Apple TV 3 Bad Streaming Quality

Interesting, MickeyRaj. I'll have to try this out!

Thought I would chime in too. Having the same issue as everyone else, started since early November. I am with Comcast, download speeds are usually 29MB/s, up is 5MB/s. They have recently tested the lines and everything looks good, or at least so they say. Have a Motorola SB6141 modem, 2TB Time Capsule, 3 ATV3's, 1 Sony blu ray with built in Google TV, PS3, iPad 2, iPhone 5, iPhone 4, MacBook Pro, PC running 8.1 with Netflix app, and a Sony TV with Netflix built in. If I play LATE at night or early in the morning, perfectly clear with Netflix. If I play during peak, it is hi def for up to 5 seconds, then quickly goes to a very low resolution on all 3 Apple TV 3's, and Google TV. I have not tried it on the PS3, iPad 2, iPhone 5, iPhone 4, or the TV that has Netflix built in to see if I have the same problem. MacBook and PC both seem to start off in low res, then make their way to hi def. I also see someone commented above my post about switching the video output to 720p, I have not tried that yet, but that's not a real fix for the issue (though I still plan to try that the moment I get home, I know all Apple TV's are set not to automatic or 720p, but 1080p).

After reading these comments, I do believe my HBOgo works perfectly, I don't believe I have any issues with that, just Netflix specifically. And not with just the ATV's, but the Google TV as well. All the problems started since early November, have had this setup exactly the way it is today since May with zero issues, until now. Have the same issues if I restart and/or reset both the Apple TV and the Time Capsule, also if I bypass the Time Capsule completely.

On a side note, NO IDEA if it is related, but all the music on my iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPad 2, and all the Apple TV's is from iCloud, no music on the actual devices themselves. I noticed since early November as well, when I stream music from any device to an Apple TV, or directly from the Apple TV itself, it streams fine but when I skip tracks, sometimes a take a few seconds and even a few minutes to start playing the next track. Like I said, no idea if the is related because both sources are instantly streaming and both started around the same time, just throwing that out there is someone is having a similar issue.

I did some more testing as suggested with the 'Example Short 23.976' video as suggested by a previous post. I can play Netflix and use airplay from my ipad to my apple tv at 4300 kbps resulting in very good picture quality. When I use the Apple TV directly I can only get 250 to 750 kbps resulting in horrible picture quality. My apple TV is connected with a lan cable so it should have no problem exceeding the 4300 kbps that I can achieve using airplay from my ipad. For some reason the Apple TV just fights with the Netflix signal.

I did mean to mention that like your Apple TV, one of mine is wired, the other 2 are wireless, and all three have the same issue. I was convinced that this was a Comcast issue, since the problem exists during "peak" hours and is fine during the morning and late night. After reading these threads, starting to realize is it not Comcast and more likely Netflix that can't keep up with the demand.

I'm a certified Apple tech and I hate it when I can't fix something. I've determined that it's not a connectivity issue, a speed issue or a problem with the ATV3 box or Netflix. The netflix app for Apple TV is the only thing broken here and it started when I ran the last update (sometime mid November). I've been spending way too much money renting and buying off the iTunes Store on ATV3 because I want to watch something in HD. Netflix in its current situation on my 60" TV is awful. Obviously this is a first world problem. It's still better quality than a VCR would do but... I mean, I was totally content a month ago! Now that I think about it I feel like a complete baby complaining about this when 1/3 of Syria is living in refugee camps covered in snow with no electricity. I'm going to go have a drink now.

No shame with that. We live in a FW so we're allowed to have FWPs. They live in a third world so they're allowed to have 3WPs.

We pay for our FW devices so we have high FW expectations! I want my SUPER HD, NOW! 😉

kamtra wrote:

I'm a certified Apple tech and I hate it when I can't fix something. I've determined that it's not a connectivity issue, a speed issue or a problem with the ATV3 box or Netflix. The netflix app for Apple TV is the only thing broken here....

Kamtra, please do call Netflix customer support. As a certified Apple tech at least you'll have credibility when you tell them it's not the connection and not the device...

It started about 4 weeks ago for all of us - BUT: even people who had not updated their Apple TVs are experiencing the same problem. It's not specific to this previous software update. It's something that Netflix did in the background about 4 weeks ago that more or less broke the Netflix Apple TV app.

A Netflix customer rep I talked to today confirmed that their app on the Apple TV has not been updated in a while. And we do know from a recent article about the new Bloomberg app on the Apple TV that Apple is not writing those apps. They have an SDK they pass on, similar to the iPhone and iPad iOS. So it's Netflix who's ultimately writing that app.

Well - more testing. This problem for me effects all my PC's, Macs, and Apple TV3 mostly. The Apple TV2 seems ok - but still does not stream as well as I think it should. IPhone 5 works perfectly.

