# Netflix arrives today!



## davezatz

Netflix arrives today (Monday)! I took a brief video:
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2008-12/netflix-arrives-on-tivo-today/

And here's the release that'll hit the wires at 8:30AM:
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! MOVIES AND TV EPISODES
FROM NETFLIX DIRECTLY TO THE TV THROUGH TIVO DVRs AVAILABLE TODAY

Just in Time for the Holidays, Offering Brings Budget Conscious Entertainment to Consumers

ALVISO, Calif. - December 8, 2008  After announcing a groundbreaking partnership in October with Netflix Inc., TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced that subscribers to both Netflix and TiVo® Series3, TiVo HD, or TiVo HD XL can now access thousands of movies and TV episodes instantly streamed from Netflix directly to their TVs.

The service is being offered at no additional charge to customers who subscribe to both services. This morning subscribers can browse through an expanding library of more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes at www.netflix.com, add them to their Netflix instant Queue, and then watch them on TV with just a click of the TiVo remote. The library includes titles from every genre, with a modest selection of HD content available as well. Both standard and HD titles are expected to grow in the weeks and months ahead.

With so much talk focusing on the economy these days, this partnership makes more sense than ever because it brings people more movies at home, offering substantially more entertainment options than cable or satellite," said Tara Maitra, GM and Vice President of Content Services at TiVo Inc. TiVo offers consumers everything they need from just one box. Not only great content from Netflix, but also movies from The Walt Disney Studios and Amazon, music from Rhapsody, videos from YouTube and even pictures from Picasa Web Albums and Photobucket. And thats all in addition to TiVos core functionality that made us a favorite in the first place. It adds up to a one-of-a-kind value.

Netflix offers an unbeatable combination of convenience, selection, and value, which now extends to TiVo customers, said Netflix Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Kilgore. This partnership is a win-win-win for Netflix, TiVo, and consumers alike.

Movies are streamed from Netflix through TiVo DVRs via wired or wireless broadband connection and a Netflix Queue-based user interface. Members visit the Netflix Web site to add movies and TV episodes to their individual instant Queues. Those choices will automatically be displayed on subscribers TVs and are available to watch instantly through the TiVo service. With the TiVo remote control users can browse their instant Queue, make selections right on the TV screen, as well as read synopses and rate movies. In addition, they have the option of pausing, fast-forwarding, rewinding and re-starting whenever they wish.

For more information on how to have movies instantly streamed from Netflix via your TiVo DVR visit www.tivo.com/netflix.

# # #


----------



## bigpatky

not for me yet, but i just told my tivo to connect to the internet again. hopefully it picks up the message to enable it. i got my fall update this morning.


----------



## moyekj

Can't wait! Don't see it yet after a net connect. Probably sometime tomorrow after a net connect it will show up on my S3s. I've got the instant queue loaded up with stuff to watch, some of them supposedly available in HD.


----------



## bkdtv

Engadget has a preview as well:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/08/tivo-netflix-hands-on/

They feel it works even better than Netflix on the Xbox360.


----------



## tootal2

It works!!!! its on my tivo now


----------



## Enrique

Just as a note to everyone the 30s skip does not work with Netflix-Tivo.

Thanks Tivo, I well play with Netflix more in the morning.


----------



## Da Goon

Working here for me after a forced call home. Watching "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" @ 720p on a wireless connection, started up after about 4 seconds.


----------



## GadgetVirtuoso

TiVo HD and Series 3 added and working without a hitch. Love it!


----------



## bkdtv

If you just got Netflix on your TiVo, be sure to check out HD titles like Pan&#8217;s Labyrinth, Flawless, Heroes: Season 3, and The Office: Season 4.


----------



## hotwire32

Reading this made me go double check my Tivo, when I looked at 10:00 Video On Demand was down for maintence. But this time OMG there it is, checked out Blade Runner, woo hoo it works!!

I just wish there was something that could be done about streaming to Series 2, but now it looks like I'll need to try and pickup one of the "refreshed" Tivo HDs for Ma's X-Mas present!

:up::up:
:up::up:

double/double thumbs up Tivo!


----------



## bigpatky

bigpatky said:


> not for me yet, but i just told my tivo to connect to the internet again. hopefully it picks up the message to enable it. i got my fall update this morning.


one more internet connect and i'm up! christmas has come early


----------



## bkdtv

bkdtv said:


> If you just got Netflix on your TiVo, be sure to check out HD titles like *Pan's Labyrinth*, *Flawless*, *Heroes: Season 3*, and The Office: Season 4.


If you like Sci Fi, "Primer" is another good title if you can tolerate the slow start.


----------



## johnsom

I got a "down for maintenance" message and tried again to find Netflix turned on and activated my series 3.

Now, how about some HD streaming goodness?


----------



## johnsom

The only movie in my queue that is available on Blu-Ray and on the streaming list is Transsiberian, but I just get a black screen and stereo audio when I stream it. Fast forward shows an image, but not HD.

I double checked and HDCP is listed in the system info. as enabled, so it's not a lack of DRM support. It kind of acts like it though.

The other movies in my queue seem to stream ok, but they are all DVD only in the queue.

Revision:

Outsourced came in HD.... Odd. It has something to do with the "quality" box that comes up when you start a stream. This one had "HD", but the others didn't.

Sweet. Thank you Tivo and Netflix! Happy holidays for all.


----------



## bkdtv

johnsom said:


> Outsourced came in HD.... Odd. It has something to do with the "quality" box that comes up when you start a stream. This one had "HD", but the others didn't.


Only 300-400 of the 12,000 titles are currently available in HD. Netflix is expanding that library a little each week.

As seen in the Engadget screenshot, TiVo clearly identifies when you are watching a title in HD. On HD titles, all 13 "bars" are lit and you see a HD graphic.



*When you activate your TiVo, you will see a new "HD" category under Genre on TiVo's web site*. Here is the *direct link*, although it won't work until you activate your TiVo with Netflix. Note this listing is incomplete, as it currently lists only about 2/3 of the titles available in HD.


----------



## demon

Works here too. Just happened to flip into the Video on Demand menu, and noticed Netflix had appeared. Activated, and streaming works perfectly. Not that I need two devices for Netflix streaming, but since I'll be watching TV through my TiVo already... one less button to push.


----------



## westside_guy

Got HD (720p) when I looked at "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels"


----------



## Da Goon

westside_guy said:


> Got HD (720p) when I looked at "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels"


me too :up:


----------



## Tivoli

Yeah I give this one :up::up::up:

I am only getting SD, but that is probably because of my slow DSL connection. Those who are getting HD, what speed is your ISP connection?


----------



## Da Goon

I've got a ~6mb cable connection from comcast. For internet streaming, the quality is better than I expected it to be.


----------



## bkdtv

Tivoli said:


> Yeah I give this one :up::up::up:
> 
> I am only getting SD, but that is probably because of my slow DSL connection. Those who are getting HD, what speed is your ISP connection?


Stream quality "levels" on Netflix include:

0.5 Mbps (SD)
1.0 Mbps (SD)
1.6 Mbps (SD)
2.2 Mbps (SD)
3.4 Mbps (SD - select titles only)
2.6 Mbps (HD)
3.8 Mbps (HD)

Multiply by 1.5x to determine the Internet connection you would need to maintain each quality level.


----------



## sriggins

Too bad "HD" means prologic audio, not 5.1.

I hate how they abuse the standard definitions we've been using for ages now.


----------



## moyekj

sriggins said:


> Too bad "HD" means prologic audio, not 5.1.
> 
> I hate how they abuse the standard definitions we've been using for ages now.


 That was a major compromise of going with WMV & Microsoft DRM. As stated in Netflix blog multi-channel audio with WMAPro is possible, however few receivers support it so they chose not to use that for now. However it was mentioned that a future update may change that.


----------



## HiKent

So I checked & netflix is on my VOD. Linked accounts & played the first thing on my instant list.

First try failed & sent me back to the program list: Error retrieving program.

Second try worked & started playing after about 10 seconds. Quality was OK (player indicated 5 bars of 9 or so). Played for 5 minutes & then sent me back to the program list.

Third try. When I re-selected, It offered to "play from paused location". Nice. So I selected this & got audio but no video. The "time bar" at the bottom showed when I pressed pause & a small thumbnail frame showed when I pressed FF or REV. Play went back to audio, no video.

Exit VOD & re-try. Same result. I'm rebooting now, but this is not an experience I would like to subject my wife to.

Kent

Note: Rebooting restored video. Played for 2 minutes & went back to netflix program menu.
Not ready for prime-time.


----------



## sriggins

moyekj said:


> That was a major compromise of going with WMV & Microsoft DRM. As stated in Netflix blog multi-channel audio with WMAPro is possible, however few receivers support it so they chose not to use that for now. However it was mentioned that a future update may change that.


Great, not surprising Microsoft is involved with less than expected results. heh


----------



## moyekj

HiKent said:


> So I checked & netflix is on my VOD. Linked accounts & played the first thing on my instant list.
> 
> First try failed & sent me back to the program list: Error retrieving program.
> 
> Second try worked & started playing after about 10 seconds. Quality was OK (player indicated 5 bars of 9 or so). Played for 5 minutes & then sent me back to the program list.
> 
> Third try. When I re-selected, It offered to "play from paused location". Nice. So I selected this & got audio but no video. The "time bar" at the bottom showed when I pressed pause & a small thumbnail frame showed when I pressed FF or REV. Play went back to audio, no video.
> 
> Exit VOD & re-try. Same result. I'm rebooting now, but this is not an experience I would like to subject my wife to.
> 
> Kent


Everything I've tried so far has had 9-10 bars (plus some with 11 & HD symbol) and has played flawlessly. I have Cox HSI Preferred 9 Mbps download as a provider. Who is your provider and what's the download limit and what is your LAN setup? I think this service is going to be hit or miss for some without a decent provider. Of course there could be issues elsewhere such as the Netflix servers and/or your LAN setup.


----------



## westside_guy

Tivoli said:


> Yeah I give this one :up::up::up:
> 
> I am only getting SD, but that is probably because of my slow DSL connection. Those who are getting HD, what speed is your ISP connection?


I'm on Comcast cable - I've supposedly got 6mbps download speeds, but usually I can get closer to 8 (and for the first part, with "powerboost", I can get 14-16mbps). My Tivo is connected to the internet via an 802.11n wireless network.


----------



## moyekj

Sure is nice to be able to start a movie on 1 Tivo, stop it, and then resume right from where you left off on another Tivo.


----------



## HiKent

I'm using HawaiianTel DSL in Honolulu. It's a 3Mbps link & I just did a speednet test to SF & it came out 2.9Mbps. The wireless LAN is set up nicely -- I can watch TTCB HD from my computer to my S3 with no pausing (ie faster than realtime).

My complaint with the TiVo-Netflix experience was not that it paused or provided low quality video, but that it kicked me out -- after giving me audio w/o video. Felt pretty beta-quality.


----------



## EVizzle

set up could not be any easier! I was dreading a long activation process, "typing" with a remote. Well done!


----------



## Resist

I had some issues tonight watching Pan&#8217;s Labyrinth. At a certain spot I tried to fast forward and every time I selected play it goes back to where I started the fast forward. Now I can't get past this point in the movie as it just restarts from this point. I tried watching another movie and it was fine, fast forward and all. Then I went back to Pan's Labyrinth and had the same issues at the same point in the movie. Funny I had no trouble with Netflix on my Xbox, so I am not sure what is happening with it on Tivo.

What will happen to movie streaming when Internet providers limit our downloads per month?


----------



## keenanSR

bkdtv said:


> Stream quality "levels" on Netflix include:
> 
> 0.5 Mbps (SD)
> 1.0 Mbps (SD)
> 1.6 Mbps (SD)
> 2.2 Mbps (SD)
> 3.4 Mbps (SD - select titles only)
> 2.6 Mbps (HD)
> 3.8 Mbps (HD)
> 
> Multiply by 1.5x to determine the Internet connection you would need to maintain each quality level.


How do you tell which "level" you're getting between the 2 HD's? I'm guessing a 13 would be the 3.8Mb/s? Tried one and it looked darn good, pretty impressive little feature.


----------



## Turtleboy

Works great.


----------



## ThAbtO

I got the netflix when I checked vod at 1am here which I activated through the WII. I only had 1 problem so far and that was my THD froze on me once, nothing worked that time, not even the remote light. I had to pull the plug!


----------



## slowbiscuit

Kind of lame that you have to use a PC for queue mgmt instead of being able to search and play anything they have available (a la YouTube). I don't understand this.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

Works perfectly for me
I get 9 bars consistently.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

slowbiscuit said:


> Kind of lame that you have to use a PC for queue mgmt instead of being able to search and play anything they have available (a la YouTube). I don't understand this.


A choice by netflix to get the feature out. Even the Roku box needs to have a queue filled by a PC search.
hopefully netflix is working on a way to allow browsing direct from the device


----------



## RoyK

Working perfectly here. Quality OK - not super but very watchable. 9 bars. Speedtest on my internet connection is 2.5mbps


----------



## nemein

slowbiscuit said:


> Kind of lame that you have to use a PC for queue mgmt instead of being able to search and play anything they have available (a la YouTube). I don't understand this.


Personally I prefer this method (atleast until Tivo figures out w/ all the text entry they are requiring these days a keyboard would be a nice accessory to support ). Then again I usually have a Netflix window open most of the time and computers by the TV so it's really no big deal IMHO.

What I want to know is... I believe it's a one to one ratio of account to device right? So I can't use one Tivo to access multiple Netflix accounts? How do you go about changing the account a device is associated w/?


----------



## joggy

Checked it out this morning. The interface is nice, Tivo did a great job I feel. 

My DSL download speeds are 2.8 mbps and everything is presented in a 4x3 presentation on my display, so native widescreen material is 'squished' into this window. Playon via my PS3 displays the same content streamed from Netflix in its proper widescreen format (Pixies: Loud Quiet for example). 

Do those with higher download speeds see the same 4x3 presentation?


----------



## sharky777

:down: Great HD but NO CLOSED CAPTIONED. Netflix sucks!!!


----------



## davezatz

bkdtv said:


> As seen in the Engadget screenshot, TiVo clearly identifies when you are watching a title in HD. On HD titles, all 13 "bars" are lit and you see a HD graphic.


The problem is you don't know ahead of time which videos in your queue are HD capable. There's no label/tab that I'm aware of. Same deal with the Xbox. Unless I'm missing something...


----------



## RoyK

davezatz said:


> The problem is you don't know ahead of time which videos in your queue are HD capable. There's no label/tab that I'm aware of. Same deal with the Xbox. Unless I'm missing something...


At Netflix in the genres dropdown under the Watch Instantly tab there is a HD genre.


----------



## keenanSR

RoyK said:


> At Netflix in the genres dropdown under the Watch Instantly tab there is a HD genre.


Excellent, thanks, I've been wondering how to find the HD myself.


----------



## donnoh

When I saw this thread I checked my Tivo and saw that Netflix was enabled and I went ahead and tried to activate it. Much to my surprise, my old grandfathered plan wasn't eligible even though I could watch instant movies on my PC. I ended up having to upgrade my plan for a few more dollars a month to get it on my Tivo, bummer.


----------



## davezatz

RoyK said:


> At Netflix in the genres dropdown under the Watch Instantly tab there is a HD genre.


Ah, most of my queue was populated well before they flipped the switch on HD a few weeks ago. I was looking for an HD label on the television interface info screen or in my online queue. I assume it'll get there eventually. I figure I also better take my Roku box out of the closet since that's supposed to go HD any day now, as well.


----------



## skaggs

> Sign up below and we'll keep you in the loop on all the Netflix on TiVo details.


This quote is from TiVo's Netflix webpage: http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/netflix-signup.html

I signed up and have not received an email.

This morning, I went to TiVo Central > Video on Demand and there was no Netfliox option. Just checked again at 8:31AM EST and no Netflix.


----------



## tivoknucklehead

any way to search for HD titles?


edit: n/m, they have a HD genre in the search tab


----------



## davidwiz

RoyK said:


> At Netflix in the genres dropdown under the Watch Instantly tab there is a HD genre.


Strange, its not listed there for me. I dont have this genre listed in the genres dropdown box under the watch instantly tab.


----------



## tivoknucklehead

davidwiz said:


> Strange, its not listed there for me. I dont have this genre listed in the genres dropdown box under the watch instantly tab.


on the website, not the Tivo


----------



## davidwiz

tivoknucklehead said:


> on the website, not the Tivo


Thats where Im looking, I tried with both Firefox and IE. That Genre is nowhere to be found in any of my menus on the website.


----------



## aaronwt

sriggins said:


> Too bad "HD" means prologic audio, not 5.1.
> 
> I hate how they abuse the standard definitions we've been using for ages now.


HD references the video, it has nothing to do with the audio. DVD has up to DD6.1 and that is with crappy SD video.


----------



## davezatz

davidwiz said:


> Thats where Im looking, I tried with both Firefox and IE. That Genre is nowhere to be found in any of my menus on the website.


Here's a pic:


----------



## aaronwt

bkdtv said:


> Engadget has a preview as well:
> 
> http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/08/tivo-netflix-hands-on/
> 
> They feel it works even better than Netflix on the Xbox360.


"the 360's output is really dark, while the TiVo looks bright and crisp."

Someone has an adjustment wrong. The video from the 360 looks correct if you have it set up properly. They obviously don't have it on the proper settings. The two 360s I activated Netflix on has no problem showing the proper picture, but my settings are also correct.

The pictures are bright an crisp from the 360 just like video from all my other devices.


----------



## davezatz

aaronwt said:


> "the 360's output is really dark, while the TiVo looks bright and crisp."
> 
> Someone has an adjustment wrong. The video from the 360 looks correct if you have it set up properly.


Here's an interesting writeup on how Netflix encodes... and hope of CC and multichannel audio.

http://blog.netflix.com/2008/11/encoding-for-streaming.html


----------



## rmorton0573

Am I the only one that does not have it on my Tivo HD, I have forced 3 connections and restarted my DVR still no netflix.


----------



## Scyber

Wow.. so far so good. I have only checked out The Thing in HD, but it looked good (btw, that movie has one of the longest, most boring openining credit sequence. It was like 90 seconds of just credits on a black background).

A few comments so far:

1) Queue Management: Not a huge deal to manage though the computer, but it would be great to be able to do it through the TiVO. My understanding is that Netflix didn't open up the API for this until well after the TiVo work started. So it is possible that this could be added in the future, I think.

2) No profile integration: I realize this is probably not gonna happen since profiles are kinda "unsupported" by NF, but it would be nice to be able to have each user maintain their own watch instantly queue.

3) Quality: initial impression is pretty positive. I was actually bracing myself for much worse. I did get one stream that was only about half the bars and I was pleased with the quality. Of course I was testing on my 32" TV. Probably won't have the same impression on my 52".

So far so good. If the selection (of HD and SD) improves, I may seriously consider dropping pay TV service and going OTA only.


----------



## skaggs

rmorton0573 said:


> Am I the only one that does not have it on my Tivo HD, I have forced 3 connections and restarted my DVR still no netflix.


