# So how is Netflix on the TiVo Premiere?



## pcguru83 (Jan 18, 2005)

I've got a brand new TiVo Premiere on it's way to me that should arrive tomorrow. We're coming from a DirecTiVo and are very much looking forward to the Netflix streaming component of the TiVo Premiere. 

What can we expect in terms of overall experience and performance? In looking over some past threads, seems the Netflix functionality was met with rather mixed reviews on the TiVo HD and Series 3. Have things improved any?

I seriously considered just getting a TiVo HD refurb for $199 and then buying the Sonly Bluray player with Netflix functionality that was on sale at Best Buy the last few days. Unfortunately, I missed out on that deal, so I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Premiere. Here's hoping I don't regret going with the Premiere. 

How's the interface? Is the HD of decent quality? Having never streamed HD before, how does it compare to something like Bluray? How hard is it to find HD content on Netflix?


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## Mike-Mike (Mar 2, 2010)

i think the Netflix on the S4 is just fine, I liked the Roku better, but being able to search for things with the S4 certainly makes up for it. and the only time I really dislike watching Netflix on my TPXL is when I am watching a season, and it does not automatically remember what show i am on like the Roku would.


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## macgyver (Dec 7, 2001)

pcguru83 said:


> I've got a brand new TiVo Premiere on it's way to me that should arrive tomorrow. We're coming from a DirecTiVo and are very much looking forward to the Netflix streaming component of the TiVo Premiere.
> 
> What can we expect in terms of overall experience and performance? In looking over some past threads, seems the Netflix functionality was met with rather mixed reviews on the TiVo HD and Series 3. Have things improved any?
> 
> ...


It's definitely better than the Sony. Things start playing faster, and there are thumbnails when fast-forwarding/rewinding. The Sony doesn't have thumbnails, which makes fast-forwarding/rewinding maddening.


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## DaveWhittle (Jul 25, 2002)

Mike-Mike said:


> ... it does not automatically remember what show i am on like the Roku would.


I hope this can and will be available in a future update. I'm coming from watching NetFlix on an xBox 360, which is very nice and has the "percentage watched" feature.

With that said, Netflix integration on the Premiere is pretty good, albeit bare-bones.


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## Mike-Mike (Mar 2, 2010)

Roku has a bar that shows how much of a show you have watched


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## Monty2_2001 (Aug 6, 2005)

It works well for me. My S3 never played instant watch in HD. Premiere sure does. Glad I don't have to switch over to the PS3 or 360 anymore.


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## pcguru83 (Jan 18, 2005)

Monty2_2001 said:


> It works well for me. My S3 never played instant watch in HD. Premiere sure does. Glad I don't have to switch over to the PS3 or 360 anymore.


How is the quality of the HD content?


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## Monty2_2001 (Aug 6, 2005)

pcguru83 said:


> How is the quality of the HD content?


Seemed roughly the same as it was on the 360. To me, it's sort of like a good DVD, but well below Blu-ray for sure. Closer to DVD than Blu-ray.


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## NotVeryWitty (Oct 3, 2003)

My wife is home recovering from surgery, and so has made very extensive use of Netflix on my new Tivo Premiere this past week.

Overall, we're both quite pleased with it. On Sunday afternoon, things quit working for a while, and I got one Tivo reboot during this time (I've read that their error handling is not real robust). Other than that, it has worked very well, and picture quality is excellent. I also just got my Fios internet upgraded to 25 Mbps, which certainly can't hurt. I don't own a Blu-Ray player, so I can't compare to that, but PQ has generally been as good as anything I've watched on DVD.


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## DaveWhittle (Jul 25, 2002)

Monty2_2001 said:


> Seemed roughly the same as it was on the 360. To me, it's sort of like a good DVD, but well below Blu-ray for sure. Closer to DVD than Blu-ray.


+1...^^^ accurate description.


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## baimo (Mar 2, 2006)

Monty2_2001 said:


> Seemed roughly the same as it was on the 360. To me, it's sort of like a good DVD, but well below Blu-ray for sure. Closer to DVD than Blu-ray.


