download for a couple of seconds and then another peak - while the Chromecast download is much flatter without peaks.

Apple TV after 11 November never gets 5800 kbps on example short (1750 kbps or often much less) and the average download speed is 2 Mbps or less on an actual titles.

iTunes download is flat 16 Mbps until title is downloaded.

By the way Netflix content is not hosted at Amazon. The Amazon servers to seem to handle some of the inital handshake but the content is actually streamed from either Netflix or 3rd party servers. Again I can see the connection on my router

You reach the conclusion that the 'issue across the board seems to be related to steaming in peak hours' which as you can see is not what I am seeing.

Many people are certainly seeing peak hour streaming issues - but that is not the issue that I am and many others in this thread are reporting with Netflix on Apple TV's starting around 11 November.

You're right, there are several issues going on here. However, the primary one, and the one most people are interested in solving, is related to low quality issues on the ATV. Many people have reported that multiple devices play Netflix content just fine but the ATV does not even though it's the same time of day, same network and same ISP. The ATV will even play other HD content (Vimeo, for example) just fine.

In other words, many people have demonstrated a specific quality issue isolated to Netflix on the ATV. ISP, bandwidth, time of day, etc. are all red herrings.

And how do you get 100/30 speeds on a 50/10 plan? That's impressive.

Thanks everyone for the legwork you've done on this issue so far. Nothing new to add other than another voice of complaint. I've got comcast running at about 34mbps down/ 10mbps up and just bought Apple TV. I can watch very crisp HD videos through Vevo and YouTube but consistently get around 256Kbps on the example short in Netflix.

I just got off the phone with Netflix Support. She didn't admit to knowing or hearing anything about the issue. She suggested setting the playback speed to "High" and disconnecting/restarting every piece in the network chain, then signing out and in to my NFLX account on ATV. I'll try this later on.

Rick Carlton wrote:

 

 

How do I do Chromecast speeds?

If I understand the question correctly - run the same example short title of your Chromecast.

I've been having problems with video quality before the latest update, and at all times of the day, everyday. My internet service is 25Mbps down.

I used the Netflix demo test to monitor speeds, and here are my results from just a bit ago:

12/10/13: Video Quality Test 4:00pm - 4:15pm

Using "example short 23.976” (Netflix test video)

appleTV: 750kbps (max)

appleTV, via iPad airplay: 3900kbps

BD player: 3850kbps

computer: 3000kbps

It seems reasonable to me to say the problem is the appleTV netflix app in particular.

Vandergraff wrote:

 

You reach the conclusion that the 'issue across the board seems to be related to steaming in peak hours' which as you can see is not what I am seeing.

 

Many people are certainly seeing peak hour streaming issues - but that is not the issue that I am and many others in this thread are reporting with Netflix on Apple TV's starting around 11 November.

I, for one, have found Vandergraff's posts particularly useful. Regarding this one, it does seem like peak hour streaming issues are a fact for many people, even if not for him.

It certainly is an issue for me. It affects my ATV's, my iPad Air, and my computer. Right now, at 4:00 pm, for instance, my computer just reaches 750kbps on Example Short. Yet, Netflix reaches max HD first thing in the morning on all these devices. I use Comcast 70 down, 10 up.

In my opinion the Comcast/Netflix relationship has deteriorated in the past month or so, leading to these bad results. There is a good thread about this on the Comcast site, showing the problem is far wider than just Apple devices. I realize it may or may not apply to other ISP's.

See: http://forums.comcast.com/t5/Basic-Internet-Connectivity-And/Is-Comcast-blocking -Netflix/m-p/1885277...

This is a long thread, starting in late October. If you scroll through it it goes through today. Among other things, it accuses Comcast of throttling Netflix, even if only by not providing the most efficient routing.

For your information.

Chromecast at any time of day gets 5800 kbps on example short and the 10 minute average on actual Netflix titles is a liitle below 7 Mbps.

This is great news! Unfortunately I have no luck at peak times with any device as I indicated. From my region / perspective, all I can do is hope they work it all out in time. Whether that means working with my ISP (Comcast) or Netflix upgrading infrastructure, etc.

Everything I'm reading indicates that Netflix moved to Amazon Web Services in 2009. Obviously Amazon is a huge company with a huge infrastructure, so I'm not surprised if there's some variation from region to region. I've read several news articles regarding Amazon outages taking out Netflix services, including last Christmas Eve. Interesting read:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57561454-93/amazon-apologizes-for-netflixs-chri stmas-eve-streaming-outage/

Another interesting read to give people a bit more insight on Netflix's infrastructure:

http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/infrastructure-as-a-service/netflixs-5-secr ets-for-maximizing-amazon-cloud-value/d/d-id/1109453?

Amazon Web Services has regional / availability zones to maximize uptime. Any number of factors could be a culprit here as well.

If Apple has some issues going on with the Apple TV as you surmise, I can definitely see it adding insult to injury at this point with many users.

Zarach wrote:

 

I've been following this thread since the beginning. I think we have a couple issues going on here that obviously all come down to Netflix.

There may be lots of issues but this thread is about one.  The one that relevant to ATV owners.

Zarach wrote:

Has anyone else done some actual bandwidth testing / monitoring and come up with similar results to mine?

Yes.

Zarach wrote:

and come up with similar results to mine?

No.  You're having a local problem.

By the way, the iPad doesn't support superHD and has a maximum rate of 4300.

This may be regional as I've also indicated. I've also indicated that my Apple TVs work flawlessly on non peak hours, which is the actual point of this thread which blames the Apple TV update explicitly. I forgot to mention I too run the latest software on mine. I'm not trying to get off point too far but in my case and many others in this thread it's seemingly time of day / regional.

I realize the iPad isn't capable of Super HD, but as I indicated, I get 256-500KB on peak times which is a far cry from 4300.

I guess my next question would be, why are a handfull of people having problems with Netflix after updating their Apple TV software, and other people don't have an issue with the same Apple TV software except for on what seems to be Netflix / ISP related peak times?

As a precaution before running tests, I also reset both my ATV3s to factory defaults, which as many of you know does a re-download/install of the software. I assume people here have tried this as well, but maybe it's worth a try for those who haven't.

Zarach wrote:

Everything I'm reading indicates that Netflix moved to Amazon Web Services in 2009. Obviously Amazon is a huge company with a huge infrastructure, so I'm not surprised if there's some variation from region to region.

Netflix uses Amazon for management (and probably still transcoding) but they use Amazon, LimeLight, Akamai and possibly others  to source streams.  Assuming they are behind nflxvideo.com they also have their own network (or distribution system).

After all they don't want to fall victim to a major Amazon outage.  At least not completely.