Apple TV 3 Bad Streaming Quality

Hey jc - I have the same problem. A little history here. I recently as two months ago I watched every episode of Breaking Bad on Netflix on my Apple TV 3. No hickups, beautiful (which I would call HD) quality no problems every episode perfect. Same with Battlestar Galactica a month or two prior to that.

Now since last couple to three weeks I cannot stream ANYTHING in any decent quality.

So for me what has changed - Comcast upgraded my old Cable modem from a DOCSIS 2 to a DOCSIS 3 modem with built in Wifi (which I dont use) and doubling my speed to 57Mb download. This is the only major change to my environment which EXACTLY coincides with the drop in quality on my Apple TV 3.

Interestingly my Apple TV 2 works perfect. All my devices are hard wired on Gig network links usually to a hub/swicth then off to the cable modem which has 4 ports built in.

I tested by direct connecting my Apple TV 3 to the back of my cable modem and still had horrible quality.

I ran the streaming test movie and it started out at 5800kb for 5 seconds looked awesome - then it kicked down to 275kb and looked like garbage. Very frustrating.

I got the Apple TV 3 to use in my home theater thinking it would be better than the verison 2. And it has been. Until now.

Not sure where to go with this but sure seems to me like it MAY be a comcast issue / cable modem issue. Seeing your post you may also have the same modem - mine is a TC8305C (Technicolor).

Everything else on my network is screaming fast. So maybe its something with Apple TV 3 communication through this particular cable modem/router. Firmware update?

I may try to turn off the router portion of the cable modem and revert that function back to my old router and see if that does anything interesting.

Let me know if you have found anything.

I am also having the same problem for last couple of weeks. The funny thing is, only netflix streaming is bad ! If I stream something else such as iMovies, Youtube, Hulu or HBOGo, it has perfect HD picture. Contacted Comcast, they are asking to contact Netflix. Contacted Netflix, they are asking me to contact Comcast. So frustrating ! Any suggestions?

Having the same issue. I have U Verse. I'm getting around 18Mbps download speed but the quality on my Apple TV is bad. I've tried restarting it and resetting it with very minimal improvement. I think the issue is with Netflix because I'm also getting unstable quality on my xbox which is plugged directly into the router. The only time I get full HD on Apple TV is super late at night or early in the morning.

Same issue, two weeks for me too. Apple TV 3 latest firmware, Comcast 50mbps hardwired to modem. I use my own modem. Was streaming SuperHD up until two weeks ago. Now quality is worse than SD. comcast tested ny lines and issue is not on my end. Netflix told me its Apple issue, Apple told me its Netflix issue. Long overdue for a fix.

Many people are seeing this - and yes you can check the Netflix speed from your Apple TV

'You can check the Netflix video quality by playing 'Example Short 23.976' (search for this title on Netflix). This title embeds the actual stream kbps you are receiving.'

See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5565870?tstart=0

It may be better to consolidate all the comments in one thread - that way we may get more attention from Apple / Netflix.....

Same issue ... yesterday I called Netflix five times and Comcast twice. Except Netflix all other Apps on Apple TV including iTunes trailers and movies are playing at HD quality. Both made my go thru the good for nothing tests (reset, powercycle etc). Netflix titles start playing in HD, after 2 seconds they switch to blurry video. Netflix and Comcast are pointing to each other. Furstrated I cancelled Netflix.

I too have called comcast, Netflix and Apple and all are blaming the other. It is happening with ISPs other than Comcast so I don't think it's an exclusively Comcast issue.

yes..exactly the same with me. 1 minute HD, then the picture gets pixelated. Everything else is running HD on apple TV !!

I tried power reboot, resetting the apple TV, updated...nothing works ! Also checked the network speed with apple tv..looks fine. I doubt it is a problem of Comcast. Othwerise, all the other apps would also get affected. Netflix keeps blaming comcast ! Really frustrating !

As I posted in another thread: I have Comcast and I get the low quality Netflix streaming on ATV but Netflix streaming quality on my PS3 is fine. Both are connected to the same router via Ethernet and the comparison was done Sunday at around 10am EST when traffic shouldn't be too heavy. ATV gave me 570kbs streaming while PS3 gabe me 5800kbs streaming (10x). My iPad Retina Mini and iPhone both got 3000kbs streaming via wi-fi.