I know a lot of you probably have a 1080p TV. But mine is a little older showing 1080i/720P max resolution (Older pioneer elite). The older dvd's were 480P and the blu ray is 1080P. BluRays still look better on my tv than regular DVD even though I only get 720P. 
Maybe this is subjective but Do you think Netflix is equal up to the older HD standard of 720p/1090I? I was thinking of subscribing.


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## almighty (Jun 17, 2001)

How about Amazon HD Videos on demand? Arent those encoded at a higher bitrate than Netflix, and 1080/24p? Is it a noticeable difference from Netflix HD material (720P encoded)?


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## Monty2_2001 (Aug 6, 2005)

baimo said:


> I know a lot of you probably have a 1080p TV. But mine is a little older showing 1080i/720P max resolution (Older pioneer elite). The older dvd's were 480P and the blu ray is 1080P. BluRays still look better on my tv than regular DVD even though I only get 720P.
> Maybe this is subjective but Do you think Netflix is equal up to the older HD standard of 720p/1090I? I was thinking of subscribing.


Mine's 1080p DLP. On yours, it might look decent. A big problem is content too, there's just not that much on netflix HD really. TV stuff yes, but not many movies it seems. And usually I'd rather just rent the Blu-ray's of those. But honestly, I think the 3 blurays I get at a time + the streaming is a good value.

edit: The difference between Bluray and streaming on audio is massive. I'm not sure what they use on streaming, but if you can use lossless bluray it'll be no contest. Also, 24fps TV's make a bigger difference as well. Still, for the price you get 720p-ish streaming and the discs, a good deal.


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## Mike-Mike (Mar 2, 2010)

i was talking to tivo.com customer support about my TiVo Desktop Plus issue, and I asked if they had any word about updating the Netflix app and he just said, "no"


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## rattlebone (Apr 16, 2010)

I had some breakup in the movies with video set to only 1080i. Then I enabled all the video modes on the Tivo Premiere (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p). 

I think that may allow Netflix to adjust the video output as the network throughput varies. 

Netflix video quality if very good with all video modes enabled. No complaints here on video quality with a 12 Mb/sec DSL connection.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

The Premiere Netflix quality appears to be the same as the HD.

- Rich


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## aaroncgi (Apr 13, 2010)

Since we are now receiing Off-The-Air only, we are definitely searching for a bit more content, and Netflix fills the bills nicely.

The quality is fine on our ancient 32" CRT TV - about the same as the Dish Network we used to have.

A couple drawbacks we have noticed. Some may be related to our DSL, not sure... we have 1.5 MBps service.

1. Scrolling through queue of titles is quite slow. It takes 5+ seconds for the list to display on the screen when you page down or up (channel down/up).

2. The Tivo is very slow to respond to commands such as pause, FF, RW. Usually 3+ seconds before the command is recognized.

3. We have not found any way to adjust the aspect ratio of incoming video. This seems really odd to us. Everything we get on Netflix is 4:3 pan and scan. We do have a 4:3 TV, but we sure would prefer to watch movies in letterbox! Maybe this is a setting in Netflix? We'll look. Though Tivo allows us to choose letterbox for widescreen material from the antenna, it denies us any change for Netflix.

Other than those minor issues, no complaint for free viewing!


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

baimo said:


> I know a lot of you probably have a 1080p TV. But mine is a little older showing 1080i/720P max resolution


It can't be both. Either the max resolution is 1080i (which is the same as 1080p) = 1920x1080 or it is 720P = 1280x720.

Either way it won't matter when watching Netflix streaming.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

RichB said:


> The Premiere Netflix quality appears to be the same as the HD.


I haven't seen it on the Premiere, but my GUESS would be that it WOULD be the same quality. I don't think Netflix broadcasts any better than what the HD could/can display.

The bigger question in my mind is the quality of the INTERFACE. I just go the Nintendo Wii Netflix disc last week and tried it.... WOW. The interface is wonderful! It makes the TiVo HD's look like crap. It is intuitive, fast, adjusts the screen properly to the aspect ratio, and lets me browse and add stuff on the fly (and other stuff).