Nope. See post #47 above

I've now forced 5 connections and still don't have Netflix.


----------



## davezatz

skaggs said:


> I've now forced 5 connections and still don't have Netflix.


Do you have system software v11? Have you rebooted?


----------



## davidwiz

davezatz said:


> Here's a pic:


Thats where Im looking... mine shows Gay & Lesbian then Horror.... no HD listed.


----------



## rmorton0573

I have v11 and I rebooted still a no go


----------



## skaggs

davezatz said:


> Do you have system software v11? Have you rebooted?


I have version 11.0-01-2-652.

I forced a connection 5 times, then rebooted, then forced another connection. Still no Netflix.


----------



## dig_duggler

davidwiz said:


> Thats where Im looking... mine shows Gay & Lesbian then Horror.... no HD listed.


ditto.


----------



## Amnesia

davidwiz said:


> Thats where Im looking... mine shows Gay & Lesbian then Horror.... no HD listed.


Interesting.

You activated from a Series 3/TivoHD?

Does your Netflix account include Blu-ray access?


----------



## dtphonehome

Working great for me! Just signed up for Netflix for the first time since college! So long, FIOS movie package. BTW, the streaming works GREAT with the FIOS 20 mps plan! Yay yay yay! My Tivo just got a hundred times more valuable to me


----------



## joggy

joggy said:


> Do those with higher download speeds see the same 4x3 presentation?


I figured out what was up with this. If my Video is set to 720p Fixed then Netflix displays properly. This will be a tough choice for me since I've always preferred the Native setting. I hate having to seemingly (to me anyhow) sacrifice to get Netflix to look OK on my display.

Otherwise, the addition of Netflix is welcome and works great.


----------



## dig_duggler

Amnesia said:


> Interesting.
> 
> You activated from a Series 3/TivoHD?
> 
> Does your Netflix account include Blu-ray access?


Activated online. Haven't connected Tivo yet, so that's a good first step.

And I signed up for the min plan (8.99). I'm very new to Netflix, so I'm not sure how you enable Blu-ray access and if that is a prerequisite for HD on demand.

Help is greatly appreciated  Thanks Question.

edit: added blu ray access, still no HD option

Double Edit: activated Tivo device and now HD is an option


----------



## ZeoTiVo

Amnesia said:


> Interesting.
> 
> You activated from a Series 3/TivoHD?
> 
> Does your Netflix account include Blu-ray access?


my account does not include Blu-Ray and I see the HD genre under watch instantly


----------



## KJW

Has anyone tried using the service over a wireless connection?


----------



## sriggins

RoyK said:


> At Netflix in the genres dropdown under the Watch Instantly tab there is a HD genre.


The data is not accurate. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was not in the HD genre last night, yet is in HD.


----------



## Amnesia

I'm using it over a wireless bridge. Looks great.


----------



## sriggins

aaronwt said:


> HD references the video, it has nothing to do with the audio. DVD has up to DD6.1 and that is with crappy SD video.


Understood  I bought my first DVD player 3 days before they made US launch.

It is just frustrating to take a step back, but getting HD video is better than SD + 5.1 audio, so for a first step this is very acceptable.


----------



## Adam1115

Guess I better sign up for netflix...


----------



## davezatz

sriggins said:


> The data is not accurate. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was not in the HD genre last night, yet is in HD.


Have you seen other stuff in HD? Could it be the connection... did all bars fill up when buffering?

Regarding wireless, I've had so-so luck with TiVo's wireless adapter and better results with a wireless bridge. Best has been wired. No surprise, I suppose.


----------



## shaun-ohio

got mine today also, love it thanks,tivo !!!


----------



## sriggins

davezatz said:


> Have you seen other stuff in HD? Could it be the connection... did all bars fill up when buffering?
> 
> Regarding wireless, I've had so-so luck with TiVo's wireless adapter and better results with a wireless bridge. Best has been wired. No surprise, I suppose.


Yes we watched a little of Vince Vaughn's WIld West, which looked good in parts, not good in other parts, appeared to have been shot poorly.

Watched some other movie listed in the HD Genre, Surfwise I think? and it showed only like 6 bars and no HD symbol.

I am using TiVo's wireless adaptor, but I do have a 802.11N and a 802.11 g network here (both Apple routers) which has worked great, keeping the N on it's own 5ghz network. I suppose I could get a 802.11 bridge, but then everything would be on N and affect the things I use the most daily, the laptop. Backing up to a Time Capsule over 802.11n is hungry task, so I'd like to keep them separated heh.

I just have no option right now to run ethernet upstairs to the router. I wish you could use existing coax to build a network with....


----------



## moyekj

sriggins said:


> I just have no option right now to run ethernet upstairs to the router. I wish you could use existing coax to build a network with....


 You can do just that using MOCA - I'm doing it myself. All you need is some Motorola NIM100 devices (available pretty cheaply on Ebay) to make a MOCA bridge over coax between your Tivos. Works great and performance is very close to wired 100 Mbps. See this thread for many more details:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=379206&highlight=NIM100


----------



## davezatz

moyekj said:


> You can do just that using MOCA - I'm doing it myself. All you need is some Motorola NIM100 devices (available pretty cheaply on Ebay) to make a MOCA bridge over coax between your Tivos. Works great and performance is very close to wired 100 Mbps.


Another option is Powerline networking. Assuming one's wiring is solid and doesn't span two circuits (like in a 6000sq ft home). I have a 4-port unit in the living room (Xbox, TiVo, Slingbox, other) that connects to the 1-port at my router. Zero configuration and works great, though I've never measured the speed.


----------



## TiVoPony

Yes, a very nice addition to the TiVo Service. We love it at our house, and I only have vanilla DSL. 

Glad you like it!

Pony


----------



## modnar

This is awesome. I'm looking forward to trying it out today. :up:


----------



## Amnesia

sriggins said:


> I suppose I could get a 802.11 bridge, but then everything would be on N and affect the things I use the most daily, the laptop.


I don't follow. Why would a Ethernet bridge force everything to be on 802.11N?


----------



## Turtleboy

It's always awesome when something just works the way it is supposed to. No catches, no tricks, no disclaimers. It just works.


----------



## sriggins

Amnesia said:


> I don't follow. Why would a Ethernet bridge force everything to be on 802.11N?


Because I'd plug everything into the switch connected to the bridge  Can't leave those poor fellers sitting out on wifi land! heh

In all seriousness, I would turn off the Apple TV's wifi and run it over the bridge as well, just to eliminate one more N device from the noise. It doesn't use any bandwidth most of the time.

But these NIM100s are looking interesting.


----------



## Carlos_E

davezatz said:


> Here's a pic:


Do you have to activate your Tivo before the HD genre listing shows up?

I'm a work and my Tivo is at home so I can't activate yet and I do not see the HD genre under Watch Instantly.


----------



## modnar

Carlos_E said:


> Do you have to activate your Tivo before the HD genre listing shows up?
> 
> I'm a work and my Tivo is at home so I can't activate yet and I do not see the HD genre under Watch Instantly.


Same situation for me. I'm assuming you have to activate a HD capable device first. I'll let you know at lunch.


----------



## Carlos_E

modnar said:


> Same situation for me. I'm assuming you have to activate a HD capable device first. I'll let you know at lunch.


Let me know. Thanks!


----------



## jwehman

I've had Software version 11 (was a "11.0p3" or something, meaning early roll-out, then it switched over to standard 11.01 or something a few days ago) and I forced a software update this AM (6:46am MST) and still no NetFlix option. And I also don't have the "HD" option under my Watch Now category, so I'm assuming that once I activate under the S3, then the HD option will be available on the web-site...


----------



## Turtleboy

To those who don't see HD, make sure you click on Watch Instantly first and are not looking under "browse DVDs."


----------



## dig_duggler

Carlos_E said:


> Do you have to activate your Tivo before the HD genre listing shows up?
> 
> I'm a work and my Tivo is at home so I can't activate yet and I do not see the HD genre under Watch Instantly.


Yes. Had same problem, activated Tivo and HD showed up as genre.

Thank you Slingbox.


----------



## Turtleboy

I really like the fact that it remembers where you were on movies you stopped in the middle of, even if it was on a different machine (my xbox 360) weeks ago.


----------



## Turtleboy

Question: Can you only tie a Netflix account to one Tivo account? For example, what's to stop people with different Tivo accounts from sharing a single netflix account in different places?


----------



## Chew

Turtleboy said:


> I really like the fact that it remembers where you were on movies you stopped in the middle of, even if it was on a different machine (my xbox 360) weeks ago.


Awesome. :up:

I'm at work so I haven't been able to try it out yet and "resume" was a question I had. The fact it remembers where I left off on _30 Rock_ S1 on my Xbox is even better!


----------



## rainwater

I think you need a xbox to see the hd category. Hopefully netflix will change this soon.


----------



## bkdtv

Amnesia said:


> Does your Netflix account include Blu-ray access?


Note Blu-ray access is not required for SD or HD streaming.


----------



## cr33p

How exactly do you tell devices about your netflix account? If I have both a Blue Ray player and a Tivo can I use both devices with the Netflix Sub? Is it true you can have up to 4 internet connected devices on your Netflix acct?


----------



## gonzotek

rainwater said:


> I think you need a xbox to see the hd category. Hopefully netflix will change this soon.


No XBox here and it shows for me. I activated my tivo on netflix.com this morning before work; I never looked for the HD genre category before today, so I can't confirm if activation enabled it. At a guess, having any HD-capable streaming device activated on the account probably enables it.

What happens when someone who can't see the category clicks on this link?
http://www.netflix.com/WiHD?lnkctr=hdgenre


----------



## bkdtv

cr33p said:


> How exactly do you tell devices about your netflix account? If I have both a Blue Ray player and a Tivo can I use both devices with the Netflix Sub? Is it true you can have up to 4 internet connected devices on your Netflix acct?


Each device gives you a code to enter on http://www.netflix.com/activate.

With the $8.99/mo plan, you get unlimited streaming to all your Netflix devices, but you can only stream to one device at a time. You would need the $13.99/mo plan to stream to two devices at the same time.



gonzotek said:


> What happens when someone who can't see the category clicks on this link?
> http://www.netflix.com/WiHD?lnkctr=hdgenre


They get page not found.

You must activate an authorized Netflix HD device to see that page.


----------



## sriggins

rainwater said:


> I think you need a xbox to see the hd category. Hopefully netflix will change this soon.


Incorrect.


----------



## davezatz

cr33p said:


> can I use both devices with the Netflix Sub? Is it true you can have up to 4 internet connected devices on your Netflix acct?


Right now I have two TiVo units, an Xbox, and a Roku box linked to my Netflix account. Though I probably won't be using the Xbox now that TiVo is available. Even though the Xbox interface is somewhat nicer, my TiVo is always on (and always quieter).


----------



## Tennesotans

This is a very nice upgrade -- my wife couldn't understand why I was doing a system update check each day for two weeks. I didn't try to explain until everything was "wired up" earlier this morning. She was very impressed.

She is an educator... and talks about "teachable moments"... [email protected] == teachable moment for us


----------



## bkdtv

sriggins said:


> Incorrect.


Note the other poster's information was correct, as of a few hours ago. Netflix made the HD category available to TiVo customers this morning.


----------



## sriggins

bkdtv said:


> Note the other poster's information was correct, as of a few hours ago. Netflix made the HD category available to TiVo customers this morning.


I had the HD category last night around 10pm when I configured NetFlix with the TiVo.

Steve


----------



## ldconfig

Thanks Tivo and Netflix although its 8 days late lol. The update and Netflix work great and went smooth as silk 
ld


----------



## sriggins

8 days late and working is better than on time and broken.


----------



## skaggs

After 8 forced connections and two reboots, I finally have Netflix on my TiVo HD.

Why did TiVo bother to have a webpage for us to sign up to " keep us in the loop on all the Netflix on TiVo details"? They never sent a single email.


----------



## sriggins

Awesome thanks! I bought three used NIM100s for $88+$12 shipping on ebay. We'll see how they work!


----------



## modnar

modnar said:


> Same situation for me. I'm assuming you have to activate a HD capable device first. I'll let you know at lunch.


After activating, I was able to see the HD genre under Watch Instantly (make sure you're on the Watch Instantly tab when looking for the HD genre).


----------



## RoyK

Watched a 2 hour movie with no problem but just tried to enter netflix again and my box locked up tight. No response to any remote button. Now in the process of a pull the plug reset.


----------



## modnar

I just tried to Left Arrow out of an episode of Heroes, and the show is still playing with the "Please Wait..." indicator on the screen.

Hitting TiVo brought me to TiVo central. I was able to reopen the Netflix area fine.


----------



## TiVoStephen

All TiVo Series3, TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL customers using broadband should be able to see the Netflix menu option under TiVo Central -> Video on Demand once they are running software version 11.

If you're not, can you please confirm from System Information the following three items:
1. The first three digits of your TiVo Service Number must be 648, 652, or 658.
2. The software version you're running must begin with "11"
3. You must be connected to broadband

If you're certain about all three, please send me an e-mail ([email protected]) with your TiVo Service Number.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Best regards,
Stephen


----------



## TiVoStephen

skaggs said:


> Why did TiVo bother to have a webpage for us to sign up to " keep us in the loop on all the Netflix on TiVo details"? They never sent a single email.


The e-mail is going out today.


----------



## TiVoStephen

sriggins said:


> 8 days late and working is better than on time and broken.


Hey! The only publicity we ever released said sometime in December. We're not 8 days late -- we're 23 days early. 

Best,
Stephen


----------



## magnus

I agree wit that. I remember seeing only about sometime in December.

Also, I have to say that this service rocks so far. I've watched several movies so far and there's been no lag. And adding my device to a netflix account was a snap.



TiVoStephen said:


> Hey! The only publicity we ever released said sometime in December. We're not 8 days late -- we're 23 days early.
> 
> Best,
> Stephen


----------



## rmorton0573

Finally got it around Noon EST and it Rocks


----------



## jgantert

Looks great! So far, except for Chained Heat 2 (stops after a few seconds -- always in the same spot -- bad encode?), no problems!

Awesome. Finally something to get me to reactivate my Netflix account. Now if they had an online-only subscription. Who needs plastic discs?  

Does anyone know if the Starz 7.99/mo plan includes all of the Watch Instantly content, or just the Starz category?

-John


----------



## mazman

RoyK said:


> Watched a 2 hour movie with no problem but just tried to enter netflix again and my box locked up tight. No response to any remote button. Now in the process of a pull the plug reset.


Ditto. I guess it's going to take a bit to work out the bugs.


----------



## mikeyts

When you bring up the list of HD titles, be sure to click the "Include rated & seen titles" link on the "Gallery view" banner. You can use this link to get to it directly, with that filter turned off.

The list wouldn't seem to be complete--it's only 165 titles and they claim that there are over 300 (and no, they're not counting individual TV episodes, because it's over 500 selections if you do that). I think that their database isn't marked correctly for all of the available HD stuff. We were discussing this discrepancy last week in a thread at AVS Forums (here), and I noted then that I saw two items that were HD that weren't in the HD genre list; since then they added both, as well as another twenty or so.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

TiVoStephen said:


> Hey! The only publicity we ever released said sometime in December. We're not 8 days late -- we're 23 days early.
> 
> Best,
> Stephen


I am starting my Vacation use it or loose it Dec 22nd. I would say you are 14 days Early


----------



## Amnesia

magnus said:


> Also, I have to say that this service rocks so far. I've watched several movies so far and there's been no lag. And adding my device to a netflix account was a snap.


Yes, I agree---great job.

Now I can finally catch up to all the _Heroes_ episodes I lost when my Comcast DVR went crazy. I've been waiting until I could watch them in HD on my TV and I was worried that I'd have to keep waiting until the Blu-ray release...

My only request (so far): I wish that when I brought up my "Watch Instantly" queue on the TiVo there was an indication of what was available in HD...I simply not going to watch any SD shows/movies so I wish I could have those removed...


----------



## westside_guy

KJW said:


> Has anyone tried using the service over a wireless connection?


I have a new Airport Express acting as an wireless bridge/client (not network extender) to connect our Tivo and our Wii to our 802.11n network. I checked out a few "known HD" movies via this new service last night, and I got full bars and 720p HD video. I only tried it for < 60 minutes because I had to get up for work this AM. 

FWIW I have our 802.11n network running in 5GHz only mode, along with a 802.11b/g network (2.4GHz obviously) that the Tivo used to be on back when I was using the Tivo wireless adapter.


----------



## sinanju

Ok... I'll be the only wet blanket then...

I was underwhelmed by the selection -- I was hoping I'd be able to try out Serenity on the service, but no dice. The Sci-Fi selection pretty much sucks.

So, just to try it out, I grabbed season 1 of 30 Rock and the audio is out of sync. I'm not having any audio sync issues anywhere else, and it's just a straight HDMI connection from the TiVo to the TV.


----------



## keenanSR

Chew said:


> Awesome. :up:
> 
> I'm at work so I haven't been able to try it out yet and "resume" was a question I had. The fact it remembers where I left off on _30 Rock_ S1 on my Xbox is even better!


That is nice, it's the sort of feature you normally wouldn't see on an initial rollout of something like this.

Great feature, and just in time for the episodic TV doldrums of Dec.


----------



## keenanSR

sinanju said:


> Ok... I'll be the only wet blanket then...
> 
> I was underwhelmed by the selection -- I was hoping I'd be able to try out Serenity on the service, but no dice. The Sci-Fi selection pretty much sucks.
> 
> So, just to try it out, I grabbed season 1 of 30 Rock and the audio is out of sync. I'm not having any audio sync issues anywhere else, and it's just a straight HDMI connection from the TiVo to the TV.


It is rather sparse so far, but I am somewhat impressed by the number of foreign films available, in fact, it seems to be an inordinately large number in relation to the total number of offerings, works for me though.


----------



## sinanju

Oh... and looking at 5th Element, which is supposedly playing in HD with all bars, doesn't look nearly as good as my plain old Superbit copy of the movie upconverted on my Oppo DVD player.


----------



## mikeyts

keenanSR said:


> It is rather sparse so far, but I am somewhat impressed by the number of foreign films available, in fact, it seems to be an inordinately large number in relation to the total number of offerings, works for me though.


Yeah--I love the large number of indie films, including most of the HDNet Movies Sneak Previews stuff (a series of theatrical release indie films that HDNet shows once or twice on a day just before they get released to theaters)--just about all of them are available in HD on Netflix WI.

Those mostly interested in big ticket theatrical releases should check out the list of Starz Play selections. There are over 1100 titles there, including quite a few relatively recent release commercial films, like _Ratatouille_, _No Country For Old Men_ and _Dan In Real Life_. I don't think that any of them are HD, but I may be wrong.


----------



## modnar

This feature is very nice and well implemented! I watched and episode of _Weeds_ and it worked great. It literally took just seconds to go from TiVo Central to watching something streaming from Netflix since instant movies were already in my queue.

I'm not meaning this is a criticism at all, but I did miss having the clock on the banner. Maybe this will be added in a later update.


