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P0stalTek

Suspended
Feb 25, 2011
256
30
I'll tell you what.

This thread sure has me thankful I went with a roku instead of ATV. Even though at the time I thought I was making a mistake. It streams everything flawlessly.

Sorry for everyone's troubles though :/
 

darster

Suspended
Aug 25, 2011
1,703
1
I'll tell you what.

This thread sure has me thankful I went with a roku instead of ATV. Even though at the time I thought I was making a mistake. It streams everything flawlessly.

Sorry for everyone's troubles though :/

Except when it comes to streaming MLB. Roku has problems. I have both, and roku buffers a lot more than the ATV3.
 

P0stalTek

Suspended
Feb 25, 2011
256
30
My roku has never buffered. Believe me, I'd love to say the ATV is better. I do not watch baseball on it though so I cannot comment on that. Netflix, Hulu, and amazon are indeed flawless for me.
 

striker33

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 6, 2010
1,098
2
Quick update again.

My WDTV was working fine in 1080p when I first got it for Netflix. I then updated the firmware and Netflix is now inaccessible on the WD device and gives an error on each login attempt. There are numerous posts on the WD forums regarding it, and it seems to be a common issue which WD dont want to fix. I dont have much luck at all. It has been sent back for a refund.

I'm still talking to Apple though, and everything is being passed on to the Apple engineers. Who knows where it will lead. Until the issue is resolved however, I have since renewed my LoveFilm subscription, and am simply ripping blu rays etc to a NAS and streaming them to my ATV.
 
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Ipadlover29

macrumors 6502a
May 28, 2011
972
308
I was streaming some content last night and noticed the stuttering is back again. Haven't noticed any artifacting or pixelation any more.
 

whooleytoo

macrumors 604
Aug 2, 2002
6,607
716
Cork, Ireland.
I tried a "workaround" over the last few nights. I started an episode, then paused it as soon as it started. I left it for maybe 20 minutes while doing other things, then played it and it played through with perfect quality, no hiccups, no audio sync problems. Then I played the next episode and... 20 seconds in it stuttered and dropped in quality (as I expected, it didn't have sufficient buffering time).

Tried the same thing the following evening, and both episodes played flawlessly. Tried again yesterday, and the second episode again stuttered and worsened dramatically in quality.

That leads me to think it's not likely to be an ATV fault, since sometimes it plays HD videos perfectly. I'd be more inclined to believe it's down to Netflix's servers becoming busier - it has been heavily promoted here lately. If the ATV stream is served separately to the PS3/360 streams (is it?) that would explain why playback differs on those platforms.
 

striker33

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 6, 2010
1,098
2
I tried a "workaround" over the last few nights. I started an episode, then paused it as soon as it started. I left it for maybe 20 minutes while doing other things, then played it and it played through with perfect quality, no hiccups, no audio sync problems. Then I played the next episode and... 20 seconds in it stuttered and dropped in quality (as I expected, it didn't have sufficient buffering time).

Tried the same thing the following evening, and both episodes played flawlessly. Tried again yesterday, and the second episode again stuttered and worsened dramatically in quality.

That leads me to think it's not likely to be an ATV fault, since sometimes it plays HD videos perfectly. I'd be more inclined to believe it's down to Netflix's servers becoming busier - it has been heavily promoted here lately. If the ATV stream is served separately to the PS3/360 streams (is it?) that would explain why playback differs on those platforms.

The Apple TV and PS3 both use the same servers, as they both use the same form of encoding etc.

I dont think its down to servers being busy, as my PS3 gets 1080p at any time of day, where as my ATV cant even reach the highest Standard Definition quality.
 

CrzyP

macrumors 6502
Mar 14, 2012
337
145
Netflix on my PS3 has way better PQ than my ATV3. I've tried all the HDMI settings and even have them plugged in the same source on my TV. My PS3, Sammy bluray, and Sammy TV blow ATV3 out of the water in terms of PQ. I get the same artifacts when renting from the iTunes store too. Very disappointing! 20 mb connection BTW.
 
