Q: Netflix quality HORRID after update

Well, whatever Netflix did in 92886, Yorba Linda, CA, to fix streaming over U-Verse to my ATV, they need to do everywhere else. Last night we watched a full Orange Is The New Black episode and a full Breaking Bad episode in fulll glorious HD on a 60" plasma. Their post seems to indicate it broke down about Christmas Eve, but ours has been broken way before that, and has actually started again working a few days ago. Last night we watched from about 6:30 to 9 PM with a dog walking intermission. It was all during prime time, when it was completely horrible before.Perhaps they can take a hint from this.

By now it's even clearer this several-week flap was caused by Netflix, and their inadequate streaming arrangements with ISP's after their Super HD upgrades, etc.

Yet throughout this process, beginning in November and up until recently, their phone helpline calls resulted in them blaming everyone else, and mostly advising people to needlessly exercise their home routing and wifi systems. Wasted a lot of people's time.

A simple message of "we are having problems here, and expect to have it fixed by . . . ," as they finally did, would have been much more helpful, and I think we all would have respected them more than the stonewall approach they used.

I wonder if Reid Hastings' (Netflix boss) office is as responsive to complaint letters as Tim Cook's is?

Maybe it is clear to you but it is not to me.  ISPs have aired quite a bit of complaints about Netflix using 30%+ of their bandwidth and orignal programming enabling cord cutting.  Whatever their "streaming arrangements" are it would not surprise me if they are throttling Netflix on and off to some degree so as to not be obvious.  I even see slowdowns of Netflix on Roku.

Just talked to CS - denied there had been a problem - refused to extend my worthless trial period. Typical CS denial!

Still not working for me. Tried soft/hard ATV reboot and complete reset, unplugged it for a while, disconnected from home network, the whole shabang -- I'm on a 50mb/s cable modem connection and I get about 5 seconds of HD before Apple TV switches me back to standard def. Netflix customer service says it's not them and they direct me to the page that tells you to unplug your device, etc etc etc.

Extremely frustrating.

I'm in the same boat. Totally useless.

FIX. THIS.

They've fixed something for me, working much better now.

Call them, so they can start monitoring your stream, if they don't know there's a problem in your area they may not know to fix it. 

I'm experiencing same issue.  Terrible picture quality on multiple ATV in our house.

I have wireless and Ethernet connected ATV makes no difference.

The picture quality on my PS3 is flawless. No problem on iPad either.

I decide to try the ATV again. Earlier today it was fine. I tried to watch Fringe tonight around 7:30 PM EST. It played in glorious super HD for three minutes before returning to mud. At first I thought it was the program where the security guard was wonded and disoriented but when I all I saw was blobs for faces and blocky corners I was furious. I then reseted the ATV, disconnected and packeted back in the small box it came.

I even went through a new router and three switches and the only thing I did not do was to replace the cable modem which I almost did. It is a ATV Netflix channel problem that is not fixed.

BTW I then watched Fringe on my Roku 3 fine.

Be sure to call them to let them know about the problem. 

Echoing others...Same issue.  I have solid 50m down connection and have subscribed to this thread from the beginning.  Filed complaints through all Apple modes of communication and Netflix as well.  I just cancelled my Netflix subscription and filed a complaint through BBB.  All other devices work great and stream HD with ease. 

The Apple TV has not been working properly since 6.0.2, but prior to never had any issues streaming HD. 

Rediculous.  Applecare is embarassing.  What a let down. 

I just started using Netflix in the last few months, not a big user and and found the picture quality fine.  While on vacation with poor weather (and a bit of TV addiction) I stated watching Breaking Bad over the last 1.5 weeks. Apple TV has been horrible on and off - more on.  It was so bad that I started looking here to improve the quality and have learned a lot by reading.  Here are my findings based on what I've learned and tried:

1. Software on ATV was 6.0 and this was producing a horrible picture.  Started out bad, got better for a brief instant and was bad for the remainder

2. Tired to project from my iPad to ATV and it seemed to be as bad (this during a Sunday night at 9pm)

3. Logged on to Sony BlueRay player Netflix, bypassing the ATV and picture quality was back so enjoyed 2.5 epsiodes of Breaking Bad

4. Played the "Example short 23.976" using 6.0 ATV and peaked at 2350kbps

5. Update the ATV to 6.02 played the example short and peaked out at 3850kpbs for a few minutes before stopping the test

6. Played the Example Short on the BlueRay player and varied more with the speeds but bounced around between 3850-4300 then it dipped and went back up. 

7. Played the Example Short on my iPad  and peaked at 4300kpbs

8. Played the Example short on iMac (wired) and peaked at 3000kpbs (only played for a couple minutes)

I don't know what it all means other than I need to move around on devices to get a good picture quality.  Going from the iPad projecting to the ATV didn't help me on 6.0 but maybe now. 

Note ALL testing was done on a Monday morning at 9am so maybe none of the information is useful.

It was nice to find this thread with everyone experiencing the same problem, but became frustrating when people seem to be saying their problem has been solved automatically, when it looks like many of us are still suffering with no way forward. It's made me wonder if people who say their problem has been fixed are testing it at 8am and going "Oh look, it's fixed!"

I am in Los Angeles and I just bought an apple tv with an airport extreme because I was tired of the streaming quality of my sony blu ray player. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I go to watch a "super hd" tv show last night and after 5 seconds it buffers down to 235 or worse. It also never dynamically switched to a better rate at any time. Even my terrible sony blu ray player would give me plenty of moments of 480/720/1080 throughout a program. The airplay workaround with my iphone did work, but seriously?

So now I don't understand what we're supposed to do. Do I call netflix and spend an hour with someone who will have zero idea what I'm talking about? Or just twiddle my thumbs and assume netflix will get to my area or update the apple tv app eventually?

I hear you, I got the Apple TV for my parents for xmas. They had been streaming using a Wii in SD. I was like wait ill you guys actually see HD!

Ha, it looked even worse on the ATV.  For now i told them to use the Airplay work around or just return the ATV if they get sick of it.

I tried calling Netflix, but they weren't any help. They just blamed it on my network connection and failed to apply the logic that Netflix works great on the iPad airplayed to the Apple TV. Clearly an Apple TV issue.

Netflix and Apple must be aware of this, I'm just hoping for a fix.

Get Chromecast for $35 as a backup.  Netflix works well on it.  It is good to have backup for all streaming devices.