----------



## tivoknucklehead

I would gladly pay Netflix much more per month to be able to stream their whole 100k title catalog


----------



## moyekj

For you Star Trek fans, check out original Star Trek season 1 episodes, all in HD (not widescreen, but still good quality from what I've seen)!


----------



## Test

tivoknucklehead said:


> I would gladly pay Netflix much more per month to be able to stream their whole 100k title catalog


I was thinking the same thing. How much are you paying now? How much would you be willing to pay?


----------



## mikeyts

tivoknucklehead said:


> I would gladly pay Netflix much more per month to be able to stream their whole 100k title catalog


I'm sure that many people would . This service is nearly two years old and they've only managed to license a little over 12,000 titles (they launched with only about 1,000). It takes a while to negotiate this stuff and some of the licensing is time-limited--three of the items on my instant queue (_Dangerous Beauty_, _In the Company of Men_ and _The Man From Earth_) will disappear on January 1st.


----------



## djwilso

Netflix is working for me, but it appears that I have run into a problem.

I also have an Xbox and a Roku added on my same account, and I'm on the 1 DVD at a time (unlimited) plan.

After activating Netflix for the TiVo and watching/testing a few movies/shows, which worked fine and some even in HD (Heroes season 3), I clicked LiveTV out of it and then tried to watch something on my Roku box.

On the Roku now, I am getting an error message "*There are already 1 movies being watched instantly from your account right now, which is the limit for your membership.*"

Then I went to the Xbox and am getting the exact same error message.

Rebooting the TiVo does not clear the error.

I decided to give it a while to see if there is some timeout, but two hours later, the error is still coming up on the Roku and Xbox.

I tried deactivating the TiVo, but the error is still coming up. After reactivating the TiVo again, I am able to still view instantly on the TiVo, but not on the Roku or Xbox.

Anyone else seeing this?

Thanks,
Dennis


----------



## lawilson2

I just tried it. Quality is great. The presentation isn't as pretty as on the 360 (I have that too) with the slideshow of movies, but it does the job. I also like that you can remove items from your queue on the Tivo.

One thing I noticed, the audio was like .5 seconds out of sync with the video with 2 movies I checked out, one being an HD stream.

Overall, quality was very stable and I'll be using this over my 360 (I don't like firing up the 360 just to watch a movie). Great job Netflix!!!!!!!


----------



## mikeyts

djwilso said:


> Netflix is working for me, but it appears that I have run into a problem.
> 
> I also have an Xbox and a Roku added on my same account, and I'm on the 1 DVD at a time (unlimited) plan.
> 
> After activating Netflix for the TiVo and watching/testing a few movies/shows, which worked fine and some even in HD (Heroes season 3), I clicked LiveTV out of it and then tried to watch something on my Roku box.
> 
> On the Roku now, I am getting an error message "*There are already 1 movies being watched instantly from your account right now, which is the limit for your membership.*"


I believe that you can watch on as many devices simultaneously as you can hold discs (up to the four that you can register). Just a way to encourage you to pick up a more pricey subscription.


----------



## djwilso

mikeyts said:


> I believe that you can watch on as many device simultaneously as you can hold discs (up to the four that you can register). Just a way to encourage you to pick up a more pricey subscription.


That's not the issue. I should be able to watch instantly on any one of the three activated devices or a computer at a time, and I am currently unable to do that after adding the TiVo to my account.

When I added my Xbox to my account back on Nov 20, I also verified that I was still able to watch on my Roku when I wasn't watching on the Xbox.

What is happening now is that even when I am not watching on the TiVo, I cannot watch on the other devices.

However, watching on the TiVo still works, even after a deactivation/activation.

Should I call NetFlix to see if they need to clear out some flag or something like that? I just thought that before I did that I would see if anyone else is seeing this problem.

Thanks,
Dennis


----------



## modnar

mikeyts said:


> I believe that you can watch on as many devices simultaneously as you can hold discs (up to the four that you can register). Just a way to encourage you to pick up a more pricey subscription.


I think mikeyts's issue is that it doesn't seem to recognize (even after a couple hours) that he's not watching on any other devices once he watched an item on TiVo.


----------



## keenanSR

mikeyts said:


> Yeah--I love the large number of indie films, including most of the HDNet Movies Sneak Previews stuff (a series of theatrical release indie films that HDNet shows once or twice on a day just before they get released to theaters)--just about all of them are available in HD on Netflix WI.


Yes, definitely going to watch some of those, I tend to forget when to record them from HDNet and miss them, plus they're generally content orientated versus image/audio quality which makes them perfect for this viewing environment.


----------



## tivoknucklehead

Test said:


> I was thinking the same thing. How much are you paying now? How much would you be willing to pay?


I'm on the 2 at a time plan plus BluRay for $14.99 per month. If Netflix would offer their whole catalog streamed including all Blu-Ray stuff streamed in HD I'd be willing to pay $25 per month. I hope they are reading this !


----------



## mikeyts

djwilso said:


> That's not the issue. I should be able to watch instantly on any one of the three activated devices or a computer at a time, and I am currently unable to do that after adding the TiVo to my account.


Ah. Sorry.


> Should I call NetFlix to see if they need to clear out some flag or something like that? I just thought that before I did that I would see if anyone else is seeing this problem.


I think that you should report the problem to someone, maybe both Netflix and TiVo.


----------



## smak

One of the best things Netflix has is CURRENT seasons of TV. I watched a CSI episode that I had missed 6 weeks ago without having to wait for it to air again, or watch it on my pc via CBS

-smak-


----------



## bkdtv

sinanju said:


> Oh... and looking at 5th Element, which is supposedly playing in HD with all bars, doesn't look nearly as good as my plain old Superbit copy of the movie upconverted on my Oppo DVD player.


As far as I can tell, 5th Element is not available in HD, at least not on TiVo.

I get 12 of 13 bars lit and no HD logo. If you don't see the HD logo on the quality bar, it's not HD.


----------



## moyekj

bkdtv said:


> As far as I can tell, 5th Element is not available in HD, at least not on TiVo.
> 
> I get 12 of 13 bars lit and no HD logo. If you don't see the HD logo on the quality bar, it's not HD.


 So there are 13 bars total? The quality graphic doesn't appear long enough for me to count them all. Would be nice to have an accurate bit rate vs. # of bars key. Sounds like it's time for a little Netflix/Tivo FAQ (hint, hint, hint).


----------



## bkdtv

moyekj said:


> So there are 13 bars total? The quality graphic doesn't appear long enough for me to count them all. Would be nice to have an accurate bit rate vs. # of bars key. Sounds like it's time for a little Netflix/Tivo FAQ (hint, hint, hint).


Yes, there are now 13 bars total. _Edit: There are 13 total bars on HD programs, 11 total bars on SD programs._

The first six bars appear to be "free" -- that's what you get with their lowest quality streams.


----------



## modnar

bkdtv said:


> Yes, there are now 13 bars total.
> 
> The first six bars appear to be "free," i.e. that's what you get with their lowest quality streams.


Is there a way to tell what the highest quality available is VS the quality your connection will currently support?


----------



## bkdtv

modnar said:


> Is there a way to tell what the highest quality available is VS the quality your connection will currently support?


It would be nice if TiVo offered that feature, but no, they do not.

Stream quality "levels" on Netflix include:

0.5 Mbps (SD)
1.0 Mbps (SD)
1.6 Mbps (SD)
2.2 Mbps (SD)
3.4 Mbps (SD - select titles only)
2.6 Mbps (HD)
3.8 Mbps (HD)

At the moment, there is no way to tell whether reduced quality is the fault of your ISP, the fault of your home / wireless network, the your fault of the TiVo, or simply the best stream offered by Netflix for that program. No matter what connection you have, the best you will ever see on some programs is 5-6 bars because Netflix doesn't have higher quality streams available. Most SD programs seem to be available with 10 of 11 bars, however.

My impression is as follows, but it is difficult to confirm, because even if you have a router capable of showing the bandwidth in use, Netflix will still stream for periods at higher rates for buffering purposes.

13/13 bars (full with HD icon) = HD @ 3.8Mbps
12/13 bars (1 short with HD icon) = HD @ 2.6 Mbps ??? _Never seen this._
11/11 bars (no HD icon) = SD @ 3.4 Mbps ??? _Never seen this._
10/11 bars (1 short) = SD @ 1.6 or 2.2 Mbps ??
9/11 bars (2 short) = _Never seen this._
8/11 bars (3 short) = SD @ 1.0 Mbps
6/11 bars (5 short) = SD @ 0.5 Mbps

Are you confused yet? I don't blame you. Usability with the current progress bar is rather low, because it shows different bars depending on whether you are watching SD or HD. The bars are very small on <40" screens, and given the number of them, near impossible to count in the brief time they show up on the screen.


----------



## husky55

I got sound with HDMI to the TV but no sound from the TivoHD to the Pioneer receiver with the optical cable.

I do not use the TV sound system so this is kind of render Netflix movies useless for me.

No problem with YouTuble or anything else. Firmware version 11.0.

Any work around or solution is appreciated.

Thanks,


----------



## moyekj

husky55 said:


> I got sound with HDMI to the TV but no sound from the TivoHD to the Pioneer receiver with the optical cable.
> 
> I do not use the TV sound system so this is kind of render Netflix movies useless for me.
> 
> No problem with YouTuble or anything else. Firmware version 11.0.
> 
> Any work around or solution is appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,


 According to the Netflix encoding blog:
http://blog.netflix.com/2008/11/encoding-for-streaming.html


> Today, we cannot use WMDRM to deliver AC3 or DD+ audio, which means that only stereo (delivered via WMA) is available. PCs and Macs decode the WMA, and CE players also transcode to PCM for digital connections to receivers.


So it sounds like perhaps by changing Tivo settings to output PCM for audio that may fix your audio issue. Will be interesting to see if that fixes the issue, though it would still be a pain to have to change setting back and forth just to workaround this problem.


----------



## Test

WEIRD...so I just got home to set up my tivoHD with netflix and I punch in the code and it says I already reached the MAX of allowed devices, I have 2 Roku and 2 xboxes. I remember reading that I was allowed up to 6 devices, so I look for it and found it in their help center...

http://www.netflix.com/Help?faqtrkid=5&p_search_text=watch+instantly

"In addition, due to requirements from content providers, there's a limit to the number of unique devices each account can use to watch instantly. Each Netflix account may watch instantly on up to six unique authorized devices, including personal computers and Netflix ready devices."

So I call netflix and the lady seemed happy to help. At first she said the limit was 4 and asked me where I saw it was 6, so I pointed her to the q&a and she was surprised and said that they were told it was only 4. SO, she went to talk to someone and when she came back she clarified that it was either 4 netflix ready devices and 2 pc's or 4 pc's and 2 netflix ready devices. So that is a weird requirement, no? why not 3 pc's and 3 nrd's? or 5 and 1 or 1 and 5?

Anyway, so that mystery was solved, but then I went to check my activated boxes and saw that I can't register a new box until 09/09 even if I deactivate a current one (I tried). So I asked her about that and she said that she didn't know why it was locked down for a year. I asked about the "what if my xbox has to be replaced?" (rrod) and that I already had that done for one of them or what if I break a roku, I would be hosed for a year? So she went and talked to someone again (she called them care takers) and came back with 2 solutions, 1...deactivate a device and leave it for a week and it may unlock a slot or 2...open another account with the minimum price to get another device...I decided to deactivate a device and wait a week.

So don't reach your max devices you'll be locked for a year to those devices no matter what.


----------



## ThAbtO

Test said:


> WEIRD...so I just got home to set up my tivoHD with netflix and I punch in the code and it says I already reached the MAX of allowed devices, I have 2 Roku and 2 xboxes. I remember reading that I was allowed up to 6 devices, so I look for it and found it in their help center...


I once contemplated getting one of those Roku Players, but it meant adding another box to my tv/tivo stack, and being $100 each, I didn't get one. When I heard Netflix was coming to Tivo, that threw the Roku notion out the window.


----------



## husky55

@moyekj,

Thanks for your reply. I just went to Settings-Audio and changed Dolby to PCM. No sound. For good measure I added the analog RCA cable from Tivo to My Pioneer in addition to the Toslink. Still no sound. There is sound in the Samsung TV with HDMI.

My next step is to remove the HDMI cable and replace it with the component cable and the toslink, but I have low expectation since the toslink is working fine with the Hdmi attached to the TV at the moment.

I do not know the problem is with Netflix or Tivo but there is a problem. What is surprising is the problem does not seem to be widespread.

I had hoped to wait until next year for a new Hdmi receiver since my Pioneer 1015TX is working fine so far.


----------



## caryrae73

I only see 11 bars not 13 in the quality box (I have 10 of the 11 bars filled). Does 12 & 13 show up if it is in HD? I did a test and get an average speed of 2.8 mpbs, I take it that is to slow for me to stream HD movies? On Netflix it says to get movies in HD you need "typically 5 Mbps or higher"?


----------



## bkdtv

caryrae73 said:


> I only see 11 bars not 13 in the quality box (I have 10 of the 11 bars filled). Does 12 & 13 show up if it is in HD?


Yes. TiVo shows 13 bars on HD programs, but just 11 bars on SD programs.



caryrae73 said:


> I did a test and get an average speed of 2.8 mpbs, I take it that is to slow for me to stream HD movies? On Netflix it says to get movies in HD you need "typically 5 Mbps or higher"?


TiVo offers HD in 3.8Mbps and 2.6Mbps versions. Your connection would need to sustain closer to 4.0 Mbps to reliably stream the 2.6Mbps HD version.


----------



## moyekj

husky55 said:


> @moyekj,
> 
> Thanks for your reply. I just went to Settings-Audio and changed Dolby to PCM. No sound. *For good measure I added the analog RCA cable from Tivo to My Pioneer in addition to the Toslink. Still no sound. *There is sound in the Samsung TV with HDMI.


 That is odd. I'm using Tivo S3 HDMI for video & RCA stereo outputs now to a Pioneer receiver and get sound from Netflix without issue.


----------



## caryrae73

bkdtv said:


> Yes. TiVo shows 13 bars on HD programs, but just 11 bars on SD programs.
> 
> TiVo offers HD in 3.8Mbps and 2.6Mbps versions. Your connection would need to sustain closer to 4.0 Mbps to reliably stream the 2.6Mbps HD version.


Great, Thanks.


----------



## husky55

moyekj said:


> That is odd. I'm using Tivo S3 HDMI for video & RCA stereo outputs now to a Pioneer receiver and get sound from Netflix without issue.


I tested again my HD recordings, SD and HD TV shows, sound is fine from Toslink to Pioneer. So the Pioneer is OK. I do not get stereo with Netflix movies streamed with Tivo from my Toslink, but I got sound and video with the HDMI cable to the TV. Same program.

My Pioneer has PLIIX so I believe it can decode stereo into 7.1. But I got no signal with my Toslink with Netflix movies. Same setup and 5.1 and 7.1 work fine with other materials. I am at a loss. Don't think changing from HDMI to component cable would work either.

I do have a Panasonic XR-55 in a different setup that I can try with the Tivo-Netflix setup. May be the Pioneer is defective somehow? Although I don't see how it can be.


----------



## sschwar2

How quickly does the the instant queue update to the Tivo? I've added several things and haven't seen it populate on my Tivo. It doesn't seem like it is a real-time update...


----------



## morac

djwilso said:


> On the Roku now, I am getting an error message "*There are already 1 movies being watched instantly from your account right now, which is the limit for your membership.*"


I found the following in TiVo's Netflix FAQ



> If you receive a message indicating that you are already playing the video elsewhere, it is possible that you started playing a video from your Netflix instant Queue on a PC or other device. Please confirm that any such playback is stopped before using Netflix on TiVo. If you have stopped playback and are still seeing this message, try playing another item on the other device and then press stop (or 'Back' in your browser on a PC). If that does not resolve the issue, please *contact Netflix Customer Support at 866-923-0890 for assistance.*


----------



## husky55

sschwar2 said:


> How quickly does the the instant queue update to the Tivo? I've added several things and haven't seen it populate on my Tivo. It doesn't seem like it is a real-time update...


 It updates for me within 5 minutes.


----------



## bkdtv

sschwar2 said:


> How quickly does the the instant queue update to the Tivo? I've added several things and haven't seen it populate on my Tivo. It doesn't seem like it is a real-time update...


I find it updates in 15-20 seconds, but only if you move in and out a program or folder. In other words, the main queue listing doesn't refresh to display changes, but if you select a program and your list and then go back, you do see the new changes.


----------



## caryrae73

In case some people don't know you can activate up 4 devices a year.



> During a twelve month period, you may activate as many as 4 Netflix ready devices. If you activate and then deactivate a device, it will still count against your 4 device limit until the start of the next twelve month period. Any currently active devices will automatically carry over to the next period when your activation limit restarts.


----------



## Turtleboy

I assume a computer doesn't count as a device though.


----------



## moyekj

Turtleboy said:


> I assume a computer doesn't count as a device though.


 When adding computers to the mix the total count of all devices is 6 from what I've read (at most 4 CE devices).


----------



## modnar

Well, I've had TiVo jump out of a Weeds Netflix stream randomly three times now. Twice, it was on a black screen with "Please Wait..." for 30-60 seconds (even after hitting the TiVo button), and the third time it went right to TiVo central. Fortunately, it remembers where it left off, but definitely annoying.

ETA: When I select Video on Demand from TiVo Central, it just jumps right back to TiVo Central.


----------



## Turtleboy

modnar said:


> \
> ETA: When I select Video on Demand from TiVo Central, it just jumps right back to TiVo Central.


After working perfectly, this is happening to me now too!


----------



## slimoli

modnar said:


> ETA: When I select Video on Demand from TiVo Central, it just jumps right back to TiVo Central.


This is happening to me now...Did Tivo pull the service out for a while ?


----------



## Smirks

modnar said:


> Well, I've had TiVo jump out of a Weeds Netflix stream randomly three times now. Twice, it was on a black screen with "Please Wait..." for 30-60 seconds (even after hitting the TiVo button), and the third time it went right to TiVo central. Fortunately, it remembers where it left off, but definitely annoying.
> 
> ETA: When I select Video on Demand from TiVo Central, it just jumps right back to TiVo Central.


I am having this exact same problem. Everything was going fine for 10 minutes or so, and then it started kicking me back to TiVo Central and now I can't even get into "Video on Demand".


----------



## joggy

modnar said:


> ETA: When I select Video on Demand from TiVo Central, it just jumps right back to TiVo Central.


OK, at least its not just me...too many users???


----------



## Turtleboy

I suspect the entire East Coast Tivo users are arriving home and trying this out for the first time, overloading it.


----------



## 72driver

slimoli said:


> This is happening to me now...Did Tivo pull the service out for a while ?


Same thing happening to me now. Started happening around 7PM EST after working perfectly for hours. Could it be all the folks trying it out during the first after work time since we got it? Glad to know it's not just me....


----------



## skiajl6297

slimoli said:


> This is happening to me now...Did Tivo pull the service out for a while ?


Me too! Surfing through my queue and it froze for about a minute then went back to home screen with tivo button. But trying to access video on demand sends the screen black and then it goes back to the home screen. Rebooting now, but it sounds like several are having this issue at the same time.