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Ipadlover29

macrumors 6502a
May 28, 2011
972
308
Netflix on my PS3 has way better PQ than my ATV3. I've tried all the HDMI settings and even have them plugged in the same source on my TV. My PS3, Sammy bluray, and Sammy TV blow ATV3 out of the water in terms of PQ. I get the same artifacts when renting from the iTunes store too. Very disappointing!

Same artifacts on iTunes store rentals?? That's crazy I thought it was only Netflix streaming that was affected. Apple needs to get their act together.
 

CrzyP

macrumors 6502
Mar 14, 2012
337
145
Yeah. I wanted to switch from vudu rentals because iTunes is cheaper for 1080p content. Not impressed with ATV so far. Only thing I find useful is iTunes match and AirPlay with Pandora. $100 paper weight IMO.
 

Mantasis

macrumors member
Dec 25, 2007
72
0
My 3rd gen works at top quality at all times. I've seen this problem in other people's netflix devices too... I've seen default language issues as well...(settings through the site and device were set properly, yet problem persisted)
 

whooleytoo

macrumors 604
Aug 2, 2002
6,607
716
Cork, Ireland.
The Apple TV and PS3 both use the same servers, as they both use the same form of encoding etc.

I dont think its down to servers being busy, as my PS3 gets 1080p at any time of day, where as my ATV cant even reach the highest Standard Definition quality.

You may be right, but I find it strange that I used to be able to watch HD Netflix videos with great quality and no stalls or audio de-sycning (and occasionally, I still can). But more and more, they now stall after 15-20 seconds and the picture quality degrades. Resetting the ATV has no effect.

If it were some ATV hardware/software fault, I'd expect it to be more consistent and not degrading over time.
 

striker33

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 6, 2010
1,098
2
You may be right, but I find it strange that I used to be able to watch HD Netflix videos with great quality and no stalls or audio de-sycning (and occasionally, I still can). But more and more, they now stall after 15-20 seconds and the picture quality degrades. Resetting the ATV has no effect.

If it were some ATV hardware/software fault, I'd expect it to be more consistent and not degrading over time.

Well according to Netflix, my issue is caused by my Apple TV connection to a VPN instead of directly to my ISP, which is causing the issues. However this is limited only to Netflix, as 1080p itunes content is fine. The VPN is called 'VPS Senior Gift Solutions', and I have no idea what it is.

Apple havent ruled out calling my ATV in for further testing though, which I can see as being the only plausible way of finding a solution at the moment.
 

whooleytoo

macrumors 604
Aug 2, 2002
6,607
716
Cork, Ireland.
Well according to Netflix, my issue is caused by my Apple TV connection to a VPN instead of directly to my ISP, which is causing the issues. However this is limited only to Netflix, as 1080p itunes content is fine. The VPN is called 'VPS Senior Gift Solutions', and I have no idea what it is.

Apple havent ruled out calling my ATV in for further testing though, which I can see as being the only plausible way of finding a solution at the moment.

Strange! Perhaps there is more than one issue? At least, I'm not aware of my ATV having the same issue, but how would I know?

Incidentally, Netflix playback has been flawless for me the last couple of days. Is it still problematic for you?
 

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
Well according to Netflix, my issue is caused by my Apple TV connection to a VPN instead of directly to my ISP, which is causing the issues. However this is limited only to Netflix, as 1080p itunes content is fine. The VPN is called 'VPS Senior Gift Solutions', and I have no idea what it is.

Apple havent ruled out calling my ATV in for further testing though, which I can see as being the only plausible way of finding a solution at the moment.

Perhaps your router has a dns changer malware.
 

Roy G Biv

macrumors 6502
Dec 26, 2010
362
104
My cousin knows a couple of the guys who work on the ATV coding, and he says that the reason Netflix is so bad is rather than working, they are playing Plants vs Zombies all the time.
 

striker33

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 6, 2010
1,098
2
Perhaps your router has a dns changer malware.