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

aaroncgi said:


> 3. We have not found any way to adjust the aspect ratio of incoming video. This seems really odd to us. Everything we get on Netflix is 4:3 pan and scan. We do have a 4:3 TV, but we sure would prefer to watch movies in letterbox! Maybe this is a setting in Netflix? We'll look. Though Tivo allows us to choose letterbox for widescreen material from the antenna, it denies us any change for Netflix.


Unfortunately, the TiVo's "stupid" Netflix interface does not allow you to change the aspect ratio... AT ALL. It just uses whatever was LAST used when watching SD video. So exit Netflix, go watch something recorded in SD, then you can adjust your ratio, the restart Netflix. (Yes, I learned that the hard way).

Of course, this will *NOT* fix the "problem" if Netflix really did encode/broadcast at 4x3... then you are stuck. I have seen a mixture of 4x3, 16:9, and panarama from Netflix, so I know they do all three.


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## cranbers (Apr 2, 2010)

It's extremely basic, you can navigate the movies in your instant queue, that's it. Quality is fine, some are in HD. 

It is pretty simple and disappointing compared to the experience on wii, PS3 etc. Those you can look through all the different categories, new releases, recently watched in addition to your instant queue.

I really hope they upgrade the interface soon it is very disappointing especially when you buy a new box that 's supposed to do all these great things with HD interfaces.

I really hope they are able to include all these other features in a new interface on tivo, if you only experience with netflix streaming is via tivo's interface, you're missing out.


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## cranbers (Apr 2, 2010)

Mike-Mike said:


> i was talking to tivo.com customer support about my TiVo Desktop Plus issue, and I asked if they had any word about updating the Netflix app and he just said, "no"


If I ever learned anything, it's that customer support from most of these companies are pretty lame. Engineers and customer reps don't exactly talk on a regular basis, so often times they know as much as we do. The rest is speculation. They are typicaly trained as damage control, and customer retention, basic troubleshooting, restart the box, wait 8 minutes, it doesn't work send it to us kind of thing.

I would certainly hope that they have plans to update the interface, if not that's very unfortunately, but then again not surprising.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

cranbers said:


> It's extremely basic, you can navigate the movies in your instant queue, that's it. Quality is fine, some are in HD.
> 
> It is pretty simple and disappointing compared to the experience on wii, PS3 etc. Those you can look through all the different categories, new releases, recently watched in addition to your instant queue.
> 
> ...


If you know what you're looking for, TiVo Search on the Premiere allows you to play Netflix content (if available) without the need to add it to your Instant Queue. On the other hand, there are times that I do not know what I want to watch, and prefer browsing content. For that, I do have to go to the Netflix site and add what I find to the Instant Queue.


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## aaroncgi (Apr 13, 2010)

crxssi said:


> Unfortunately, the TiVo's "stupid" Netflix interface does not allow you to change the aspect ratio... AT ALL. It just uses whatever was LAST used when watching SD video. So exit Netflix, go watch something recorded in SD, then you can adjust your ratio, the restart Netflix. (Yes, I learned that the hard way).
> 
> Of course, this will *NOT* fix the "problem" if Netflix really did encode/broadcast at 4x3... then you are stuck. I have seen a mixture of 4x3, 16:9, and panarama from Netflix, so I know they do all three.


This worked like a charm, thank you!


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

Mike-Mike said:


> Roku has a bar that shows how much of a show you have watched


so does the 360. but I still only use my TivoHD/Premieres. Much more convenient.


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## tivowiz (Aug 3, 2002)

How is the speed of getting the Instant Queue list on the Premier? On my S3 it's slow as mud, I've been using my Samsung BluRay to watch lately just because it takes 305 minutes to get the initial list, with 30-60 seconds between each page. The Samsung is almost instant with the connect and browsing the list.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

maybe the issue is your router/network. My HD and Premiere are both up within 5 seconds.