Having been home all day (sick from work hehe) trying this service out, aside from this current outage, I have been EXTREMELY happy! This is a cool addition, assuming tonight's hiccup is nothing more than a temporary nuissance.


----------



## jeepguy_1980

I just signed up for Netflix today and I think I'm going to dump them. I've watched several shows. So far nearly every cartoon I have downloaded for my son has had sync issues with the audio and a few have had errors that caused the show to jump several minutes.

I haven't noticed any audio syncing issues with some of the more mainstream stuff.


----------



## aus1ander

modnar said:


> Well, I've had TiVo jump out of a Weeds Netflix stream randomly three times now. Twice, it was on a black screen with "Please Wait..." for 30-60 seconds (even after hitting the TiVo button), and the third time it went right to TiVo central. Fortunately, it remembers where it left off, but definitely annoying.
> 
> ETA: When I select Video on Demand from TiVo Central, it just jumps right back to TiVo Central.


I have seen this too. It kicked out to Live TV after about 30 minutes into a stream.


----------



## dig_duggler

72driver said:


> Same thing happening to me now. Started happening around 7PM EST after working perfectly for hours. Could it be all the folks trying it out during the first after work time since we got it? Glad to know it's not just me....


Me too. Although I can't get back to Tivo Central, it just hangs at 'Please Wait' infinitely (infinitely = 5 min of my patience) and I've had to do a hard reboot twice now (in addition to the once on an infinite black screen after clicking 'Watch Instantly' about an hour ago).

Color me unimpressed. Seems great as long as no one else is using it.


----------



## tommy275

selected a movie, the name came up on the screen, and it didn't get past that. no speed meter. no nothing. lost control of tivo at the point. wouldn't go back to live tv. wouldn't go to tivo central. had to unplug the unit to reboot.

another poorly implemented application. after seeing what they did with Rhapsody, I'm not sure why I had my hopes up.


----------



## Turtleboy

tommy275 said:


> selected a movie, the name came up on the screen, and it didn't get past that. no speed meter. no nothing. lost control of tivo at the point. wouldn't go back to live tv. wouldn't go to tivo central. had to unplug the unit to reboot.
> 
> another poorly implemented application. after seeing what they did with Rhapsody, I'm not sure why I had my hopes up.


Give it a chance. It was working perfectly all day long. It's probably just overloaded right now as everyone is coming home and trying it at once.


----------



## 72driver

Working normally again for me now...never had any audio synch problems all day today...


----------



## dig_duggler

Turtleboy said:


> Give it a chance. It was working perfectly all day long. It's probably just overloaded right now as everyone is coming home and trying it at once.


Hard reboots due to unresponsiveness is a pretty large bug IMO. I'm sure it is overloaded, but that's not going to leave a great impression for first time users.


----------



## nemein

Anyone else seeing "scheduled maintenance" when selecting the VOD menu item?


----------



## keenanSR

bkdtv said:


> I find it updates in 15-20 seconds, but only if you move in and out a program or folder. In other words, the main queue listing doesn't refresh to display changes, but if you select a program and your list and then go back, you do see the new changes.


Same here, it seemed almost instantaneous when I played with it last night.


----------



## modnar

nemein said:


> Anyone else seeing "scheduled maintenance" when selecting the VOD menu item?


Yep. Heading is "Scheduled Maintenance" and the main text is "Sorry! Our systems are temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please check back later!"

Hopefully they'll be back up and running soon.


----------



## moyekj

modnar said:


> Yep. Heading is "Scheduled Maintenance" and the main text is "Sorry! Our systems are temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please check back later!"
> 
> Hopefully they'll be back up and running soon.


 Looks like Tivo's HME servers are overloaded. That's one problem with this implementation - it relies on both Tivo HME servers and Netflix servers to be up and stable (not to mention your ISP and your local LAN) for it to work properly.


----------



## rmassey

nemein said:


> Anyone else seeing "scheduled maintenance" when selecting the VOD menu item?


Yup.... and now it works


----------



## modnar

rmassey said:


> Yup.... and now it works


Heh, not for me. Something tells me this is not "Scheduled Maintenance" during primetime viewing on day 1 of a big launch.


----------



## MickeS

modnar said:


> Yep. Heading is "Scheduled Maintenance" and the main text is "Sorry! Our systems are temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please check back later!"
> 
> Hopefully they'll be back up and running soon.


Tried a few minutes ago and that's what I got too.


----------



## modnar

Okay, now it is working for me, too.


----------



## jaj2276

Does anyone know where the netflix servers are located? I have a 6mbps connection through Comcast (confirmed through www.speakeasy.net) but I'm not getting HD titles from Netflix.


----------



## TiVoStephen

rmassey said:


> Yup.... and now it works


We had to roll a new version of the application on one of our servers around 4:30pm Pacific. It took about 15 minutes. During that time, randomly some customers may have seen the maintenance message.

For all of you who were having trouble launching the Video on Demand message, are you still seeing an issue?

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Best,
Stephen


----------



## mohanman

Man, I got it working, but I have COMCRAP! Yippie! 6 mbps, and I can't get it past 1/2 the bars. Great.. never again.. never again.. if I have a freaking actually have a choice of providers when I move.


Mo


----------



## dig_duggler

Went to 'Watch Instantly' and have been at 'Please Wait' for 4 minutes. Unit is unresponsive to 'Tivo Central' button (and any other). Hard reboot #4


----------



## modnar

I had no problem starting several items and was seeing the "Maintenance" message earlier.


----------



## RoyK

dig_duggler said:


> Hard reboots due to unresponsiveness is a pretty large bug IMO. I'm sure it is overloaded, but that's not going to leave a great impression for first time users.


Doesn't leave a good impression for anyone. No excuse for it. Should timeout with an error message or something but not hang so a plug pull is necessary. Poor programming.


----------



## keenanSR

Working fine up here in Santa Rosa, Cashback in HD, full bars(13). Using Comcast with 16/2 service.

I'm going to guess that those with a vanilla DSL connection simply aren't going to have enough bandwidth to get any HD.


----------



## Oberon2006

I'm VERY happy that this is active now! I also have an XBOX 360, but I didn't want to have to pay for their Gold service to stream Netflix.


----------



## modnar

By the way, thanks for the update TiVoStephen!


----------



## Doh

modnar said:


> By the way, thanks for the update TiVoStephen!


:up: best thing since dual tuners


----------



## brermike

This has been working great for me this morning and tonight. I have DSL and the quality meter has been full for both SD and HD content. I thought I'd have subpar quality but it's been perfect so far. Thanks TiVo and Netflix


----------



## keenanSR

brermike said:


> This has been working great for me this morning and tonight. I have DSL and the quality meter has been full for both SD and HD content. I thought I'd have subpar quality but it's been perfect so far. Thanks TiVo and Netflix


That's good to hear, I guess my assumption about DSL was off the mark.


----------



## [email protected]

Not as good as the Roku box, though, for watching old TV series.

The Roku box shows which episodes I have watched, and automatically selects the next one (or the current one if I'm only part-way through an episode). Although this information must be available (it's kept in the Netflix database) my TiVo doesn't use it, so I have to manually keep track of where I am in a series.


----------



## moyekj

[email protected] said:


> Not as good as the Roku box, though, for watching old TV series.
> 
> The Roku box shows which episodes I have watched, and automatically selects the next one (or the current one if I'm only part-way through an episode). Although this information must be available (it's kept in the Netflix database) my TiVo doesn't use it, so I have to manually keep track of where I am in a series.


 As the initial implementation I think it's a very good start. The good news in being an HME application is it's easy for Tivo to add new capabilities without needing to push new software to our boxes, so I think we will likely see updates over the next few months to add more features.

I was actually pleasantly surprised that in initial implementation one can already delete items from the list and use thumbs up/down for rating.


----------



## Adam1115

:down:

Halfway through the movie it went back to the main menu, had to start the stupid movie from the beginning.

Didn't anyone beta test this thing??


----------



## nemein

I think the servers a little overloaded right now... It's locked up/dropped out about 1/2 dozen times in the first 40mins of a 1:40 movie


----------



## gimmay

Watched Wild Hogs today. I got 9 of 10 bars for quality. Video was very smooth.

It did go back to the menu like 2-3 times and when I went back into the movie, it picked up from where it left off.

But after the 3rd time going back to menu, it would not let me get back to netflix support until I restarted the TiVo HD... After that it played the rest of the movie fine, about 2/3rd of the movie.


----------



## KarlH

nemein said:


> I think the servers a little overloaded right now... It's locked up/dropped out about 1/2 dozen times in the first 40mins of a 1:40 movie


Yup, for me, it only works for around 10 minutes at a time, before the connection resets and kicks me all the way back out to the top menu. That assumes, of course, that streaming actually works -- right now, selecting "Video on Demand" does nothing, and goes right back to the top menu.

Some server, somewhere, appears to have been turned into roadkill by all of the Tivo on-demand users.

Hopefully, this will all get resolved in the next couple of days.


----------



## Resist

nemein said:


> I think the servers a little overloaded right now


Overloads should not happen considering Tivo wants their box in every home. What did they think would happen? Come on Tivo get it together!


----------



## mzupan

KarlH said:


> right now, selecting "Video on Demand" does nothing, and goes right back to the top menu.


Same thing is happening to me.


----------



## nemein

Resist said:


> Overloads should not happen considering Tivo wants their box in every home. What did they think would happen? Come on Tivo get it together!


I would probably put this one on Netflix not Tivo (of course I don't know the backend infrastructure looks like... so maybe it is Tivo's problem).


----------



## KarlH

nemein said:


> I would probably put this one on Netflix not Tivo (of course I don't know the backend infrastructure looks like... so maybe it is Tivo's problem).


Netflix streaming to a PC appears to work fine, and so it appears that the issues are on Tivo's side.


----------



## moyekj

nemein said:


> I would probably put this one on Netflix not Tivo (of course I don't know the backend infrastructure looks like... so maybe it is Tivo's problem).


 No, the fact that people are being dropped all the way out of the application and then are having trouble re-entering Video On Demand points the finger squarely at Tivo. Plus TivoStephen mentioned above issue with Tivo server update. Their HME servers have probably not experienced this load level in a long time (if ever), but hopefully after some time the demand levels will normalize and Tivo will stabilize the servers.


----------



## nemein

Gotcha... missed that one. Too many threads about the same thing going on at once


----------



## Saturn

KarlH said:


> Netflix streaming to a PC appears to work fine, and so it appears that the issues are on Tivo's side.


+1. Kicked out every 10-20 minutes, all the way back to TiVo Central. I gave up for tonight.


----------



## enthalpy

Several threads leading to the same conclusions here. I can't watch a movie for 20 minutes and then have to navigate back through the menu when it crashes. I am hoping after this initial euphoria that things settle down and movies from Netflix become watchable.


----------



## HomieG

Looks like they've got to work out some kinks. This experience was unlike the extremely positive, flawless experience when I got the Roku Netflix decoder. Oh well, hope they get it ironed out soon.


----------



## kas25

Same here. Couldn't even get into Video on Demand to see if Netflix is available.


----------



## danpedraza

There does not appear to be browsing directly from the tv. You have to put the videos in the instant que first from the computer.. Is that right?


----------



## hotwire32

On hold with support, I'm still getting Schedule Maintenance message


----------



## DinoBambino

I've been receiving this message for a few hours - "There are already 1 movies being watched instantly from your account right now, which is the limit for your membership."

I contacted Netflix and found out that the reason I am getting that message is because I clicked on the Starz Play link under the Watch Instantly tab. The tech support guy said that there is a bug on the website where the Starz Play feature hoses up the Watch Instantly streaming capability for two hours!

Don't click on Starz Play!


----------



## HomieG

Getting "Schedule Maintenance" message now here too.


----------



## KarlH

danpedraza said:


> There does not appear to be browsing directly from the tv. You have to put the videos in the instant que first from the computer.. Is that right?


It does appear to work that way.


----------



## ATB

10:00 pm in NJ and _still_ seeing the maintenance screen.



TiVoStephen said:


> For all of you who were having trouble launching the Video on Demand message, are you still seeing an issue?
> 
> Apologies for the inconvenience.
> 
> Best,
> Stephen


----------



## dig_duggler

From a showing-off-the-new-feature perspective, day one is a disaster. I'm sure when it worked for many of you it was great. But right now it's a lemon.

And I know I'm beating a dead horse, but if there's a connection or operation that's taking more than 5 minutes, there should be a way for the user to exit the application without pulling the power cord. My impression right now - I will check it out again, but not during anytime where I might be recording a program or I think a lot of people are using it. I'm doubting that's the desired impression.


----------



## hotwire32

They say anywhere from 24 to 48 hours to resolve there "known issue"  looks bad for Tivo, maybe I'll just get mom a Roku player for xmas instead.


----------



## [email protected]

KarlH said:


> Yup, for me, it only works for around 10 minutes at a time, before the connection resets and kicks me all the way back out to the top menu. That assumes, of course, that streaming actually works -- right now, selecting "Video on Demand" does nothing, and goes right back to the top menu.
> 
> Some server, somewhere, appears to have been turned into roadkill by all of the Tivo on-demand users.
> 
> Hopefully, this will all get resolved in the next couple of days.


<AOL>
Me Too!!
</AOL>

Registered the first TiVo a couple of hours ago with no problems. Watched an episode of "Hercules" just to check everything was working, and things mostly worked, although there was one pause to refill the buffers, which shouldn't really happen with my Comcast connection - it never happened on the Roku Box.

Tried to register the second TiVo 15 or so minutes ago and got the dreaded "Servers down for Maintenance" screen.

I suppose I should check the PS3 to see if that's got Neflix yet ...
(That will be my four devices for the year, I guess).


----------



## KarlH

ATB said:


> 10:00 pm in NJ and _still_ seeing the maintenance screen.


It's working for me, again. It's been 20 minutes since it died -- hopefully, it'll keep on working.


----------



## hotwire32

evidently my watched pot isn't planing on boiling 

tivo has let me down, guess I'll go back to REGULAR TV for tonight


----------



## HomieG

KarlH said:


> It's working for me, again. It's been 20 minutes since it died -- hopefully, it'll keep on working.


Did they really build this to support one stream to just one customer


----------



## VidiotDave

Love the feature. Watched a movie before things locked up...oh well. It's funny, though--getting the maintenance screen, but if I go from the "It's Netflix on Tivo!" ad on the Tivo Central screen, it works just fine...


----------



## jeblis

This is really cool and convenient (and free since I already have netflix), but yeah tonight there seem to be a lot of problems and likely more users than they were expecting.


----------



## mikeyts

I got bounced out a couple of times on my Series3 and it froze up on a black screen for a few minutes once, but it came back without a reboot.

I then switched to the Xbox to continue watching and got bounced out of that as well. It restarted without a problem but it lost my place. It'll get sorted out, by and by .


----------



## Resist

I am still having the same issues trying to watch Pan&#8217;s Labyrinth on my Tivo. It keeps going back to a point in it and won't allow the movie to keep playing. But thank goodness I have Netflix on my XBox because this movie worked fine on it allowing me to finish it. This tells me the issue is on the Tivo side of things. Come on Tivo get it in gear already!


----------



## Carlos_E

MickeS said:


> Tried a few minutes ago and that's what I got too.


I guess you have to keep trying. I saw the maintenance message for over a half hour but I finally got it working now and just activated my Tivo.


----------



## mwp

HomieG said:


> Getting "Schedule Maintenance" message now here too.


that means "we are in the process of buying more bandwidth" lol.


----------



## KarlH

HomieG said:


> Did they really build this to support one stream to just one customer


Well, I imagine there's at least 10 of us .... 

Oh, foo. Just finished watching a video, went back to the queue index, and everthing was fine. Accidentally went back to the top menu, and now I can't get back in.


----------



## TiVoStephen

Folks,

We're very sorry about the messages you're seeing with regards to being down for maintenance. Our team is investigating. We appreciate your patience.

Best regards,
Stephen


----------



## MickeS

Carlos_E said:


> I guess you have to keep trying. I saw the maintenance message for over a half hour but I finally got it working now and just activated my Tivo.


I tried a few times, got it to the VOD screen once, then went back out and never got back in.

I'm guessing they didn't REALLY have any "Scheduled Maintenance" at primetime on the first day of release. 

Doesn't matter to me as I was just gonna try it out anyway, not planning on watching anything tonight. But I did sign up for the Netflix trial just for this.  Though it'll be barely SD as I only have a 1.5 MBit connection...


----------



## Hew

It worked great for me until about an hour ago. I watched a few episodes of 30 rock in HD, with no major issues. The only problem before the meltdown of the server(I guess) is that the audio in the first episode of 30 rock was behind the video by just a bit. After that it worked great.

I wonder how many people that were thinking of getting a TiVo will get one now that we have Netflix. This service saves me a bunch of money. I paid $3 bucks for Bigger, Faster, Stronger, on Amazon VOD a few days ago, now its free. Just wish that Netflix would use some steroids for their Watch Now selection.


----------



## aaronwt

No go for me on the TiVo, but it's still working flawlessly on my 360.


----------



## MickeS

aaronwt said:


> No go for me on the TiVo, but it's still working flawlessly on my 360.


I'm guessing it's the TiVo HME servers that are the problem. That's just a very uneducated guess though.


----------



## Adam1115

Right in the middle of the movie, kicked back to the main screen, then got the scheduled maintenance message.

This sucks.


----------



## TiVoStephen

Hi folks, sorry again for the problems. We are in the midst of correcting the issue. You should see the Video on Demand menu behave more consistently now, and the last few errors should be fixed within the next 30 minutes. We'll spend more time tomorrow beefing up the application. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Best regards,
Stephen


----------



## Resist

Why do I not believe this.


----------



## Adam1115

And dumped to live tv....


----------



## lasergecko

I guess TiVo shouldn't have used the same servers as Dr Pepper! 

Odd thing though, last night I Resumed Playing from the pause point on Strange Brew from a few months ago. The audio was severely lagged behind the video and it couldn't be fixed.

How cool though! I hadn't looked at the Instant Play in awhile and I was amazed to see Goin' South. Cool beans!


----------



## KarlH

Resist said:


> Why do I not believe this.


Well, I'm willing to give them a chance (or two or three). Overall, Tivo (the company) has been pretty good. This might just be a bonehead mistake -- one that could possibly take a few days to resolve, if they have to rush out and buy more hardware (for example).


----------



## badahab

Wow this is awesome. I'm glad I didn't get the roku thing now. I tried watching Earth2 and got kicked out a couple of times, but the last 45 minutes of the first part played fine. I didn't go looking for any HD content but the SD is not bad. Pretty cool for something that doesn't cost me anymore than what I was already paying. 5.1 would be a nice little add-on though. 

On a side note.... I can't believe how dated Earth 2 looks. I haven't seen it since it came out in the mid 90's. I remember the effects being better... now I'm afraid to go back and watch Seaquest!