It only affects Netflix on the ATV though, and I have tried various different routers, both old and new.

I have had an email from Apple saying the Netflix and Apple engineers are working on it, so I'm hopeful of a fix.
 

Toby Ziegler

macrumors regular
Mar 28, 2011
203
87
Gallifrey
Same problem here...I'll start watching something, the quality is fantastic for the first 30 seconds and then it looks like I'm watching a YouTube video uploaded five years ago.

My XBox will stream in HD all day long with no problem, but the ATV looks like crap. I did the full restore hoping that might help it, which it didn't. Really hoping this issue gets sorted since I use Netflix almost daily.
 

spacepower7

macrumors 68000
May 6, 2004
1,509
1
Well according to Netflix, my issue is caused by my Apple TV connection to a VPN instead of directly to my ISP, which is causing the issues. However this is limited only to Netflix, as 1080p itunes content is fine. The VPN is called 'VPS Senior Gift Solutions', and I have no idea what it is.

Apple havent ruled out calling my ATV in for further testing though, which I can see as being the only plausible way of finding a solution at the moment.

Ok, so you have a VPN, but you didn't knows this 6 pages ago? I ask bc I sincerely believe you didn't but that causes a whole new issue. Is this vpn related to your router software?
 

spacepower7

macrumors 68000
May 6, 2004
1,509
1
The Apple TV and PS3 both use the same servers, as they both use the same form of encoding etc.

I dont think its down to servers being busy, as my PS3 gets 1080p at any time of day, where as my ATV cant even reach the highest Standard Definition quality.

How do you know they use the same servers? Does the GUI in the PS3 tell you the Netflix server IP address, which could be a distribution IP address kind of like your home router has one external IP and many internal for each device. I know the AppleTV doesn't tell us the ip address of netflix.

What does the PS3 use for Netflix playback? Macs and PCs use Silverlight but the AppleTV does not.

When you say the same servers, you are actually talking about hundreds or possibly thousands of rackmount servers. Some could be dedicated to serving Silverlight streams while very few are dedicated to serving AppleTv streams because Netflix doesn't anticipate many AppleTV users in your region

Just some thoughts.
 

spacepower7

macrumors 68000
May 6, 2004
1,509
1
Lol. Brilliant!

I think the point is that it's not his VPN and he doesn't know why it is being routed there or how to stop it.

Lol thanks for your helpful contribution to our thread trying to resolve someone's problems

Please contribute something educational or leave
 

lcm123

macrumors member
Jun 27, 2007
46
0
I just want to let you know that I have had the same problem with my 3 atv2 that i bought when the first came out. My internet speed was 3mb/s and netflix was always streamed at SD. It was unpleasant for a while, until recently when i started to suspect the problem has something to do with the internet speed (and after replacing one of my atv2 with the new atv3 without any improvement).

As soon as i upgraded my internet to 6mb/s, it started to stream netflix at a higher resolution, though i was still not satisfied because it still didn't look like 1080p (i used itunes trailer on atv as a comparison to determine its resolution). Then, i upgraded to 12mb/s, and voila, all my atv's started to stream in 1080p (except 1080i on atv2 of course).

If you are on a month to month plan with your ISP, i suggest doing a little experimeny, by upgrading to 12mb/s and see what happens.

Good luck!
 

roidy

macrumors 65816
Dec 30, 2008
1,027
22
Nottingham, UK
If you are on a month to month plan with your ISP, i suggest doing a little experimeny, by upgrading to 12mb/s and see what happens.

People arn't going to throw extra money at their ISP's when Netflix plays perfectly fine in HD on other devices like the Roku or PS3, meaning it's not a speed problem, it's an ATV problem. I'm not saying the extra speeed is a bad thing, it seems to have helped you, but it's shouldn't be needed when other devices stream in HD without an increase in internet speed.

I was in the same position, I signed up for the free 1 month trial and it streamed perfectly in HD everytime on my PS3, but would only manage SD on my ATV2.
 
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