Is Netflix putting caps on computer-based Watch Instantly users?
posted March 16th 2009 7:10AM
Depending on your choice of computing platform, possession of dedicated streaming hardware, and love of otherwise forgettable '80s films, Netflix's Watch Instantly service is either a godsend or a gimmick. Regardless, nobody likes arbitrary bandwidth caps, and that's what Riyad Kalla at The "Break it Down" Blog claims to have spotted, finding that Watch streams on his Xbox take multiple minutes to buffer, but that those on his PC (using the same connection) can take hours -- if they work at all. Doing a little snooping he found he was being capped to about 50 KB/sec per download thread on his PC, but if he spawned ten such threads he was able to get over 700 KB/sec. Something, it seems, is issuing a per-thread cap, but is it really Netflix? Or, rather, is it his Qwest DSL line doing a ham-fisted job of managing bandwidth? We've seen similar issues intermittently, but nothing consistent, so we're not quite ready to call this an internet-wide conspiracy just yet, but would love to hear about your streaming experiences lately.
Update: Based on the volume of "It's working just fine for me" comments both here and elsewhere it seems safe to say that if there is a conspiracy at work here, it's not Netflix's.
[Via Slashdot]
Ever since netflix rolled out the new silverlight player quality has gone to crap.....always pixelated...never nice looking like it used to be....crashes all the time....what gives :(
The only time I've ever had problems were when I used Comcast high speed internet for a month instead of my trusty 6mbps DSL connection. Switching back to DSL fixed the problem.
I was wondering of something like this was happening because I used to have no trouble and the video looked great. Now, the quality is low (xbox 360) and makes it unwatchable on my tv. I have a 10 mbps fiber connection through Surewest in the sacramento area.
I wish I can own everything on Engadget's website... ...never gonna happen....
I just cancelled my Netflix after 4 years because of this. As always Netflix blamed the up to 3 day buffering times on Quest limiting bandwith, but when speed test were run all was fine on Hargray cable. All I got for my time was "it's not our fault". All Netflix got was a dissatisfied long term customer who canceled their service and will never recomend Netflix again.
Try openDNS. Solved all my problems. opendns.com
Before opendns, I was getting all sorts of lag. Once I switched, HD all the time.
Good luck!
It's Qwest, I have it and it puts a cap on everything. Takes hours to watch on xbox or my computer....
"Update: Based on the volume of "It's working just fine for me" comments both here and elsewhere it seems safe to say that if there is a conspiracy at work here, it's not Netflix's"
Yeah, well... maybe next time you decided to pick up a story, TIM, you should read it first. A 5 year old could have seen the grandoise amount of illogic in the original blog. Smells like to me someone read a title, skimmed through the pretty pics and then linked it.
Thanks for the update... truthfully, you need to just delete this whole article all together. I thought engadget used to have pride in itself. This article killed it.
I've never been able to watch something in HD in my laptop, but with the Xbox using the same internet connection it works fine
Well this may be a problem in some local Qwest service area's. Like a local netop sticking the screws to Netflix bandwidth hogs (in his opinion) My Qwest DSl is 3megs in speed, tests at 2.6megs. When I first got the Samsung 2550 I was running at 2.3 megs bandwitth, then all of a sudden I dropped to 800k and tonight 300k. Something is wrong somewhere. Don
This is a conspiracy. The only thing is Netflix is a innocent party to it. I have Comcast cable and lately the speed goes very fast for the first minute or so and then drops. So 2048kb to 150kb. The movie starts and then after a minute or two stops for the streaming. Comcast says that they do traffic shaping to insure all customers can access the internet. The interesting thing is that the FCC says as long as Comcast does it for all protocols and not just say Bittorrent then it is ok. When I watch videos on Comcasts own streaming service I never have any issues. I am sure that Qwest is doing similar traffic shaping.
The wild west internet days are over. Welcome do the new internet where the ISP gets to throttle connection speeds and if they don't like something they just make it so slow that it will die.
Frank
Ok I stand corrected. While it is possible that Comcast can use traffic shaping I have determined that in my case they aren't. This issue is a Netflix problem. Here is how I tested:
1. Start Netflix and stream Batman. It says it will take 3 hours to start and downloads around 150kb/s
2. Hit the page refresh button and it now starts downloading at 2000kb/s and the movie starts in 5 seconds.
I noticed that when it was slow it connected to the Lime Light Networks streaming server at 208.141.148.6. Then the refresh would connect to 208.141.148.7 and it would be fine.
3. I called Netflix. The no longer support the Windows Media Player version and it is possible that they have server issues with it. Only solutions were live with it or switch to the Silverlight player.
4. So now I am watching on the silverlight player and it seems to be working. Cool feature the scene shots as you scroll backwards and forwards.
Your mileage may vary.
Frank