-Sean


----------



## mwp

KarlH said:


> Well, I'm willing to give them a chance (or two or three). Overall, Tivo (the company) has been pretty good. This might just be a bonehead mistake -- one that could possibly take a few days to resolve, if they have to rush out and buy more hardware (for example).


the response was probably a little overwhelming for them.

goes to show how much we want on demand content.

Come on tivo lets get comcast on demand next (and you wont have to host it - lol).


----------



## MickeS

I got my Netflix streaming working now. I don't get HD though, get 6/11 of on quality meter. Picture quality is worse than Amazon Unbox on my 1.5 MBit connection. User interface is smooth, navigation is a snap (hopefully it stays that way, ).

One annoying thing is that the Aspect Ratio button for the TiVo doesn't work in Netflix, but the Aspect Ratio you set in TiVo live TV still applies. I had to go back to live TV to fix the aspect ratio and then go back into Netflix (fortunately, left arrow from live TV just brought me back directly to the Netlfix menu).

I'm watching "The King of Kong" right now, and for some reason that's in 2.35:1 aspect ratio, however it doesn't seem to be its native aspect ratio - titles on screen are covered by the bottom black bar on my widescreen TV. Don't know if this is TiVo's or Netflix's problem.

If I had a faster internet connection, the $9 for this would totally be worth it, IMO. Great work TiVo, now that it works for me.


----------



## bkdtv

MickeS said:


> I got my Netflix streaming working now. I don't get HD though, get 6/11 of on quality meter. Picture quality is worse than Amazon Unbox on my 1.5 MBit connection. User interface is smooth, navigation is a snap (hopefully it stays that way, ).


As far as I can tell, 6/11 translates to 500 Kbps. The 1500 and 2200 Kbps streams look *much* better.


----------



## MickeS

bkdtv said:


> As far as I can tell, 6/11 translates to 500 Kbps. The 1500 and 2200 Kbps streams look *much* better.


Yeah, I would think so. This is slightly better than Hulu. Not complaining though, I honestly didn't expect it to look even this good on my connection.


----------



## KarlH

It seems to be working now. I'm getting 10/11. Woo.


----------



## moyekj

Seems to have stabilized and is working fine now that not everyone is pounding on it.


----------



## KarlH

moyekj said:


> Seems to have stabilized and is working fine now that not everyone is pounding on it.


lol, that's probably because everyone is sleeping. Just wait until tomorrow night.


----------



## Carlos_E

Hew said:


> I paid $3 bucks for Bigger, Faster, Stronger, on Amazon VOD a few days ago, now its free. *Just wish that Netflix would use some steroids for their Watch Now selection.*


I compete bodybuilding. That really made me laugh out loud.  LOL.


----------



## ilh

Can someone explain why TiVo servers are necessary for the Video On Demand page to even show up? I can see TiVo providing the list of available services, as that can change over time, but it sure seems like your TiVo unit ought to cache the previous server response so the entire network of TiVos doesn't go dumb when the server is overwhelmed. Presumably this is just a mapping from service name/options to provider servers. Presumably, Netflix would work fine if my TiVo would have just talked directly to Netflix.

As it was, for about 5h last evening, after watching 21 minutes of The Office, I couldn't get past the initial VoD screen last night with the Scheduled Maintenance and then later instantly returning to the Central screen. It just makes me scratch my head why every TiVo that goes to the VoD screen needs to hammer on a TiVo server. The scalability of that approach seems questionable, especially if they are not using something like Akamai (unlikely). All that and the VoD screen is a crappy 480i SD.

Anyways, I sure hope they work out the kinks. I was seeing 11/11 video quality that was quite impressive for streaming on demand. I could get hooked.

--Lee


----------



## Jimbo713

Here's a "story" about Netflix that was really funny at our house last night. We have been watching WALL-E on DVD lately, and with all the "Hello Dolly" references, my wife wanted me to go out to Netflix and rent it. But - I found it was an "instant watch" title, so I added it to our que to view later last night. Well - we pulled it up - and it WASN'T "Hello Dolly!" Not even a movie with that title. I don't know what movie it was but it began with burning buildings and explosions! We just turned it off.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

ilh said:


> Anyways, I sure hope they work out the kinks. I was seeing 11/11 video quality that was quite impressive for streaming on demand. I could get hooked.
> 
> --Lee


Yah, i was watching some of Pan's labrynth this morning, 7am EST, at 10 bars HD and it looked awesome.


----------



## Sapphire

I signed up for netflix again last night (dumped them years ago due to throttling).

Tried to watch Ratatouille and after about 40 minutes it kicked me out.

Using my 10mbps connection, I got 10/11. Hmm, I guess I should talk to the cable co about upgrading me to 30 meg.


----------



## dig_duggler

TiVoStephen said:


> Hi folks, sorry again for the problems. We are in the midst of correcting the issue. You should see the Video on Demand menu behave more consistently now, and the last few errors should be fixed within the next 30 minutes. We'll spend more time tomorrow beefing up the application. Sorry for the inconvenience.
> 
> Best regards,
> Stephen


Thanks Stephen. If you're still monitoring this thread, can you let us know when improvements have been made?

I'd like to try again and give your service another shot, but I'd like to minimize the odds of me having to do another hard reboot.


----------



## moyekj

ilh said:


> Can someone explain why TiVo servers are necessary for the Video On Demand page to even show up? I can see TiVo providing the list of available services, as that can change over time, but it sure seems like your TiVo unit ought to cache the previous server response so the entire network of TiVos doesn't go dumb when the server is overwhelmed. Presumably this is just a mapping from service name/options to provider servers. Presumably, Netflix would work fine if my TiVo would have just talked directly to Netflix.


 No, simply linking to Netflix servers is NOT sufficient. Tivo is using HME protocol to run this application (and others such as YouTube) which means the user interface you are seeing is all hosted by an application running on HME servers, in this case on Tivo servers. i.e. Any button presses you perform are now interacting with HME server which is communicating back to your Tivo and telling it what to do - similar to a web page you connect to via internet. The HME server is in turn pulling data and video streams from Netflix servers, but both HME servers and Netflix servers need to be up and running properly for this app to work.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

Raj said:


> I signed up for netflix again last night (dumped them years ago due to throttling).
> 
> Tried to watch Ratatouille and after about 40 minutes it kicked me out.


maybe they remembered to continue throttling you


----------



## Sapphire

ZeoTiVo said:


> maybe they remembered to continue throttling you


You think!!


----------



## Turtleboy

Ok, this morning it caused a complete freeze that required a hard reset.


----------



## modnar

I had no problem watching a couple tv shows via Netflix last night (after TiVoStephen's update).


----------



## Pafrican

I haven't had any hard-reset issues. However, my sound is all wonky. I mean, it matches up with the video, but it has a lot of noise going on and is kinda tin-like if that makes sense. Almost feedback-like.

Is this a connection speed issue? The video looks fine just having audio issues. When I back out of the movie to the Tivo homescreen, the sound effect has the same sound issue. Just not sure if this is a netflix/tivo or connection speed problem.


----------



## Adam1115

moyekj said:


> No, simply linking to Netflix servers is NOT sufficient. Tivo is using HME protocol to run this application (and others such as YouTube) which means the user interface you are seeing is all hosted by an application running on HME servers, in this case on Tivo servers. i.e. Any button presses you perform are now interacting with HME server which is communicating back to your Tivo and telling it what to do - similar to a web page you connect to via internet. The HME server is in turn pulling data and video streams from Netflix servers, but both HME servers and Netflix servers need to be up and running properly for this app to work.


I don't think anyone disputes that it works this way. The question is WHY.

Certainly it could've been designed as a downloadable application vs. a hosted one.


----------



## Sapphire

Turtleboy said:


> Ok, this morning it caused a complete freeze that required a hard reset.


That happened to me last night the first time I tried it.


----------



## Sapphire

Adam1115 said:


> I don't think anyone disputes that it works this way. The question is WHY.
> 
> Certainly it could've been designed as a downloadable application vs. a hosted one.


And maybe if they wanted to use it as a HME app, couldn't it run on a local machine so the app runs on the local network? Probably DRM issues in there.


----------



## TroyB

Why is it I read on here about people using connection speeds of 10mbps and not having all the bars filled, My connection hovers around 7mbps on a good day and all I have ever had show is complete full bars with the "HD" also lit up.
Don't tell me after all this time that Time Warner is actually doing something right for me.


----------



## SMWinnie

I subscribed to Netflix - for the first time - to use this service. If the selection keeps expanding faster than my wife and I can catch up, we'll continue to subscribe to Netflix.

Based on two hours of use, better-than-expected quality and completely stable.


----------



## wmcbrine

MickeS said:


> One annoying thing is that the Aspect Ratio button for the TiVo doesn't work in Netflix, but the Aspect Ratio you set in TiVo live TV still applies.


And the annoying thing about _that_ is, on the one title I watched so far ("The Man From Earth"), the aspect ratio was way screwed up. Initially I was set to Zoom mode, and people were stretched, with the top and bottom cut off. In Full mode, it looked correct; in Panel mode, there were sidebars, but not 4:3 sidebars -- maybe 14:9. This is the opposite of normal, where Full mode is the one that _doesn't_ look right. (The few exceptions include the Badoop Badoop show, and the occasional music video.)

The PQ was terrible, and I got kicked out near the end, and couldn't get back on for an hour or so -- just getting the "Scheduled Maintenance" screen. That happened over and over last night, which is why I've only watched the one title. I'm on 20/5 Fios, BTW.


----------



## rainwater

TroyB said:


> Why is it I read on here about people using connection speeds of 10mbps and not having all the bars filled


The bars don't indicate your connection speed. It indicates the quality of the stream for that content. Not all content is in HD, so you will never get full bars for that content. The quality bar does change based on your speed, but it's maximum is different for each content depending on the encodings available for that content.


----------



## wmcbrine

Adam1115 said:


> Certainly it could've been designed as a downloadable application vs. a hosted one.


TiVo doesn't _have_ downloadable applications, period. There's tivoapp -- the monolithic app that controls the regular GUI -- and then there's HME. There's nothing in between.

My attempt to explain this design.


----------



## moyekj

Adam1115 said:


> I don't think anyone disputes that it works this way. The question is WHY.
> 
> Certainly it could've been designed as a downloadable application vs. a hosted one.


 There is no downloadable application support on the Tivos. HME is what provides a similar capability but requires an HME protocol client/host relationship. In any case, being an HME app does make it much more flexible in that Tivo can implement changes/enhancements to the HME server side without requiring a software update to all Tivo boxes.
So I can understand the choice of HME for this and other applications, but that being the case the HME servers need to be very stable, distributed, load balanced, have backup servers and be automatically monitored for issues. I think we're finding out the hard way that's currently not the case.


----------



## morac

I have a S3 connected to a Sony KDL-40XBR4 via HDMI.

I tried to play 4 videos on my and I've had a problem with every video to a varying degree. I'll list them in order of severity:

1. *Pan's Labyrinth* - No sound for the first 20 seconds of play. It doesn't matter if I start at a pause point or the beginning. I can get the sound to play by using trick play to re-buffer, but when I first play the video there is no sound.

2. *Inspector Gadget* - I tried playing two episodes: "Monster Lake" and "Sleeping Gas". Both episodes went into some kind of loop where they would play for a second, re-buffer, skip ahead a few minutes, re-buffer, repeat. Basically it was unwatchable. Also one of the episodes started playing at 720p, but it's not an HD program.

3. *Heroes Season 3: The Eclipse Part 2* - When I tried to play this it started paused (there was a black screen with the play bar indicated the video was paused) so I pressed play. The S3 immediately locked up hard. Not only did it not respond to remote presses, the remote activity light didn't flash and even the clock stopped updating. I had to pull the plug.

I went to test the videos on my PC after that and was told that another device was already streaming so I couldn't. Most likely a result of the S3 locking up while trying to play the video. Hopefully it times out at some point.

Anyone with a S3 have any success playing a video, glitch free?


----------



## KarlH

ZeoTiVo said:


> Yah, i was watching some of Pan's labrynth this morning, 7am EST, at 10 bars HD and it looked awesome.


We watched some of that as an HD test, and we were getting 13/13 bars.

Why does Tivo use such weird numbers? 13 for HD?? 11 for SD???

/"But it goes up to 11!"


----------



## KarlH

morac said:


> Anyone with a S3 have any success playing a video, glitch free?


Just as another data point: we watched a bit of 30 Rock as an HD test (Tivo HD unit), and we noticed that the audio timing was slightly off (lips not quite in sync with the sound).


----------



## Amnesia

morac said:


> Anyone with a S3 have any success playing a video, glitch free?


Yes.

I played _Heroes_ S03E04 "I Am Become Death" yesterday without any issues.


----------



## moyekj

morac said:


> I have a S3 connected to a Sony KDL-40XBR4 via HDMI.
> 
> I tried to play 4 videos on my and I've had a problem with every video to a varying degree. I'll list them in order of severity:
> 
> 1. *Pan's Labyrinth* - No sound for the first 20 seconds of play. It doesn't matter if I start at a pause point or the beginning. I can get the sound to play by using trick play to re-buffer, but when I first play the video there is no sound.
> 
> 2. *Inspector Gadget* - I tried playing two episodes: "Monster Lake" and "Sleeping Gas". Both episodes went into some kind of loop where they would play for a second, re-buffer, skip ahead a few minutes, re-buffer, repeat. Basically it was unwatchable. Also one of the episodes started playing at 720p, but it's not an HD program.
> 
> 3. *Heroes Season 3: The Eclipse Part 2* - When I tried to play this it started paused (there was a black screen with the play bar indicated the video was paused) so I pressed play. The S3 immediately locked up hard. Not only did it not respond to remote presses, the remote activity light didn't flash and even the clock stopped updating. I had to pull the plug.
> 
> I went to test the videos on my PC after that and was told that another device was already streaming so I couldn't. Most likely a result of the S3 locking up while trying to play the video. Hopefully it times out at some point.
> 
> Anyone with a S3 have any success playing a video, glitch free?


Yes, all 3 above titles play fine for me on both my S3s. I just tried "The Eclipse Part 2" again and got 10/11 bars for that episode and it played fine (I stopped it after 5 mins).


----------



## morac

moyekj said:


> Yes, all 3 above titles play fine for me on both my S3s. I just tried "The Eclipse Part 2" again and got 10/11 bars for that episode and it played fine (I stopped it after 5 mins).


Very strange. Are you using component or HDMI? Also what outputting settings are you using (Native, fixed, etc)? I use Native.

I can't see why my S3 would behave any different than other S3s since the video content should be the same. The loss of sound for 20 seconds I can live with, but the rebuffering/skip issues and lock ups are something I can not. Lock ups are definitely bad.

I'll have to try more videos when I get home, but I don't want to test when my S3 is recording in case it locks up again.


----------



## moyekj

morac said:


> Very strange. Are you using component or HDMI? Also what outputting settings are you using (Native, fixed, etc)? I use Native.
> 
> I can't see why my S3 would behave any different than other S3s since the video content should be the same. The loss of sound for 20 seconds I can live with, but the rebuffering/skip issues and lock ups are something I can not. Lock ups are definitely bad.
> 
> I'll have to try more videos when I get home, but I don't want to test when my S3 is recording in case it locks up again.


 I just tried the Heroes episode on all 3 of my Tivos:

Bedroom S3: Component, 1080i fixed, wired to router
Living Room S3: Component, Native, MOCA bridge to router
Living Room HDXL: HDMI, Native, MOCA bridge to router
On all 3 I got 10/11 bars and played if fine for a couple of minutes on each.

NOTE: If you are not getting same number of bars (10/11) then you are playing a different encoding so that's an important spec to mention for these failed shows as well.


----------



## davezatz

Turtleboy said:


> Ok, this morning it caused a complete freeze that required a hard reset.


I've had one complete freeze as well and had to pull the power cord. I suppose I could have waited a few more minutes to see if it unlocked.


----------



## KarlH

morac said:


> I can't see why my S3 would behave any different than other S3s since the video content should be the same.


Well, software bugs or hardware problems (e.g., marginally bad memory) could easily explain it.


----------



## MickeS

morac said:


> Anyone with a S3 have any success playing a video, glitch free?


I watched 2 full length movies in SD last night, "The King of Kong" and "Team America". Both played perfectly without any glitches.

But, and I hate to say this, I fully expect issues when using this - I have to date not used any HME app that hasn't given me problems every once in a while. The sad truth is that I would NOT invite someone over to watch a movie using this, because I wouldn't trust that it was working.


----------



## berkshires

Is there a limit to the number of TiVos that can be signed up on a Netflix account, and/or a limit to the changes made in TiVos signed up say over a 12 month period?

Also, is the only way to access a movie to go to the PC and add it to your instant queue?


----------



## morac

moyekj said:


> I just tried the Heroes episode on all 3 of my Tivos:
> 
> Bedroom S3: Component, 1080i fixed, wired to router
> Living Room S3: Component, Native, MOCA bridge to router


Hmm, both your S3's are component, while mine is using HDMI. I wonder if that is somehow related. I'll have to try switching to component when I get home. That might explain the lock up and sound issues, but I don't see how it could explain the buffering/skip issue I saw with Inspector Gadget.

As for the 10/11 bars, I never got any bars with Heroes. Basically what happened is that I tried to play it, and it jumped to a "paused" screen. I pressed play and the S3 locked up. According to Netflix's web site I never played Heroes, so I think it locked up before TiVo requested the video. Either that or it locked up _because_ TiVo never requested the video and the S3 tried to play back a null video stream.

I found this post hard reset thread which is nearly identical to what I saw except his machine rebooted on it's own and mine locked up. Interestingly every post in that thread that mentions a lock up or reboot with Netflix appears to be from someone using a S3 (as opposed to a HD or XL).


----------



## djwilso

berkshires said:


> Is there a limit to the number of TiVos that can be signed up on a Netflix account, and/or a limit to the changes made in TiVos signed up say over a 12 month period?
> 
> Also, is the only way to access a movie to go to the PC and add it to your instant queue?


From Netflix "Your Account" / "Netflix Ready Device Activation" page:

"During a twelve month period, you may activate as many as 4 Netflix ready devices. If you activate and then deactivate a device, it will still count against your 4 device limit until the start of the next twelve month period. Any currently active devices will automatically carry over to the next period when your activation limit restarts."

Dennis


----------



## morac

berkshires said:


> Is there a limit to the number of TiVos that can be signed up on a Netflix account, and/or a limit to the changes made in TiVos signed up say over a 12 month period?
> 
> Also, is the only way to access a movie to go to the PC and add it to your instant queue?


You are limited to 4 device. What happens when you activate your first device is that a 12 month countdown starts. You can activate up to 3 more devices during those 12 months. After those 4, you can't activate any more until the 12 months are up, even if you deactivate one of the original 4.

After the 12 month period is up, any devices that are deactivated are removed from your account and you can then add more devices (up to 4). The process then repeats.

You need to access the netflix.com site to add movies to your queue so yes you need a PC. Or you could do what I do and use my PS3's web browser.


----------



## sriggins

My fiancé was able to watch FAME! without-any-issues, she could not get TiVo to DIE! she even paused and resumed, she was able to play, play, play, play........ <cue dance music>


----------



## Carlos_E

ZeoTiVo said:


> Yah, i was watching some of Pan's labrynth this morning, 7am EST, at 10 bars HD and it looked awesome.


