Why is Netflix so poor on ATV?

striker33 · Apr 6, 2012

Moonjumper said:
It might be Netflix reading an Apple setting.

p.s. I didn't give you the negative vote.

Dont worry about the negative votes. All my posts have them. Like I've said, the Apple fanboys on here think the company ***** perfection and that everything they make is faultless.

The same thing happens in the iOS forums and it just ends up in a load of fanboys claiming mass OCD.

I'm stumped as to what to do. There seems no logical fix for the Netflix issues. And after phoning apple once again today, they are still denying all existance of the issue, despite various posts on their own discussion boards about it.

Moonjumper · Apr 6, 2012

striker33 said:
Dont worry about the negative votes. All my posts have them. Like I've said, the Apple fanboys on here think the company ***** perfection and that everything they make is faultless.

The same thing happens in the iOS forums and it just ends up in a load of fanboys claiming mass OCD.

I'm stumped as to what to do. There seems no logical fix for the Netflix issues. And after phoning apple once again today, they are still denying all existance of the issue, despite various posts on their own discussion boards about it.

Most are OK and realise that even the best could be better.

I hope you find a solution. I haven't got an ATV yet, but if I get one, Netflix will be one of the reasons.

striker33 · Apr 6, 2012

For some reason tonight my PS3 has asked me to login to Netflix again, and now it pauses and reloads every 5 seconds or so, yet my ATV streams fine (but still SD).

I have no idea what the hell is going on.

Ipadlover29 · Apr 6, 2012

issues with my atv 2 also

So I returned my atv 3 to get the atv 2 again. Received my refurb atv 2 a few days ago. I find that it has issues as well just with netflix and nothing else. I am artifcating, pixelation and the most annoying is every once in a while the image stutters very slightly. Im gonna have to test it out more but so far its pretty much the same as the atv 3 I returned. Im not even on 5.0 yet still on 4.4.4. Im glad atleast I was able to jailbreak and install xbmc. So not a complete loss.

striker33 · Apr 6, 2012

Ipadlover29 said:
So I returned my atv 3 to get the atv 2 again. Received my refurb atv 2 a few days ago. I find that it has issues as well just with netflix and nothing else. I am artifcating, pixelation and the most annoying is every once in a while the image stutters very slightly. Im gonna have to test it out more but so far its pretty much the same as the atv 3 I returned. Im not even on 5.0 yet still on 4.4.4. Im glad atleast I was able to jailbreak and install xbmc. So not a complete loss.

Damn :/

I also tried using a USA DNS server for US netflix earlier, still had sucky quality.

Gonna move to a Roku XS, and if that fails, I'll just have to accept having to use a power hungry PS3 until the issue is fixed or I move to a bigger city.

goMac · Apr 6, 2012

Just to chime in here... I had problems with my AppleTV 2 when it first came out with Netflix. A few updates later and they went away. AppleTV 3 is working great.

Not sure what to say. Is it possible your ISP is what's limiting the bandwidth? We know the AppleTV is ok so we can eliminate that... If Netflix says their servers are fine we can eliminate that...

It's possible the PS3 uses a differently formatted stream than the AppleTV which is being filtered different on the ISP end. Your friend have the same ISP?

Ipadlover29 · Apr 6, 2012

goMac said:
Just to chime in here... I had problems with my AppleTV 2 when it first came out with Netflix. A few updates later and they went away. AppleTV 3 is working great.

Not sure what to say. Is it possible your ISP is what's limiting the bandwidth? We know the AppleTV is ok so we can eliminate that... If Netflix says their servers are fine we can eliminate that...

It's possible the PS3 uses a differently formatted stream than the AppleTV which is being filtered different on the ISP end. Your friend have the same ISP?

I think that is the reason. Every streaming device uses different methods to access netflix. I think that's why I have no issues with Sony blu ray player, but have issues with my Atv. I'm sure apple will eventually fix this, but who knows how long it will take.

striker33 · Apr 7, 2012

goMac said:
Just to chime in here... I had problems with my AppleTV 2 when it first came out with Netflix. A few updates later and they went away. AppleTV 3 is working great.

Not sure what to say. Is it possible your ISP is what's limiting the bandwidth? We know the AppleTV is ok so we can eliminate that... If Netflix says their servers are fine we can eliminate that...

It's possible the PS3 uses a differently formatted stream than the AppleTV which is being filtered different on the ISP end. Your friend have the same ISP?

One of them was on TalkTalk @ 12mbps, the other BT @ 8mbps.

Like you said it could all be down to the codecs used.

As far as I know ATV doesnt support Silverlight does it?

striker33 · Apr 10, 2012

Quick update.

Was told to test my ATV over my phone's 3G (5mbps+) and still had the same results. My ISP also said that my broadband speed wasnt as high as it should be, but they only increased it by 600kbps (up to 6.8mbps).

Both resulted in the same 'High / SD' quality what you'd get on PS3. Still refuses to play HD.