I called Comcast - they point to Netflix. I called Netflix and they could confirm that I was having problems - throttling, downshifting in resolutions, errors etc. They wanted me to call Comcast because to them it appeard that I was being throttled. I mean most of my devices are getting 235kb!! I have 57Mb download speed elsewhere. So I called Comcast again and got nowhere except for another finger pointing back to Netflix.

Since I recently upgraded my Cable modem to a DOCSIS3 modem I went to my Comcast office and got a new Modem - one that does not couple my Firewall, Router and Wireless network into one device.

That seems to have made a little difference. I actually saw my Apple TV2 throttle up to 3Mb but the speed does not sustain though. If you want a great example of a movie effected by this - try Transformers Dark of the Moon - the first 5 minutes looks horrible on all my devices..... EXCEPT... my Iphone 5 which always locks in at 3Mb. So again I can Airplay that over to the Apple Tv but thats just silly.

One thing I notcied on my PC (by running tcpview) is that when streaming I could see the one primary IP/DNS alias in use while streaming - it shows the greatest data change per second. Every time I exit Google Chrome or IE and start up a new session a new alias/IP would be used. And it seems to me that if I did this enough times I would eventually get a good IP that seemed to work great:

ipv4_1.lagg0.c027.ord001.ix.nflxvideo.net

ipv4_1.lagg0.c222.ord001.ix.nflxvideo.net

ipv4_1.lagg0.c220.ord001.ix.nflxvideo.net

BTW I also see slower bitrates when the screen is windowed and on Chome and better speeds if Im using IE at Full screen.

Check this out - I was able to achieve 3Mb on a Windows 7 VM running in Fusion 6 on my Macbook Pro which itself cant achieve more than 560k.

Maybe this is a load balancing issue on Netflix side - still dont know why my Iphone 5 NEVER has a streaming issue - 720p @ 3Mbps. I tried using a tcpview tool on my iphone to see if it hits a differet set of streaming servers and it does not - it showed the same server names like above.

I found that if I enabled TCPIP 6 on my PC that speed also improved sometimes ramping up ro 2350. but never sustaining. But again this might have been just hitting a different server by accident.

So tired of this... maybe the only solution is to cancel Netflix to get someones attention. I cannot watch anything (Netflix) on AppleTV except for Itunes content.

Grrr

I agree Grrrrr. For now I have resigned to using airplay from my ipad. The ipad never has any trouble and is very stable at 4300 kbps. The Apple TV only works for a few seconds before the quality rapidly falls off.

@Markus Wernig

Thanks Markus. Good info. Will do.

FYI- i ruled out it being a Apple TV3 issue when i tried to watch Netflix on my imac hard wired at night and had the same results

ATV is the worst Netflix streaming device now ever. I tried the AirPlay thing on my iPod Touch and the most I can get is 720p. Most likely a limitation of the iPod Touch. I don't have a iPAd to test out.

Still way better with AirPlay 720p than the fuzzy low def mess of the native cruddy ATV app.

Just a reminder: you can test Netflix on your computer. I believe Silverlight is still the most common method and I think it's limited to 3000 Kbps (3Mb).

If you have problems with all of your devices then you're having a generic, systemic, wide-spread etc. issue.

If you only have problems with your ATV then naturally you have an ATV specific problem. If it's new then you may have the "new since update" ATV3 problem. In my case all my other devices (laptop, iPads, TiVos, PS3, iPhone 5) get expected bit-rates. I've even gotten two devices to run at full speed.

Netflix via AirPlay does not go through your portable device. It's a command protocol much like the Netflix+Google DIAL protocol used to control compatible devices (e.g. TiVo). Hence it's not limited to the capabilities of the mobile device. The iPad Mini (1st gen) is limited to 3Mb but an AirPlay stream on the ATV can reach at least 4.3Mb (in my case it's never gone faster than 4.3Mb.) and the iPad stream is stereo while the ATV stream is Dolby Digital.

AirPlay might help you. It doesn't help me -- that is it's not any more consistent than using the ATV directly. Sometimes it's fast and sometimes it's slow.

Someone mentioned setting the resolution to 720p on the ATV3, that did not do the trick for me. Someone else mentioned going to the Netflix website and adjusting the bandwidth or resolution there to high, that did not do the trick for me. And like most others, I streamed Netflix from the iDevices last night via Airplay and it was perfectly clear picture. Still haven't gotten around to checking the PS3 to see if I have issues with that was well.

jacenK wrote:

FYI- i ruled out it being a Apple TV3 issue when i tried to watch Netflix on my imac hard wired at night and had the same results

Actually you determined you're having a generic Netflix problem.