Pan's Labyrinth is HD? It's not listed under the Watch Instantly HD genre.


----------



## gonzotek

Carlos_E said:


> Pan's Labyrinth is HD? It's not listed under the Watch Instantly HD genre.


Yes, it is. Make sure you have the "Rated and Seen Titles" filter set to Include. Pan's Labyrinth shows up on page two for me.


----------



## Amnesia

morac said:


> Hmm, both your S3's are component, while mine is using HDMI. I wonder if that is somehow related


I doubt it.

My S3 is connected via HDMI (S3 to receiver to TV) and I had zero problems. Of course, I only watched one show, but I did pause, rewind, hit "Info", etc. Everything worked perfectly.


----------



## MickeS

One nice thing was that the "instant replay" button worked for Netflix. That's something i always miss when watching DVDs.


----------



## Adam1115

wmcbrine said:


> TiVo doesn't _have_ downloadable applications, period. There's tivoapp -- the monolithic app that controls the regular GUI -- and then there's HME. There's nothing in between.
> 
> My attempt to explain this design.


Sure enough, you are correct. I pull my network cable and have NOTHING, not even the cheesy little games.

So that is why. TiVo Doesn't run any apps locally. It would either have to be hosted on TiVo's servers or on a workstation.


----------



## modnar

MickeS said:


> One nice thing was that the "instant replay" button worked for Netflix. That's something i always miss when watching DVDs.


Agreed! Although I do wish TiVo kept the last 10-30 seconds or so buffered so instant replay was a bit quicker (instead of having to jump to that point in the stream from Netflix). Of course, this could be a limitation to the Netflix API or general terms.


----------



## dig_duggler

davezatz said:


> I've had one complete freeze as well and had to pull the power cord. I suppose I could have waited a few more minutes to see if it unlocked.


Me too. 10 minutes was enough for me to stay at 'Please Wait' and I pulled the plug. 5th time overall (4 last night). I thought it might be better on day 2, during the day with low traffic, but oh well.

I was pretty excited about it, but this has been a horrible experience.


----------



## tgibbs

I imagine that everybody wants to try it out at once (I certainly will when I get home tonight), so it may be that Netflix's servers are overloaded (anybody having problems on Rokr or XBox360?). I imagine that the spike will subside in a day or two and things will clear up.


----------



## MickeS

tgibbs said:


> I imagine that everybody wants to try it out at once (I certainly will when I get home tonight), so it may be that Netflix's servers are overloaded (anybody having problems on Rokr or XBox360?). I imagine that the spike will subside in a day or two and things will clear up.


This apparently has to do with TiVo HME servers, not with Netflix servers. A few people have tried their 360's and it worked fine there.


----------



## mikeyts

MickeS said:


> This apparently has to do with TiVo HME servers, not with Netflix servers. A few people have tried their 360's and it worked fine there.


I gave up on my TiVo while watching _Grindhouse: Double Feature_ and continued on my Xbox and was bounced out two or three times before finally finishing the first half. Unlike TiVo, the Xbox player never crashed and I just ended up at the display of stuff in my queue, where I only had to press one button to get started again. Playing with it all last week, I never got bounced out of anything I watched.

Some of the problems on TiVo quite obviously have to do with TiVo's HME servers, but Netflix was overloaded as well.


----------



## ilh

Yes. It worked fine last evening for me on a Mac while the TiVo HD was stuck at Scheduled Maintenance. The way they are doing this with an HME server in between every key click is really not going to scale well...as we're seeing.


----------



## TiVoStephen

moyekj said:


> the HME servers need to be very stable, distributed, load balanced, have backup servers and be automatically monitored for issues. I think we're finding out the hard way that's currently not the case.


But you're wrong -- that is exactly what we have. I know this will sound hard to believe, but last night's problems were not load related. We apologize for the issues and continue to monitor closely.

Best regards,
Stephen


----------



## morac

TiVoStephen said:


> But you're wrong -- that is exactly what we have. I know this will sound hard to believe, but last night's problems were not load related. We apologize for the issues and continue to monitor closely.
> 
> Best regards,
> Stephen


Any idea why some people are having the TiVo occasionally lock up (requiring the user to pull the plug) when trying to play videos? Is this related to the servers?


----------



## KarlH

morac said:


> Any idea why some people are having the TiVo occasionally lock up (requiring the user to pull the plug) when trying to play videos? Is this related to the servers?


That sounds more like a Tivo software problem (in the Tivo box at our end, not at the Tivo HME servers end). It could also be hardware problems, too, but I'm guessing software, as too many people seem to encountering these (I had one lock-up last night, too).


----------



## Timber

Watching "Constantine's Sword" on Netflix via TiVo right now. Very cool implementation TiVo (and Netflix?)!!! The only things I'd ask for are a way to search for and queue up movies from the TiVo and not via my computer and for Netflix to allow people on the 1 at a time (2 max a month) to watch via TiVo (I had to upgrade to 1 at a time (no max a month) for a few bux more.

-=Tim=-


----------



## JimPa

Tim,
So what's the minimum plan that allows you to access Netflix? Any limitation to the amount of Netflix download?


----------



## Cainebj

This is Bad. I may never leave my house now.


----------



## BlackBetty

JimPa said:


> Tim,
> So what's the minimum plan that allows you to access Netflix? Any limitation to the amount of Netflix download?


$8.99, which gives you 1 DVD per month and unlimited streaming. Add a $1 if you want blu ray discs.


----------



## Sapphire

BlackBetty said:


> $8.99, which gives you 1 DVD per month and unlimited streaming. Add a $1 if you want blu ray discs.


It's not 1 per month. It's 1 out at a time. It's unlimited per month (which means some arbitrary number that netflix decides is profitable for them).


----------



## dig_duggler

I do not learn. I finally got the Netflix app to run for the first time since last night and went to watch Friday Night Lights Season 1, episode 3. I got audio and no video. I went back to Tivo Central and decided to click on the 'It's Netflix on Tivo' ad at the bottom. Now I'm at another 'Please Wait' for about 10 min and about to do my 6th hard reboot as the unit is unresponsive.


----------



## MickeS

dig_duggler, all I can say is: I feel your pain.


----------



## Cainebj

So - you regular Netflix users - 

How does this all work with your Netflix queue?

If you watch a movie or TV show instantly on your TiVo does it remove it from your queue?

Same thing - if you add something to your instant queue, does Netflix add it to your DVD queue?


----------



## rainwater

Cainebj said:


> So - you regular Netflix users -
> 
> How does this all work with your Netflix queue?
> 
> If you watch a movie or TV show instantly on your TiVo does it remove it from your queue?
> 
> Same thing - if you add something to your instant queue, does Netflix add it to your DVD queue?


There are 2 queues. A regular queue and a instant queue. They are completely separate. You can remove items from your instant queue from the app but it isn't done automatically by watching it.


----------



## moyekj

TiVoStephen said:


> But you're wrong -- that is exactly what we have. I know this will sound hard to believe, but last night's problems were not load related. We apologize for the issues and continue to monitor closely.
> 
> Best regards,
> Stephen


 That's great to hear and good to know and encouraging that perhaps a shorter term fix can be found. (If the problem was a basic hardware infrastructure issue that would take a long time to resolve). Appreciate your inputs to this thread and look forwards to a remedy as I think this is a very exciting feature when it works as expected. Last time I was this excited about an update was when TTG/MRV was activated for S3 series boxes.


----------



## bakerja

Netflix is positioning themselves as the premier download service. I can see that in a very few short years all Netflix delivery will be through a wire rather than the mail.

JAB


----------



## moyekj

bakerja said:


> Netflix is positioning themselves as the premier download service. I can see that in a very few short years all Netflix delivery will be through a wire rather than the mail.
> 
> JAB


 I can only hope that's true, but the content providers continue to put up a fight and make it very hard to license new content for streaming right away still. I think that's been the major hurdle to this point for Netflix to build up it's library of streamable content.


----------



## mikeyts

rainwater said:


> There are 2 queues. A regular queue and a instant queue. They are completely separate. You can remove items from your instant queue from the app but it isn't done automatically by watching it.


They're not entirely separate. If you place something on your DVD Queue that has a streaming version available, it will be automatically placed on your Instant Queue (but not vice-versa). I think that 7 out of the 49 items on my DVD Queue are also in my Instant Queue and I didn't put them there.


----------



## morac

dig_duggler said:


> I do not learn. I finally got the Netflix app to run for the first time since last night and went to watch Friday Night Lights Season 1, episode 3. I got audio and no video. I went back to Tivo Central and decided to click on the 'It's Netflix on Tivo' ad at the bottom. Now I'm at another 'Please Wait' for about 10 min and about to do my 6th hard reboot as the unit is unresponsive.


I'm curious, what model (S3/HD/XL) do you have? If it's a S3, does the clock stop updating when it hangs? (mine did)

I've only had one lock up, but as I've only played four videos, that's a 25% lock up rate. I'm very hesitant to try it again at times when my S3 is scheduled to record stuff.


----------



## Cainebj

mikeyts said:


> They're not entirely separate. If you place something on your DVD Queue that has a streaming version available, it will be automatically placed on your Instant Queue (but not vice-versa). I think that 7 out of the 49 items on my DVD Queue are also in my Instant Queue and I didn't put them there.


Yeah the same thing happened to me - but now my question is if you watch something "instantly" and delete it via TiVo, will the DVD version delete also?

If not, I just know 6 months from now I will get something I watched instantly on a DVD in the mail


----------



## jhimmel

TiVoStephen said:


> But you're wrong -- that is exactly what we have. I know this will sound hard to believe, but last night's problems were not load related. We apologize for the issues and continue to monitor closely.
> 
> Best regards,
> Stephen


Any info for those of us who can no longer get into VOD at all after a Netflix crash? Even after a reboot?

Wait - now I'm getting to a "Scheduled Maintenance" screen - that's progress.

Jim H.


----------



## dig_duggler

morac said:


> I'm curious, what model (S3/HD/XL) do you have? If it's a S3, does the clock stop updating when it hangs? (mine did)
> 
> I've only had one lock up, but as I've only played four videos, that's a 25% lock up rate. I'm very hesitant to try it again at times when my S3 is scheduled to record stuff.


S3. I haven't payed attention to the clock, but will next time I become a glutton for punishment and try Netflix again.

My networks speeds are good, I'm hard wired with an ethernet cord. It shouldn't be my setup. I guess it's up to how good of troubleshooting the Tivo engineers can do at this point.

I know what you mean. Not much of a service if I'm extremely hesitant to try it when I'm recording or might be in the next 10 minutes (reboot time).


----------



## morac

BlackBetty said:


> $8.99, which gives you 1 DVD per month and unlimited streaming. Add a $1 if you want blu ray discs.


I'll mention that at the $8.99 plan you can only stream to one device at a time.
The number of devices you can stream to simultaneously is equal to the number of DVDs (or blu rays) you can have out at one time, though it maxes out at 4 I believe.


----------



## morac

dig_duggler said:


> S3. I haven't payed attention to the clock, but will next time I become a glutton for punishment and try Netflix again.


You know of posts I've read mentioning a lock up, none of them have mentioned the HD or XL. The posts either mention the S3 or they don't specify the model number.

Has anyone with a XL or HD had a hard lock up that required the power plug to be pulled?


----------



## RoyK

morac said:


> ...
> 
> Has anyone with a XL or HD had a hard lock up that required the power plug to be pulled?


Yes - I did. HD


----------



## caryrae73

I have an HD and use the Tivo wireless adapter and so far (knock on wood) I have not had one problem using Netflix. The picture has been great and the video and audio match up. I just watched Aliens 3 and everything went fine.


----------



## oldskoolboarder

Mine seemed to lock up when I was recording 2 shows and then tried to look at my queue. I just left if and about 1 or 2 minutes later, it came back.

I can barely get the download speed high enough to sustain HD. I have one less bar than max, so it's barely DVD-like. Probably more like VCD quality. However, the convenience factor is very high on this. Good job Tivo and Netflix. Waiting for Netflix to work on AppleTV & Boxee now.


----------



## ThAbtO

morac said:


> You know of posts I've read mentioning a lock up, none of them have mentioned the HD or XL. The posts either mention the S3 or they don't specify the model number.
> 
> Has anyone with a XL or HD had a hard lock up that required the power plug to be pulled?


I had once last nite on the HD. FYI, the HD is a 652, the XL is 658.


----------



## KarlH

morac said:


> Has anyone with a XL or HD had a hard lock up that required the power plug to be pulled?


Yes. HD, once.


----------



## yunlin12

morac said:


> I'll mention that at the $8.99 plan you can only stream to one device at a time.
> The number of devices you can stream to simultaneously is equal to the number of DVDs (or blu rays) you can have out at one time, though it maxes out at 4 I believe.


I've seen others mention that you can activate up to 4 devices per year. So is this limit also tied to your Netflix tier? How many device can a $8.99 level user activate, if he/she is not watching on those devices simultaneously? I'm thinking about giving it a try, but will definitely only go for the $8.99 tier for my usage. I have 2 Tivo's and an XBox 360, and thinking about comparing between all of them to see how it works.


----------



## CharlesSchwab

Tivo and Netflix -- You have hit a home run with this new feature!


----------



## Cainebj

rainwater said:


> There are 2 queues. A regular queue and a instant queue. They are completely separate. You can remove items from your instant queue from the app but it isn't done automatically by watching it.


OK I had my question answered by Netflix.

When they rolled out INSTANT viewing, anything in your DVD queue that was available for instant play was automatically added to your INSTANT queue. (It also sounds like if you have something in your DVD queue that is not available for INSTANT and it BECOMES available, it might automatically be added.)

If you NOW watch a title that is in both, it won't delete automatically from the other.


----------



## djwilso

yunlin12 said:


> I've seen others mention that you can activate up to 4 devices per year. So is this limit also tied to your Netflix tier? How many device can a $8.99 level user activate, if he/she is not watching on those devices simultaneously? I'm thinking about giving it a try, but will definitely only go for the $8.99 tier for my usage. I have 2 Tivo's and an XBox 360, and thinking about comparing between all of them to see how it works.


I have a TiVo Series 3, Xbox 360, and Roku player activated on my NetFlix account.

I am on the 1 at a time unlimited Netflix subscription.

With the Xbox and Roku, you can stop watching on one and start watching on the other immediately, and in theory you should be able to do this with the TiVo too, but a number of times when I stop watching something on the TiVo, I have to wait about 3 hours before the Xbox or Roku will sense that nothing is being watched on the TiVo anymore.

It seems to me that this issue is something in the way that the TiVo Netflix software is working, so I hope TiVo recognizes what the problem is and corrects it soon.

Dennis


----------



## mikeyts

Cainebj said:


> Yeah the same thing happened to me - but now my question is if you watch something "instantly" and delete it via TiVo, will the DVD version delete also?
> 
> If not, I just know 6 months from now I will get something I watched instantly on a DVD in the mail


I'm fairly certain that it never put anything I placed in the Instant Queue on the DVD Queue.

I just did an experiment and they are now completely separate--sorry. So, to get something on both, you now apparently have to explicitly place it on both, and if you delete it from one it won't disappear from the other. Probably the best policy.


----------



## Larry in TN

moyekj said:


> For you Star Trek fans, check out original Star Trek season 1 episodes, all in HD (not widescreen, but still good quality from what I've seen)!


Well, it can't be widescreen when the original source isn't widescreen without cutting off the top/bottom of the picture. 



[email protected] said:


> Not as good as the Roku box, though, for watching old TV series.


I like the way the TiVo app treats the episode disc as a folder with each item being a separate program in the folder. It would be nice if they added some kind of bookmark or indicator to show which episodes have been previously viewed.



KarlH said:


> Well, I'm willing to give them a chance (or two or three).


It's disappointing that they're having these problems but I don't find it particularly surprising. I don't know what the numbers are but when they threw the switch the number of users must have increased many times over as compared to however many they may have had testing the application. Technology is always full of surprises.



badahab said:


> On a side note.... I can't believe how dated Earth 2 looks.


Yeah, I see that a lot. I like watching old movies and TV shows and it's always interesting to see how poorly they measure up to today's standards on technical issues. The style of acting has also changed significantly. Today's 'style' seems much more realistic to me. I wonder how it would have looked to us if we had viewed one of today's shows/movies back in the 70's?



Turtleboy said:


> Ok, this morning it caused a complete freeze that required a hard reset.


I've had what appeared to be hard freezes on HME apps in the past and I found that they would eventually time out in roughly the same amount of time that it took to do the reset. i.e. 5 to 7 minutes. I never actually times one but I'm fairly confident that it's in that time range. I stumbled into this once when I walked away for a few minutes following a lockup and it timed out to live TV by the time I came back. Since then I haven't had to do a single hard reset, I just wait.



bakerja said:


> I can see that in a very few short years all Netflix delivery will be through a wire rather than the mail.


That certainly seems to be the direction in which they are heading. A year ago I was quite skeptical that this would happen but now I'm convinced that it will and much sooner than we might think.


----------



## MickeS

I just tried starting an episode of Caillou for my son. First time I selected "Video on Demand" on TiVo Central (TC), the screen went black and instantly kicked me back to TC. Second time, it let me choose the Netflix menu item on the VOD screen, then instantly kicked me back to TC. Third time it worked.

I guess there are still some issues, but at least it's playing now.


----------



## aaronwt

I just tried the Netflix on one of my TiVos. I was able to try it for 15 minutes and then the server unavailable message popped. It's working fine still on the 360.

After using it on the TiVo for 15 minutes I find I like the implementation on the Xbox 360 much better than the TiVo. So I have the Netflix activated on one TiVo and three Xbox 360's. 
Even without any problems on the TiVo I think it's still better on the 360. The 360 will be my first choice for the Netflix streaming and I'll use the one TiVo as a secondary source.

Picture quality seems to be identical from the TiVo and from the Xbox 360. For streaming video the HD from both sources looks good. I looked at NCIS and Heroes in HD from the TiVo and 360.


----------



## MickeS

It kicked out to the main menu twice during a 38 minute show when my son was watching. Pretty annoying.

I'm especially disappointed if this is NOT related to traffic volume.


----------



## joggy

Yep, acting up again here tonight too. So far I've been kicked out of an episode of 30 Rock twice followed by constant 'Retrieving...' pauses coupled with Quality bar drops which end up being video quality drops - near HD to Youtube video within seconds.

Netflix via PS3/Playon runs the same episode without any problems at all.


----------



## morac

djwilso said:


> With the Xbox and Roku, you can stop watching on one and start watching on the other immediately, and in theory you should be able to do this with the TiVo too, but a number of times when I stop watching something on the TiVo, I have to wait about 3 hours before the Xbox or Roku will sense that nothing is being watched on the TiVo anymore.


I'm seeing the same problem right now. Currently it won't let me play on my PC, because it says another device is in use even though I stopped playback on my TiVo about an hour ago.

I'm not sure if this is related to the TiVo server issues that have been going on or not, but since it's the HME application's job to tell Netflix that playback has stopped, that could be the problem.