It's not a Comcast issue for me - it's an AppleTV/Netflix issue.

I consign this. Exactly the same here. NOT Comcast as no other devices are affected.

Very unlikely to be a provider issue as everyone is documenting great bandwidth from Uvers/Comcast/etc.. and when I take my very same ethernet from the ATV gen 3 and plug it into the TV to use the Smart TV netflix... perfect!... It' not an in home bandwidth issue...

I recently started having quality issues with Netflix and Amazon VOD all of my ATV2, ATV3 and Roku 2 XD devices (we have 2 ATV2, 1 ATV3 and 1 Roku 2 XD).

Comcast is our CATV/IS provider, and we switched to the X1 triple play platform 3 weeks ago. As a part of that upgrade, they installed a Technicolor TC8305c Modem/Gateway which replaced my old setup of a Motorolla SB6121 DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem & Netgear N600 dual-band wireless router. With the old setup, we were able to stream in HD from Netflix and Amazon VOD on both devices without a problem. After dong some checks with speedtest.net I'm getting good speeds with the new gateway, so that doesn't appear to be the issue.

I updated the firmware on my ATVs to 6.0.2 when it was released (Nov 15 or 16 IIRC).

For the past 2 weeks, Netflix quality is terrible - less than SD quality. I don't have issues with HBO Go on the ATV - I'm getting a high-quality picture from that app, so I figured it must be a Netflix issue. However, Netflix quality on my Roku 2 XD has also been terrible, just as bad on my ATV 2. I also tried using Netflix from my PC, and it could not get HD quality either.

In addition to having poor Netflix quality, Amazon VOD quality on the Roku is terrible as well.

The time of day doesn't make any differecee. Quality is **** poor at peak times as well as non-peak times

This leads me to believe that Comcast is throttling certain VOD services, and possibly thie TC8305c gateway could be part of the culprit. It could very well be that there is a problem with the ATV 6.0.2 upgrade, but that doesn't explain why Netflix on other devices is streaming at such low quality, or why Amazon VOD streams are poor quality either.

Vandergraff wrote:

Many people are seeing this - and yes you can check the Netflix speed from your Apple TV

'You can check the Netflix video quality by playing 'Example Short 23.976' (search for this title on Netflix). This title embeds the actual stream kbps you are receiving.'

See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5565870?tstart=0

It may be better to consolidate all the comments in one thread - that way we may get more attention from Apple / Netflix.....

Thanks for the tip on the video test. I've been having issues as well and it's very annoying. I first noticed it within the last week or so while watching "The Killing" on Netlix.

ISP: Charter

Most Recent Speedtest (using testmy.net): 25.2 Mbps

Using the "Example Short 23.976" video mentioned above, I had the following results:

1. Apple TV - Max: 750 kbps; Consistent: 560 kbps
2. PS3 - Max: 3850 kbps; Consistent: 3000 kbps
3. Wii U - Max: 750 kbps; Consistent: 375 kbps
4. MacBook Pro - Safari 7.0 - Max: 750 kbps; Consistent: 560 kbps
5. Roku 2 XS - Max: 750 kbps; Consistent: 750 kbps

While far from an exhaustive test, I think it's safe to conclude the following:

1. It's not an ISP issue
2. It's not isolated to the Apple TV (as others have noted, HD content works fine on other apps like YouTube and Hulu Plus)

It seems to be an issue with inconsistent quality of Netflix's apps on various platforms. It would seem to be that it's a fault with Netflix since there are several platforms affected especially Netflix's own website (though I haven't tried IE or Firefox.) That's just my assumption as I don't know who's responsibility it is to fix issues with the apps - Netflix or the platforms themselves. Again, it would seem like it's Netflix since only 1 out of the 5 platforms I tested was actually able to stream HD content. Perhaps some lack of optimization with how they buffer the stream?

My only other thought was we're using OpenDNS and I wonder if that might be the issue. Though still, I don't know why that would affect everything but the PS3. I'll try the default DNS from our ISP and report if there's any difference.

I guess for now I'll just watch on my PS3 until this gets sorted out.