Last ditch effort is to change out the original Sky router. But its looking increasingly likely that something just doesnt work properly with the ATV. My guess would be the ATV itself struggling with the adaptive streaming netflix uses. Either that or for some reason it is requesting more bandwidth than necessary.

darster · Apr 10, 2012

I wish netflix had a built in internet speed test like VUDU does in it's settings. That way you can find out the real speed from your device to their servers. Might help us narrow down the problem.

Yorchace · Apr 10, 2012

striker33 said:
Quick update.

Was told to test my ATV over my phone's 3G (5mbps+) and still had the same results. My ISP also said that my broadband speed wasnt as high as it should be, but they only increased it by 600kbps (up to 6.8mbps).

Both resulted in the same 'High / SD' quality what you'd get on PS3. Still refuses to play HD.

Last ditch effort is to change out the original Sky router. But its looking increasingly likely that something just doesnt work properly with the ATV. My guess would be the ATV itself struggling with the adaptive streaming netflix uses. Either that or for some reason it is requesting more bandwidth than necessary.

I live in Peru and I'm having the same issue. I can view Netflix on HD with my PS3 and with my laptop, but I got SD quality with my ATV3. I am completely sure its an ATV issue not using the whole bandwidth of my connection. By the way my internet connection is 5mbps, but its just used by about 20% streaming from the ATV whereas the PS3 manages to use 80% of my bandwidth. Maybe the ATV uses some kind of QoS wich don't let it use more than 20% of the whole bandwidth. Hope Apple will fix the problem on a future software update.

striker33 · Apr 10, 2012

darster said:
I wish netflix had a built in internet speed test like VUDU does in it's settings. That way you can find out the real speed from your device to their servers. Might help us narrow down the problem.

I've been calling Netflix themselves to find out the speeds on my ATV.

Its free so I dont lose out on anything, and it keeps them aware of the issue.

For my PS3 its easy enough though, as pressing the 'select' button brings up the speed and quality settings.

Basically I wait around 10-15 seconds for X-High/HD to kick in, which is basically 1080p @ 4.7mbps.

My ATV only allows around 1.05mbps to go through according to Netflix. Which is effectively a high standard definition quality, similar to what the non-HD iPad app gives.

It will be interesting to see how the Netflix app plays out when it does support 1080p though.

smashie · Apr 10, 2012

Quick question, how can you tell if it's streaming in HD? I know the difference

between SD and HD can be seen easily but I am not convinced that it's

anywhere near 1080p but can't found out how I check for sure

whooleytoo · Apr 10, 2012

I've noticed a repeating pattern happening with my Netflix videos. I start watching, and the quality is very good, HD. After 15-20 seconds, it pauses, buffers, and resumes playing, but in SD. It's still reasonably good quality, but certainly not HD any more. And just now it dropped to Youtube-esque quality.

And I still get periodic issues with the sound suddenly jumping several seconds out of sync; and the last couple of days I've had 2 instances where I got a "Netflix is deactivated on this device..." errors.

I've not had any such problems with other videos on the ATV; and I have a 30Mbps connection; so it's not that.

striker33 · Apr 10, 2012

Well after 2 hours of having my network down, hacking into my ISP supplied router, and applying settings to about 5 different routers, its clear that it is not my ISP or the supplied router, or my network for that matter.

I was going to try with my phone's 3G, but for some reason the personal hotspot feature refuses to appear under settings. Doesnt anyone know how to get this up?

----------

smashie said:
Quick question, how can you tell if it's streaming in HD? I know the difference

between SD and HD can be seen easily but I am not convinced that it's

anywhere near 1080p but can't found out how I check for sure

On the Apple TV the only way to check is to have another Netflix device for comparison.

You know its SD on the ATV easily by looking at plain backgrounds, such as painted walls etc in a movie or tv show, i.e. The Office. The wall will not be one colour, and will appear pixellated and muddled. You can also tell by the noise around moving objects.

Anything HD, even low quality HD, will have very little in the way of noise or artifacts.

You'll know 1080p when you see it though. Its miles ahead of anything you'll get on satellite/cable. Not quite as good as Apple's new 1080p content, but not far off either.

striker33 · Apr 10, 2012

Okay I've tried the personal hotspot feature after resetting my iPhone's network settings.

My PS3 managed to stream at High-HD for a minute or so. I didnt want to see if it went any higher due to only having a 500MB data cap, but it easily could have achieved 1080p. My Apple TV continued to play Netflix content at SD quality though.

So my conclusion is, poor software on the Apple TV for viewing Netflix. I dont know the specific problem, and neither do the Apple engineers, or so they say.

Looks like I'll be getting my refund afterall then. Most likely gonna go for a WD TV Live + 2TB My Book.

Edit: Sky now seem to have increased my speeds by 1mbps so far, up to 7mbps, yet still no improvement, although my PS3 seems to reach 1080p quality a few seconds faster now.

whooleytoo · Apr 12, 2012

For me, the problem seems to get worse every day. Last night I played a 43 minute TV episode, and playback stalled and buffered 4 times during playback, and twice the video & audio jumped out of sync so I had to leave back to the menu and jump back in again. And the video quality - started out (briefly) as HD, but was like a poor Youtube stream by the end.