If this is going to be a continuing problem, then Netflix should have a way to reset the streams (terminating any existing ones), instead of waiting a few hours for it to time out.

I tried a few things to get the TiVo to release Netflix:
1. Played back a different video, skipped to the end and let it exit on it's own.
2. Deactivated the TiVo from the HME application. TiVo thought it was deactivated, but web site still showed activate.
3. Deactivated the TiVo from the web site.

Even when the TiVo was deactivated, I couldn't play videos on other devices. I could reactivate the TiVo and it would play on that TiVo, so the TiVo seems to hold a lock on Netflix that persists even if the TiVo is deactivate.


----------



## KarlH

joggy said:


> Yep, acting up again here tonight too. So far I've been kicked out of an episode of 30 Rock twice followed by constant 'Retrieving...' pauses coupled with Quality bar drops which end up being video quality drops - near HD to Youtube video within seconds.


Same here, blarg. 

Videos generally play for only 5-15 minutes, before kicking me out to the top menu. I even once got kicked directly into live TV. Sometimes, selecting Video on Demand does nothing, sometimes it hangs for a while before going back to the top menu, etc.. This isn't usable, and I hope that Tivo can address this, soon.

(When I am able to watch videos, I either get all bars, or all bars but one. I've never seen the quality bars drop any lower.)


----------



## morac

I just talked to someone at Netflix and they told me that the reason I can't play on any other devices is that Netflix thinks it's still streaming Pan's Labyrinth to the TiVo so I have to wait 119 minutes for the movie to "end". I did notice that when I exited Pan's Labyrinth, that the box's network lights continued to flash as if it were still streaming. The box's lights stopped when I entered a different video, but I'm guessing this wasn't a graceful exit of the stream.

The Netflix tech did tell me some useful information. She said that each device is actually allowed 2 streams. This is to handle the case where the first stream doesn't exit gracefully. Because of this, if a stream gets "stuck" while playing on a device, that same device can play other videos, but no other devices can play videos until the stuck video times out. Time out time is the play time of the video.

She also stated that as of a few days ago, Starz play videos will not release the stream if you stop playing them on the PC. You need to wait for those to time out as well.


----------



## Carlos_E

gonzotek said:


> Yes, it is. Make sure you have the "Rated and Seen Titles" filter set to Include. Pan's Labyrinth shows up on page two for me.


Thank you


----------



## westside_guy

Worked fine for me last night; but had problems with it today. Kicked out on me once; froze on me once (hitting the Tivo button got me out though); and paused several times - much like the bad old days of RealPlayer "buffering...". 

Gave up, waited 30 minutes, then went back and finished the episode w/o problems. Odd if it's not load-related.


----------



## morac

I tried Heroes Episode 3: "The Eclipse Part 2" on my S3, which had locked up my S3 this morning. Tonight it played (10/11 bars), but after about 3 minutes just as I hit the info button, I got a "please wait" screen and then got dumped into the Broadband video application. I didn't bother trying to go back in as I was just trying to see if it would play, but it looks like there is still an issue with being dumped out of the video streams. 

On a related note, I was looking at my router's real time download speeds while streaming to the TiVo and the speeds were all over the place: ranging from 800 kbps to 5600 kbps. I tried the same video on my laptop (wasn't locked out this time, yay!) and I was getting pretty lousy download speeds (averaging about 400 kbps). The video was stuttering on my PC. I then ran a speed test on my PC and was getting > 6000 kbps speeds. So there seems to be an issue with Netflix's servers.


----------



## Timber

OK in the daytime, not so reliable at peak times. 

But I'm sure everyone will work out the problems! :up::up::up:

-=Tim=-


----------



## ATB

Silly question: how do I determine what items are HD vs SD before playing? I see no indication on either the netflix site or the Tivo selection page. Once I select something to play on the Tivo I see do HD or nothing at the end of the quality bars.


----------



## HomieG

Kicked me out of a two-hour movie at least a dozen times on my Series 3. Nice when it was working, but not acceptable performance by any means. In reference to the number of users, I would have to imagine that Netflix has been through a rollout with their Roku boxes but don't recall any complaints like this, not with xbox users, and these TiVo issues seem to point at something not quite right between TiVo and Netflix. I'm sure they're working tirelessly on the problem, but it's not quite ready for prime time.


----------



## Amnesia

ATB said:


> Silly question: how do I determine what items are HD vs SD before playing?


Isn't that annoying?

I believe that the only way to figure it out is to see if the item appears in the "Watch Instantly" HD "genre" before playing it.


----------



## Smirks

HomieG said:


> Kicked me out of a two-hour movie at least a dozen times on my Series 3. Nice when it was working, but not acceptable performance by any means. In reference to the number of users, I would have to imagine that Netflix has been through a rollout with their Roku boxes but don't recall any complaints like this, not with xbox users, and these TiVo issues seem to point at something not quite right between TiVo and Netflix. I'm sure they're working tirelessly on the problem, but it's not quite ready for prime time.


I agree. I watched several TV episodes earlier this afternoon without any problems. The wife and I sat down to try and watch 1.5 hour movie at 8:30 this evening. Two hours later we still haven't finished it. Right now I'm getting thrown back to Tivo Central when selecting Video On Demand. Been kicked out probably 10 or 12 times throughout the move.

It's quite frustrating considering we only have 5 minutes left in the movie. I think we'll give Tivo and Netflix a few days to work out the bugs before we try again.


----------



## KarlH

ATB said:


> Silly question: how do I determine what items are HD vs SD before playing? I see no indication on either the netflix site or the Tivo selection page. Once I select something to play on the Tivo I see do HD or nothing at the end of the quality bars.


The two HD movies I viewed (incompletely) seemed to have a total of 13 possible bars instead of 11. I don't know if this is a reliable way of telling, but it's an interesting data point. Perhaps others can chime in.


----------



## [email protected]

moyekj said:


> bakerja said:
> 
> 
> 
> Netflix is positioning themselves as the premier download service. I can see that in a very few short years all Netflix delivery will be through a wire rather than the mail.
> 
> 
> 
> I can only hope that's true, but the content providers continue to put up a fight and make it very hard to license new content for streaming right away still. I think that's been the major hurdle to this point for Netflix to build up it's library of streamable content.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the bandwidth caps from the ISPs, which currently make totally electronic distribution impractical for all but a very small minority.


----------



## mattack

bakerja said:


> Netflix is positioning themselves as the premier download service. I can see that in a very few short years all Netflix delivery will be through a wire rather than the mail.


While I can see that this will eventually happen, I am one of those who DON'T hope it's soon.
(Though admittedly, I recently put my netflix acct 'on hold' for the first time because I've got so much stuff Tivoed that I should watch..) I will definitely at least TRY OUT this streaming (if my wireless router can handle it) when my account goes active again.. and I will probably use it for some TV shows.

but for _other_ TV shows, and definitely movies, I want the commentaries, etc..
(The info about the Twilight Zone was VERY intriguing for me. Netflix has NOT gotten the recent season sets of Twilight Zone.. I really only want to see the season of hour long episodes that are 99% "new to me".. and those are hard to find on the existing DVDs.)


----------



## TommyMac

To add another data point.

I had the same problems last night that (most) everyone did.

This afternoon I started a few movies and checked on them periodically just to see if Netflix was working ... everything seemed to work.

Tonight, I started to watch "King Corn" but the audio was way off ... tried to rewind and fast forward to see if that would sync it up to no avail ... tried to restart it a few times but with no luck so I gave up ... figured it was a problem with that specific movie. Started a new movie just to check the audio, all was good. Started "Slaughterhouse Five" to actually watch (audio was good) ... watched for about 20-30 mins and it kicked me out to the VoD screen ... went back in and resumed watching... watch for about another 20-30 mins and it kicked me out to live TV .... went back into the VoD section and got the "Please Wait"-back to VoD screen run around a few times ... gave up for the night. What gets me is that it kicks me out to different places, it seems that it should always dump me to the same spot when it crashes.

Ather all of that, I downloaded the free "Playon" trial to use w/ my PS3 just for kicks. "King Corn" worked fine with no audio sync problems so it is not a problem with that specific movie. Not to hijack the thread but does anyone know if using "Playon" on my PS3 counts as an additional device or does it just consider my PC as the device?

Once they get the kinks worked out and increase the size of the library, this will be just about the perfect solution ... Blu-Ray for the big, action movies and streaming for the independant, documentaries and chick-flicks. Basically, Blu-Ray for me ... Streaming for the wife


----------



## mikeyts

ATB said:


> Silly question: how do I determine what items are HD vs SD before playing? I see no indication on either the netflix site or the Tivo selection page. Once I select something to play on the Tivo I see do HD or nothing at the end of the quality bars.


See the unfiltered Watch Instantly HD genre. It must be an incomplete list, since they claim to have over 300 titles available in HD and that list only contain 164 (if you count individual television episodes, there are at least 536 items).


----------



## aaronwt

[email protected] said:


> Not to mention the bandwidth caps from the ISPs, which currently make totally electronic distribution impractical for all but a very small minority.


It's nice being in that minority. Just like being in the minority of people that have a 50mbs Internet connection is sweet too.. 
But that has always been the case in my area. In 1997 I had 5mbs INTERNET service from my cable provider, many, many years before it became a standard.


----------



## Ragga068

Despite some obvious technical limitations, such as not being able to browse the Netflix catalog from TiVo, this is the best thing to happen to home entertainment since the Home Media Option went live.

Right now the selection is limited, but I am stoked to see so many classic films and television programs available. The real promise for this technology is for the world's archive of visual entertainment to be available anytime, anywhere. Much like how the sum total of world knowledge is available through a Google search, it would be great if this became the repository of all things video, like what YouTube was before the TV and movie studios ruined it by taking their toys and going home.


----------



## djwilso

morac said:


> I just talked to someone at Netflix and they told me that the reason I can't play on any other devices is that Netflix thinks it's still streaming Pan's Labyrinth to the TiVo so I have to wait 119 minutes for the movie to "end". I did notice that when I exited Pan's Labyrinth, that the box's network lights continued to flash as if it were still streaming. The box's lights stopped when I entered a different video, but I'm guessing this wasn't a graceful exit of the stream.
> 
> The Netflix tech did tell me some useful information. She said that each device is actually allowed 2 streams. This is to handle the case where the first stream doesn't exit gracefully. Because of this, if a stream gets "stuck" while playing on a device, that same device can play other videos, but no other devices can play videos until the stuck video times out. Time out time is the play time of the video.
> 
> She also stated that as of a few days ago, Starz play videos will not release the stream if you stop playing them on the PC. You need to wait for those to time out as well.


This is all good to know and makes sense. I had tried all sorts of things as well to make it "release" like deactivation/reactivation, etc. as you did, but nothing worked except waiting.

This confirms for me that the needed graceful exit or termination of the stream is not occurring in the TiVo software.

Dennis


----------



## sriggins

We just had a SD movie drop out halfway through back to the main menu. We were able to restart it from where it dropped out.


----------



## KarlH

There also seems to be a bug where fast-forwarding doesn't always work, and restarts back at the beginning of the video viewing. For example, if the video was initially viewed from the beginning, fast-forwarding would reset back to the beginning; if the video was resumed, fast-forwarding would reset back to the resume point (if you weren't kicked back out to the Netflix menu). It's highly annoying. I'm not sure if this is a Tivo or Netflix bug.

One ugly workaround is to view the video using a PC, move the current point (which is shared and can be set from either the Tivo or PC), quit viewing the video, and then go back to the Tivo to continue watching. Bleah. Ugh.


----------



## MDRiley

Attempts over a couple of days to watch items in my Instant queure pretty unsuccessful and frustrating. Often kicked back to the main screen. Twice TIVO froze up and had to reboot. By comparson, the amazon download services works much better (but the netflix one price feature is nice if the *&!# thing worked).


----------



## lautry

MDRiley said:


> Attempts over a couple of days to watch items in my Instant queure pretty unsuccessful and frustrating. Often kicked back to the main screen. Twice TIVO froze up and had to reboot. By comparson, the amazon download services works much better (but the netflix one price feature is nice if the *&!# thing worked).


Same here. Tried to watch Star Trek last night. Got thru one episode ok, then the next was constant reloads and kick backs to the VOD screen or live TV. I have a series three box. I wish TIVO would reply here and assure us they are working on the problems and at least acknowledge the fact. Over three nights, a 20% chance of watching 50 minutes without a problem is not good enough.


----------



## dig_duggler

lautry said:


> Same here. Tried to watch Star Trek last night. Got thru one episode ok, then the next was constant reloads and kick backs to the VOD screen or live TV. I have a series three box. I wish TIVO would reply here and assure us they are working on the problems and at least acknowledge the fact. Over three nights, a 20% chance of watching 50 minutes without a problem is not good enough.


Agreed. They either have a good handle on it and might iron this thing out to be useable before too long, or they are struggling with the problem right now and it's going to be awhile before it's useable. They don't 'owe' us anything, but it would be nice to know which it is.

Stephen claimed it wasn't a load problem, which on the surface would be the most understandable problem. That (and the lack of posts here since the launch, except to say it isn't a load problem) kind of make me think it's the later situation.


----------



## groovy9

I thought I'd add my experience last night FWIW. I have a Tivo HD and Comcast cable measured at 12MB/1MB (yeehaw!).

Initially, with the wireless adapter I was generally getting full bars on SD content and occasionally full bars on HD content. But it would occasionally drop to about half bars, rebuffer, etc. I confirmed it was not my internet connection - must be Tivo, Netflix, or wireless.

Not trusting my wireless connection, I switched to wired. I had a couple of Netflix app lockups - one before switching to wired and one after. Waited for one to time out and power cycled the second.

After the power cycle, I watched a few minutes of Pan's Labyrinth at full bars HD (looked GREAT), then watched all 1.5 hrs of the Jeremiah pilot at full SD quality, no rebuffering, no issues. I started it about 10pm last night.

Also, after fiddling with Tivo's picture settings, I settled on 720p fixed (my TV is 720p) with top/side bars for non-16:9 content. This seems to display everything correctly for me.

I've been a Blockbuster subscriber for a couple years due to their return-mailed-DVD-to-store-for-exchange feature. I cancelled it yesterday and signed up for the Netflix $8.99 plan. GREAT offering!

And lastly, I also got the audio sync problem on the 30 Rock pilot.


----------



## dig_duggler

groovy9 said:


> I had a couple of Netflix app lockups - one before switching to wired and one after. Waited for one to time out and power cycled the second.


Just curious, how long did your time out take?


----------



## Timber

I don't work for TiVo...

...they're aware of the problems and are working on them. :up:

-=Tim=-


----------



## groovy9

dig_duggler said:


> Just curious, how long did your time out take?


5 minutes, give or take.


----------



## IrishTV99

Same here - tried to watch a movie last night and got kicked out twice. After the 2nd time, I never got back in and went to bed (this was around 11pm eastern).

I LOVE the feature (it looked great and was easy to use), but it can't be used with any real regularity. Day-and-date with DVD releases would be nice too


----------



## ZeoTiVo

lautry said:


> Same here. Tried to watch Star Trek last night. Got thru one episode ok, then the next was constant reloads and kick backs to the VOD screen or live TV. I have a series three box. I wish TIVO would reply here and assure us they are working on the problems and at least acknowledge the fact. Over three nights, a 20% chance of watching 50 minutes without a problem is not good enough.


first night all went well.
yesterday morning (7am EST)I had 11 bar HD
last evening I finished a HD movie around 6pm - that played through no hitch but not in HD
then took a break and watched some more around 9pm EST - that played ok for an hour and then came the bounce out to main menu and then around 10;30 pm I had one TiVo HD goes dark episode. TV reports no signal and no repsonse to remote.
then tried again around 1am EST and it worked well and had 9 bars again.

I noticed in trouble timeframes that other HME stuff did not work (could not make an HTTP connection) though I could connect to TiVo mothership and did have a Tivocast download.

Looks like the HME service at TiVo was just overloaded from everyone doing Netflix. TiVoStephen did reply yesterday and say TiVo was aware and trying to fix the problem. I guess the yare figuring out today if they should add more resources or try and ride out the initial flood. I say they take the ad revenue from Horton ad and go buy some more resources pronto.


----------



## alyssa

This is a very cool feature. The only trouble I've had was during peak times. No crashes, just kicked to the main menu or hung. 
I've got a sick kid at home today & it's getting a work out reintroducing my 9yearold to McGyver.

wired connection, S3 with original HD, eSATA, HDMI, 10 bars, 
my set is 720, so my tivo is set for 720 fixed.


----------



## MickeS

I guess they literally are not ready for prime time yet.  At least that's when I had issues last night, later on it worked fine again.


----------



## lautry

Timber said:


> I don't work for TiVo...
> 
> ...they're aware of the problems and are working on them. :up:
> 
> -=Tim=-


Timber, I hope you are right. After reading thru this thread it would appear this launch has escalated from fiasco to downright debacle. I really like TIVO and have had the service since inception. I would hate to see this Netflix launch get off on a bad start and be falsely classified as POS like Vista. First impressions are really important.


----------



## sriggins

lautry said:


> Timber, I hope you are right. After reading thru this thread it would appear this launch has escalated from fiasco to downright debacle. I really like TIVO and have had the service since inception. I would hate to see this Netflix launch get off on a bad start and be falsely classified as POS like Vista. First impressions are really important.


I think fiasco is a bit harsh; No matter how much testing they do, it is very hard to predict the storm of data requests, esp those that are abnormal due to other bugs (like the client crashing, etc)

So some bugs + some unknown server issues = frustrations for some. I say some because we've had one dropout in 4 movies, so the rate is too high, but sadly I expected this for a month after launch.


----------



## Royster

Well, I'd like to use this feature, but my old, grandfathered plan doesn't do unlimited downloads. I have a 2 at a time/4 per month plan (which if I change it I lose forever). I can pay $2 more per month and get 2 at a time/unlimited with TiVo support, or I can cut my expense and go to a 1 at a time/unlimited and save $2 a month. Since I currently don't always use my 4 per month, perhaps I should.


----------



## dig_duggler

sriggins said:


> I think fiasco is a bit harsh; No matter how much testing they do, it is very hard to predict the storm of data requests, esp those that are abnormal due to other bugs (like the client crashing, etc)
> 
> So some bugs + some unknown server issues = frustrations for some. I say some because we've had one dropout in 4 movies, so the rate is too high, but sadly I expected this for a month after launch.


I'd like to point out that other companies seem to be able to do it. I don't recall anything I've tried out in the last few years that locked my device up to the point of hard reboot 6 times out of 9. And there are many complaints here about getting booted out of a video.

They are trying to show of a brand new feature that's been touted for months, and which works on other devices seemingly without this high frequency of problems, and it seems (it is of course impossible to know just from this board) that a majority of users are having major problems. Bit of a fiasco.


----------



## MickeS

dig_duggler said:


> They are trying to show of a brand new feature that's been touted for months, and which works on other devices seemingly without this high frequency of problems


Quick google search: http://community.netflix.com/forum/topics/samsung-bdp2550-streaming

I guess at least it's not ONLY TiVo. 