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## aaroncgi (Apr 13, 2010)

Mine is the same as Scott. It's slow, but nothing longer than 5 seconds to bring up the list, or scroll between pages of the list.


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## Mike-Mike (Mar 2, 2010)

same for me, pretty quick


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## whitepelican (Feb 15, 2005)

tivowiz said:


> How is the speed of getting the Instant Queue list on the Premier? On my S3 it's slow as mud, I've been using my Samsung BluRay to watch lately just because it takes 305 minutes to get the initial list, with 30-60 seconds between each page. The Samsung is almost instant with the connect and browsing the list.


I've recently learned that your ISP and/or router make a huge difference. I've used my Series 3s with Netflix quite a bit over the last couple months and the interface was fine. Not blazing fast, but definitely good enough. But I recently switched my ISP from Time Warner to AT&T U-verse, and now it is as bad as you're describing. It is probably 2-3 minutes before I see the initial Netflix screen and 30 seconds to page up/down. And that is on a Tivo that is hardwired to the router. The really strange thing is I actually have faster internet speeds now than I did before. I went from 6mbs with Time Warner to 12mbs with AT&T. And it's obvious on my PC's that my internet speed is faster. But, either AT&T is throttling the Netflix connection, or there is something in my router that is slowing it down. If anybody has any suggestions to help me out, I'm all ears.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

my whole network is MAC locked down to addresses and assigned IP's. I never have issues. Maybe try that.


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## whitepelican (Feb 15, 2005)

b_scott said:


> my whole network is MAC locked down to addresses and assigned IP's. I never have issues. Maybe try that.


I'm sorta going the opposite direction. I changed from a static IP to DHCP on one of my Tivos. It was noticeably faster to start up Netflix after that. It was still very, very slow to page through my queue, though. But now, it appears that once I paged through the whole queue one time, each time I go back to Netflix everything including the paging up/down is faster again. I'm wondering if it will stay that way now. I'll keep checking back and maybe even see what happens after a reboot. But I really don't want to use DHCP.


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## shaun-ohio (Jun 21, 2003)

i love the netflix feature on the series 4 xl, the nice thing is you dont have to go online, and add movies to your instant q, because they are alot of catagories to watch, and watch now is neat also.


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## baimo (Mar 2, 2006)

crxssi said:


> It can't be both. Either the max resolution is 1080i (which is the same as 1080p) = 1920x1080 or it is 720P = 1280x720.
> 
> Either way it won't matter when watching Netflix streaming.


you are right. he set is 720 progressive whic his pretty much the equivalent of a 1080 interlaced picture

However you are dead wrong if you think 1080I and 1080P are the same, not all 1920x1080 are equal

as i stated the 1080i is aproxiamtely the same quality picture as a 720p

a 1080 progressive scan picture is theoretically a much higher quality. It was unavailable aproximatrly 6 years ago when I bought my pioneer elite

the newer pioneer elite plasmas offer 1080p


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

baimo said:


> a 1080 progressive scan picture is theoretically a much higher quality. It was unavailable aproximatrly 6 years ago when I bought my pioneer elite


The physical resolution of the TV (which is what he was talking about) is the same on a 1080i and a 1080p TV.

The (normal) field rate of 1080i is 60Hz with a frame rate of 30Hz. The (normal) field rate of 1080p is 30Hz with a frame rate of 30Hz. As any videophile will tell you, interlaced video is an abomination and it should have DIED with SD. 1080i should never have existed- it should have been 720p/1080p from the start, but it was probably a compromise at the time based on limitations of hardware of 20 years ago.

Since it took forever to finally get HDTV going, it is unlikely we will see a broadcast change to 1080P (or h.264) for a loooooong time, if ever, since the standards are set.


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## badguitar (Apr 15, 2010)

Been using NetFlix with TiVoPremiere for a few weeks now - works great. Takes maybe 10-15 seconds for the initial load - after that, no issues. I've streamed about 10-12 movies and my daughter has streamed 20 or so episodes of some Disney Channel thing.