Roy G Biv · Apr 14, 2012

Could this be Apple gimping Netflix to elevate their own iTunes services? We know they ignore Hulu because of this.

Medic278 · Apr 14, 2012

I watch netflix every day on my apple tv and I never have had a problem with it.

WoodNUFC · Apr 14, 2012

My problems with Netflix on ATV2 and ATV3 is continual buffering. It makes watching anything unbearable. I'd rather watch SD content then have to suffer the non-stop buffering.

russell2 · Apr 14, 2012

I'm experiencing something similar as well on all 3 of my new Apple TV 3rd generations. My Internet connection is Comcast Blast! that speedtests at ~35 Mbps and is sustained at all times above 20 Mbps.

My PS3 shows X-High/HD and 5.1 when I press the select button on the remote and online the silverlight player holding down "option/alt" and shift then clicking on the video and selecting Stream Manager shows my computer always using the highest setting. Both are Netflix "1080p" and it looks really good to me.

But the ATV 3 is no where near the quality of the PS3 or MacBook Pro streaming and it bugs me. Apple needs to allow you to see what quality your ATV is streaming for us quality consumed individuals.

FYI forget the it's your WiFi claims everyone is making I have all my ATV 3s on Ethernet. Though I failed to mention the first one I set up to replace the Apple TV 2 I had on WiFi and it took like 10 minutes to load 20 box covers and then when I clicked on one it wouldn't even stream and I just plugged it in and did so without a test on the other 2 new ATV 3s.

Ipadlover29 · Apr 14, 2012

I longer have any issues with artifacting and pixelation in the last few days on my atv 2. Also the stuttering issue seems to have gone so far. Will keep you updated.

thatoneguy82 · Apr 15, 2012

I have 3 ATVs, well 4 if you count the original not in use. I have 2 ATV2 and 1 ATV3. One is connected straight from the router (ATV2), the other (ATV3) is connected through an airport express going to a splitter. The last ATV2 is connected to a completely different router/internet(cable vs fios)/whatever since its the guest house. All of them work perfectly, I've not have any issues with Netflix. I frequently watch Netflix on all 3 TVs and the quality on all 3 never changes. So, I'm not sure why your ATV is having issues.

rockinred · Apr 15, 2012

Just give it up dude. I posted a thread like this that went on for days and fighting back and forth with a bunch of apple employees or fanboys. I have 2 ATV2 and just gave up and watch all my netflix on my PS3. I don't have any streaming issues on PS3. It's a known issue for more than just a few. I gave up and use ATV for itunes movies that I rent and my icloud music. Glad I only paid $99.

I wouldn't touch your ISP settings like suggested. I have all kinds of Apple toys, but I am far from a fanboy. I use what is best for me. In this case it is most definitely the PS3 for netflix in comparison. In some rooms I use the ATV for it, but even the wii gets less interruptions. ATV has the best interface for Netflix hands down. Sometimes I browse movies on it and then switch and watch it on PS3. I'd suggest the same and stop banging your head against a wall looking for a solution that is not there.

spacepower7 · Apr 15, 2012

Roy G Biv said:
Could this be Apple gimping Netflix to elevate their own iTunes services? We know they ignore Hulu because of this.

You might be right but....

I'd say Hulu might not want to be on the AppleTV, they would rather people watch regular TV and commercials on the HDTV. It's the commercials that pay for the production of TV shows, not Hulu subscriptions.

Also Hulu blocked streaming from the web browser on the GoogleTV.

I think Hulu is testing the waters on other devices before they will allow it on the AppleTV. Considering that Apple has sold more AppleTV 2 boxes, last estimated to be double of the amount of all Roku boxes, Hulu may be analyzing usage and proper pricing options?

Just a thought.

----------

russell2 said:
I'm experiencing something similar as well on all 3 of my new Apple TV 3rd generations. My Internet connection is Comcast Blast! that speedtests at ~35 Mbps and is sustained at all times above 20 Mbps.

My PS3 shows X-High/HD and 5.1 when I press the select button on the remote and online the silverlight player holding down "option/alt" and shift then clicking on the video and selecting Stream Manager shows my computer always using the highest setting. Both are Netflix "1080p" and it looks really good to me.

But the ATV 3 is no where near the quality of the PS3 or MacBook Pro streaming and it bugs me. Apple needs to allow you to see what quality your ATV is streaming for us quality consumed individuals.

FYI forget the it's your WiFi claims everyone is making I have all my ATV 3s on Ethernet. Though I failed to mention the first one I set up to replace the Apple TV 2 I had on WiFi and it took like 10 minutes to load 20 box covers and then when I clicked on one it wouldn't even stream and I just plugged it in and did so without a test on the other 2 new ATV 3s.

Maybe this could be the problem?

Comcast Blast is similar to Time Warner TurboBoost that I have.

In think mine is 30 Mbps for the first 30 megabytes, then it switches down to a sustained 15-20 Mbps.

Maybe the software on the AppleTV has a hard time telling the Netflix servers what the true speed is? The Netflix servers are seeing my connection speed drop in half after the first 30 megabytes?

Just a thought

Why is Netflix so poor on ATV?

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