BTW - I have my TiVo direct connected to my router - not wireless. I have not tried streaming wireless via Wii yet.

Only issue may be my 250GB monthly allowance from Comcast.


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## theschles (Apr 3, 2007)

Not pleased that the NetFlix experience that I expected -- and what is available via Windows Media Center -- i.e. searching by genre.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

theschles said:


> Not pleased that the NetFlix experience that I expected -- and what is available via Windows Media Center -- i.e. searching by genre.


What you'll miss with using Windows Media Center is HD content, unless something has changed recently...


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## shaun-ohio (Jun 21, 2003)

i love the netflix on the series 4 xl, i watched whatever happened to baby jane, and auntie mame, both of these classic movies were in hd, the pic was awesome, i have not had any issues with netflix, like i did with the series 3, i have the 65 inch mitsubshi 1080 dlp, and i have the wireless router and the tivo wireless adapter hooked up, they both work fine as speed etc. it is nice to do a search for netflix movies and watch instant, this is a great feature, didnt have that on the series 3. oh yes almost forgot netflix has free starz movies also, alot of them are in hd also


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## jyeghiayan (Jan 21, 2011)

My Series 3 used to stream HD content well but my new Premiere is awful. The stream pauses every minute for the first 15 minutes of a movie/TV show and its really annoying. TiVo support is no help (but they are really nice people) and Im considering returning the box and placing my Series 3 in its place.


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## rplush (Nov 23, 2010)

As long as you know what you want to watch on netflix, the experience on s4 tivos are great, just search and play. I love it. I barely switch to my 2nd gen apple tv or ps3/xbox to watch something on netflix. But if you want to discover a new movie to watch, it has been a horrible experience for me. I haven't found a way to browse a movie without having movies from Amazon vod to popup. I don't want to take off amazon vod from the provider list as I order from there often. 

Can someone share their way of discovering netflix movies on the premiere? Its been a nightmare for me


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

jyeghiayan said:


> My Series 3 used to stream HD content well but my new Premiere is awful. The stream pauses every minute for the first 15 minutes of a movie/TV show and its really annoying. TiVo support is no help (but they are really nice people) and Im considering returning the box and placing my Series 3 in its place.


Have you tested your Internet connection for speed and quality? My DSL sh** the bed about 4 weeks ago. When stuff isn't working correctly I can not stream anything to anything. Seems to be worse latter in the day and in the evening. Extended ping tests show 25% or worse packet loss which makes streaming impossible. Whats frustrating is it normally works just fine early in the morning.

Good Luck,


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

jyeghiayan said:


> My Series 3 used to stream HD content well but my new Premiere is awful. The stream pauses every minute for the first 15 minutes of a movie/TV show and its really annoying. TiVo support is no help (but they are really nice people) and Im considering returning the box and placing my Series 3 in its place.


same problem I'm having. Cox Orange County - Premiere with Netflix causes lots of starting and pausing and starting and pausing. Ran the same file simultaneously on my laptop using WiFi (while the Tivo is hardwired to my router via a switch) and the laptop ran the program stutter free.
This is bad, as it should have been the other way around, aka the laptop should be the unit that stutters, not the Premiere.

Any ideas how to fix this before I cancel my Netflix service?

Film was 'Girl who kicked the hornets nest", and it appeared to be in HD.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

rplush said:


> As long as you know what you want to watch on netflix, the experience on s4 tivos are great, just search and play. I love it. I barely switch to my 2nd gen apple tv or ps3/xbox to watch something on netflix. But if you want to discover a new movie to watch, it has been a horrible experience for me. I haven't found a way to browse a movie without having movies from Amazon vod to popup. I don't want to take off amazon vod from the provider list as I order from there often.
> 
> Can someone share their way of discovering netflix movies on the premiere? Its been a nightmare for me


While there isn't a browse, just choose options in your searches and select free as one of the filters. This should eliminate the Amazon choices since they are rarely free.


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## slingster (Aug 2, 2008)

Deleted


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