But yeah, I agree that this is an unacceptable rate of problems - hell, I've watched 3 shows, and 1 failed twice. That's a pretty high percentage.


----------



## sriggins

dig_duggler said:


> I'd like to point out that other companies seem to be able to do it. I don't recall anything I've tried out in the last few years that locked my device up to the point of hard reboot 6 times out of 9. And there are many complaints here about getting booted out of a video.


As much as I love Apple, and their quality is ranked #1 for like, forever, my Apple TV now stutters in the middle of movies; The jump back/fwd buttons now go full chapters, sometimes, instead of 10 seconds, etc.

So I yell at Apple.

These companies do try to do too much in too little time with too little testing.

I *personally* feel that we're partly to blame; Some companies would like to work in secret for market advantage and thus do limited testing because people can't honor NDAs and leak stuff all over the place. Not the case with the TiVo/Netflix, but still.

And no, this doesn't excuse any of this, but if they had waited two more weeks with more trials, people here would have been yelling to get into the beta, why are they late, TiVo can't do anything on time, yada, yada, yada.

We almost create an environment where they can't win.


----------



## dig_duggler

MickeS said:


> Quick google search: http://community.netflix.com/forum/topics/samsung-bdp2550-streaming
> 
> I guess at least it's not ONLY TiVo.
> 
> But yeah, I agree that this is an unacceptable rate of problems - hell, I've watched 3 shows, and 1 failed twice. That's a pretty high percentage.


True enough. From what I've read Xbox 360 seems to have the most stable implementation. At least the Samsung BD-P2550 doesn't appear to be completely locking up  Having to dig into my entertainment center to pull the power plug repeatedly is probably making me a bit more critical.

Seems the concept might be a bit ahead of it's time.


----------



## lautry

MickeS said:


> Quick google search: http://community.netflix.com/forum/topics/samsung-bdp2550-streaming
> 
> I guess at least it's not ONLY TiVo.
> 
> But yeah, I agree that this is an unacceptable rate of problems - hell, I've watched 3 shows, and 1 failed twice. That's a pretty high percentage.


Read your google link. ROKU is looking really buff right now.


----------



## djwilso

lautry said:


> Read your google link. ROKU is looking really buff right now.


Hopefully Roku will continue to be super-stable after they release their HD firmware, which is due before the end of December (maybe as soon as next week).

However, people were having problems with the Roku for a while, and it turned out to be a change in the Netflix network that had caused it. Supposedly that was fixed but some users are still having problems. Like only getting 1 out of 4 on the quality meter.

I also have an Xbox 360 and the Netflix software on it works very well. Haven't had any issues with it at all and get HD on all material that is available in HD.

Dennis


----------



## yunlin12

Maybe someone should correct the title and put the word "beta" in there somewhere. If it's just issues with Tivo's HME server, then hopefully they can fix it quickly without having to push out another software update. I'm still interested in this service and is really temped to sign on with Netflix again because of this, maybe in a couple of weeks, when the new TV season is over, and I'll have lots more free time to watch TV, and hopefully Tivo will have the issues fixed by then.


----------



## gregggreg

Anyone else notice that the audio on 30 Rock Season 1 is baked? Even though I can get level 7 quality on other programs, I seem to only be able to get quality 5 on 30 Rock and every episode I've tried the audio sounds like they are talking into tin cans, lots of echo. It makes it actually unwatchable. So far it's the only video from Netflix I've heard this problem on.


----------



## MickeS

sriggins said:


> These companies do try to do too much in too little time with too little testing.
> 
> I *personally* feel that we're partly to blame; Some companies would like to work in secret for market advantage and thus do limited testing because people can't honor NDAs and leak stuff all over the place. Not the case with the TiVo/Netflix, but still.
> 
> And no, this doesn't excuse any of this, but if they had waited two more weeks with more trials, people here would have been yelling to get into the beta, why are they late, TiVo can't do anything on time, yada, yada, yada.
> 
> We almost create an environment where they can't win.


Agreed 100%.


----------



## shady

gregggreg said:


> Anyone else notice that the audio on 30 Rock Season 1 is baked? Even though I can get level 7 quality on other programs, I seem to only be able to get quality 5 on 30 Rock and every episode I've tried the audio sounds like they are talking into tin cans, lots of echo. It makes it actually unwatchable. So far it's the only video from Netflix I've heard this problem on.


I briefly watched the opening to the pilot of 30 Rock last night because I was interested to see how HD looked.

My audio sounded fine, but it was out of sync


----------



## lautry

yunlin12 said:


> Maybe someone should correct the title and put the word "beta" in there somewhere. If it's just issues with Tivo's HME server, then hopefully they can fix it quickly without having to push out another software update. I'm still interested in this service and is really temped to sign on with Netflix again because of this, maybe in a couple of weeks, when the new TV season is over, and I'll have lots more free time to watch TV, and hopefully Tivo will have the issues fixed by then.


TivoStephen, it's time for you to submit another post and "jolly us up" again.


----------



## hummingbird_206

I was watching the most recent season finale (Season 8??) of CSI and there were big time audio sync problems. The video and audio were off by a couple of seconds. I felt like I was watching a dubbed Godzilla movie


----------



## bkdtv

dig_duggler said:


> Just curious, how long did your time out take?


Note if you get the indefinite "Working..." screen -- which is what happen's when TiVo's servers are overloaded -- you don't need to pull the plug on your TiVo. Just press the TiVo button, and that will send you back to the TiVo menu.

_Edit: I meant the "Please wait..." screen above._


----------



## dig_duggler

bkdtv said:


> Note if you get the indefinite "Working..." screen -- which is what happen's when TiVo's servers are overloaded -- you don't need to pull the plug on your TiVo. Just press the TiVo button, and that will send you back to the TiVo menu.


I assume you mean 'Please Wait'. Believe me, I tried that (and every other button on the remote). Repeatedly. Once, it worked. 6 other times the unit was completely unresponsive. I only waited 5-10 minutes as that is all I had the patience for.


----------



## sriggins

dig_duggler said:


> Believe me, I tried that (and every other button on the remote). Repeatedly. Once, it worked. 6 other times the unit was completely unresponsive.


That is clearly a bug; Regardless what is happening in the HME or the Netflix servers, the TiVo should never lock you out of the UI.


----------



## houman

So, I tried Netflix on Tivo last night (around 2am), the activation process was similar to Xbox 360, the UI is pretty simplistic compare to Xbox 360, but it works very well, I tried to stream couple of shows, and they came very fast, the fast forward/buffering is fast too. I tried Heroes but it came in SD, I noticed that lately I also get Heroes only in SD on Xbox 360 as well (used to be HD). OTOH, other shows seem ok, Office came in HD, eternal sunshine of the mind was HD, I did not notice any dropdown to TV or freezes, and fast forward seemed fine (faster than Xbox 360).

It's pretty nice, I think I'll use this more on Tivo, so I don't have to turn on my Xbox to stream.

Couple of Info on my box and setup. Tivo HD , upgraded to 1TB, using HDMI out to TV. My Internet is with Comcast Cable (16/6 in burst)

Cheers, Thank you Tivo!
Houman


----------



## davezatz

TiVo's put together a fun, 'classic' little video on how the new Netflix service saves you money:





PS We took in the Pixar documentary last night with no probs. Everything worked as it should.


----------



## keenanSR

davezatz said:


> TiVo's put together a fun, 'classic' little video on how the new Netflix service saves you money:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PS We took in the Pixar documentary last night with no probs. Everything worked as it should.


That was very cool.


----------



## mikeyts

ZeoTiVo said:


> Looks like the HME service at TiVo was just overloaded from everyone doing Netflix. TiVoStephen did reply yesterday and say TiVo was aware and trying to fix the problem. I guess the yare figuring out today if they should add more resources or try and ride out the initial flood. I say they take the ad revenue from Horton ad and go buy some more resources pronto.


TiVoStephen also posted yesterday a denial that the problem was load related.

I guess that it's possible--I tried the service very early Monday morning (midnight) when I discovered that it was available and spent a couple of hours watching. The load couldn't have been very heavy a few hours after people first became aware of it and between midnight and 2 AM PST, yet I got bounced out of an episode of _Star Trek_ that I was watching.

Now, things got progressively worse as the load mounted and I've even been bounced out of playback on the Xbox a few times, which never happened in all my use of the feature since it launched on the Xbox.

All we can do is hope that they get it together--it doesn't really matter why it's not working well.


----------



## sriggins

I just want A Christmas Story in HD so I can pretend I am TNT and run it all day xmas.


----------



## pmrowley

sriggins said:


> I just want A Christmas Story in HD so I can pretend I am TNT and run it all day xmas.


Yeah, WITHOUT the annoying panoramic stretch they do to the 4:3 footage.


----------



## sriggins

What SUCKS is we just noticed that TEN of our 30 instant movies queued are going away on 1/1/2009.

Lame.


----------



## bigguy126

> What SUCKS is we just noticed that TEN of our 30 instant movies queued are going away on 1/1/2009.


Contacted Netflix about this today. They said that these are movies from Starz and just like the Starz movie service on cable, some titles change from month to month and others are available all the time.


----------



## KarlH

mikeyts said:


> TiVoStephen also posted yesterday a denial that the problem was load related.


Well, there does appear to be a correlation between time-of-day and the frequency of some problems. For example, the frequency, of my shows terminating and kicking me back to a Tivo menu, is higher starting around, oh, ?-6PM PST and ending around 8-9PM PST. On the other hand, my occasional problems with fast-forwarding do not seem to be time-of-day related.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

TiVoStephen said:


> But you're wrong -- that is exactly what we have. I know this will sound hard to believe, but last night's problems were not load related. We apologize for the issues and continue to monitor closely.
> 
> Best regards,
> Stephen


I assume you already monitored this as well but I, and others, had some drastic problems again Tuesday night.
Whatever the problem is it seemed much worse at what would very likely be peak use hours. I finished watching Pan's labyrinth at 6pm Tuesday evening and it was 5-7 bars and SD quality with several pauses while retrieving more but at 7am Tuesday morning I watched Pan's Labyrinth at HD quality and it worked flawlessly


----------



## TonyD79

KarlH said:


> There also seems to be a bug where fast-forwarding doesn't always work, and restarts back at the beginning of the video viewing. For example, if the video was initially viewed from the beginning, fast-forwarding would reset back to the beginning; if the video was resumed, fast-forwarding would reset back to the resume point (if you weren't kicked back out to the Netflix menu). It's highly annoying. I'm not sure if this is a Tivo or Netflix bug.
> 
> One ugly workaround is to view the video using a PC, move the current point (which is shared and can be set from either the Tivo or PC), quit viewing the video, and then go back to the Tivo to continue watching. Bleah. Ugh.


I am only seeing that when I first start the program. Watch a few seconds and it works itself out. Probably that it is still downloading the frame data for the FF command to work.

Just be patient.


----------



## KarlH

TonyD79 said:


> I am only seeing that when I first start the program. Watch a few seconds and it works itself out. Probably that it is still downloading the frame data for the FF command to work.


I think you're seeing a different issue. I've waited, and waiting doesn't change anything.


----------



## mikeyts

bigguy126 said:


> Contacted Netflix about this today. They said that these are movies from Starz and just like the Starz movie service on cable, some titles change from month to month and others are available all the time.


It hadn't occurred to me that the Starz Play stuff would have the same kind of variable availability as material on the Starz channels--makes sense.

As part of their deal with Starz Play, there's a Live Starz Channel stream at Netflix, apparently for PCs only. It plays whatever's on the main Starz channel now.


----------



## Pafrican

Could my hookup via HDMI be causing audio issues? The sound is a slightly bit distorted on any movie/show I watch on the tivo (through Netflix of course). The audio almost sounds metallic if that makes sense. When I go back to the tivo menus I still get the distorted sound with each sound effect but it goes away when I get back to live TV. I'm not sure if it's my connection speed (I get all but 3 bars in regards to quality), the hookup via hdmi, or something entirely different.

Anybody experience this?


----------



## VivaLasVegas

We love this! We've watched a few movies and plenty of episodes of Weeds. All great quality and I think we've been kicked out once, but got right back in where we left off. I think we've used it every day. We had bad video quality once, but pause or trickplay seemed to fix it. Otherwise it's been 10/11 bars or full HD every time. (Wireless G adapter and cable modem from Comcast)


----------



## Lykaon

It's nice to see TivoStephen responding to some of the issues (Thanks!), but any news on the resets people are having when trying to play a netflix movie? I've detailed my experience here in another thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=412618

Long story short: I have not been able to watch a single netflix movie (or any portion of one for that matter). Trying to do so causes my Tivo to reboot itself within 1 minute of starting the process.


----------



## lautry

Pafrican said:


> Could my hookup via HDMI be causing audio issues? The sound is a slightly bit distorted on any movie/show I watch on the tivo (through Netflix of course). The audio almost sounds metallic if that makes sense. When I go back to the tivo menus I still get the distorted sound with each sound effect but it goes away when I get back to live TV. I'm not sure if it's my connection speed (I get all but 3 bars in regards to quality), the hookup via hdmi, or something entirely different.
> 
> Anybody experience this?


There are so many posts here with a myriad of audio, video and other problems. I would suggest not embarking upon a mass cable or equipment swapping until this launch settles down and all the bugs are worked out, whether it be TIVO, Netflix or whoever. Especially if everything was working for you before the Netflix launch. Maybe two weeks is the answer.


----------



## Poochie

Simple question here... is there an easy way to see how many bars (quality) a stream is playing in once it's playing?

I've played with the Netflix streaming only briefly the last two nights, and I remember seeing the quality bars appear when a stream starts playing, but once it's playing (or when paused) I couldn't get the quality bars to show up again. I'd imagine there's a way to do this without exiting / restarting the stream, but I didn't stumble upon it yet...


----------



## sriggins

Just watched all of Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy show in HD - Perfect.
Trying to watch Real Genius in SD? Nope, stutter, skip, won't start, stop/start every 5 seconds. It is MAX-1 bars, whatever that is.

Weird.


----------



## joggy

TommyMac said:


> Not to hijack the thread but does anyone know if using "Playon" on my PS3 counts as an additional device or does it just consider my PC as the device?


In my experience its the PC and not the PS3. I had run into this while testing Playon on different PCs in my setup. After speaking with Netflix support (due to max devices limit being reached) they were able to confirm that the PC running the mediaserver was considered the device and the PS3 was not counted against the Netflix device limit. As an fyi, apparently there is a "timer" registry key (Windows) written by Netflix that expires after 9 days. So if you've reached a max device limit, wait 9 days and fire it up and all should be well.

Getting back to this thread...just fired up Tivo/Netflix and so far, so good.


----------



## tommy275

no sound. pretty neat.


----------



## tommy275

ah, sound now. i know it has been mentioned, and it probably goes without saying, but there *is* an effort to make sure the video and audio are in sync, yes? it's, you know, 2009. almost.


----------



## mikeyts

Poochie said:


> Simple question here... is there an easy way to see how many bars (quality) a stream is playing in once it's playing?
> 
> I've played with the Netflix streaming only briefly the last two nights, and I remember seeing the quality bars appear when a stream starts playing, but once it's playing (or when paused) I couldn't get the quality bars to show up again. I'd imagine there's a way to do this without exiting / restarting the stream, but I didn't stumble upon it yet...


No. If it doesn't stop and say something like, "Your network connection has slowed--switching to a lower quality stream to minimize further interruptions", you are presumably running the stream that was selected at the beginning. If it does say that, you have no idea what quality level its running at.

Apparently Microsoft's Silverlight player for the PC (and Mac) can dynamically adjust stream quality as network speed varies. According to the Netflix blog article "Encoding for streaming":


> The new Silverlight player (that some users are helping us test as I write) uses VC1 Advanced Profile encoding with PlayReady DRM. A key property is that each GOP header includes frame size and resolution, which allows us to assemble a stream on the fly from different bitrate encodes as your broadband bandwidth fluctuates. (Another key feature is more coverage, including Intel Macs and Firefox users.) We expect to switch completely to the new player later this year.
> *...*​The Silverlight player is currently more opaque, since it picks the stream to deliver dynamically. If your connection slows, as the buffer empties, the player starts buffering a lower bitrate stream and switches seamlessly across. Conversely, if the buffer fills rapidly again, the player can pick a higher bitrate stream.


Perhaps they'll eventually be able to implement this tech across all platforms.


----------



## mikeyts

I just watched an episode of Speilberg's _Amazing Stories_ TV series from 1985 ("The Mission", with Kevin Costner, Keifer Sutherland, Casey Siemaszko and Anthony LaPaglia). PQ wasn't particularly good, though I got all bars--probably the source material. It ran smoothly throughout. I may press my luck and try something else .


----------



## TiVoStephen

Folks, thanks for your patience and we apologize for the launch issues that some of you have experienced.

Volume has been much higher than anticipated. We've been working around the clock to resolve these issues. As part of the solution, we are quickly moving to add more capacity to the system.

Our entire team will be monitoring closely tonight, and over the last few days we have put in place measures that should improve performance and stability. However, we know that tonight some of you will continue to see failures (although the problems should be less frequent). 

If you do see problems, we ask that you try again later. We do expect that starting tomorrow, we will be able to fix performance and you will no longer see these issues with any regularity.

In a separate issue, some of you have reported issues with particular videos, such as lip sync issues with a show such as 30 Rock season 1 episode 1. We believe these issues are related to the video assets and we are working closely with Netflix to correct any bad videos as quickly as possible. Netflix does have a list of videos with known issues that have been reported, and they are working as fast as they can to correct all of them. In the meantime, they request you contact them to report any problems you see with a particular video. (If a video always skips or breaks up at a certain point, no matter what time of day, that's most likely a bad video issue that only Netflix can address.)

We know you're excited to use the Netflix application -- we are excited as well and we apologize for these problems. I'll keep you updated here on the forums with our progress in correcting the issues. Thanks again for your patience.

Best regards,
Stephen


----------



## dig_duggler

Nice to hear. Thanks!


----------



## MickeS

Thanks for the update, and thanks for all the hard work. I hope you guys figure out the fixes for the issues, this is a great addition to the TiVo functionality.


----------



## MickeS

davezatz said:


> TiVo's put together a fun, 'classic' little video on how the new Netflix service saves you money:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PS We took in the Pixar documentary last night with no probs. Everything worked as it should.


"This video has been removed by the user"?


----------



## wgary

modnar said:


> By the way, thanks for the update TiVoStephen!


For real. Does anyone else feel that people should just lighten up a little? First day blues are the rule, not the exception. (Any early adopter experiences this. iPhone 3G, anyone?) And someone from Tivo is actually responding to concerns. Personally. Good luck getting that from other companies.


----------



## miimura

I have my S3 connected to a Sony 36XBR400 with component video and I have the resoltuion set to 480i & 1080i. This is an older 4:3 direct view CRT HDTV. The Tivo does a good job of displaying SD content and menus full screen. HD channels will display in 1080i and the TV will do its V-squeeze thing.

I watched an episode of _Nature_ last night using the Netflix feature. It was a 4:3 SD program. When playback started the Tivo went to 1080i and the program had gray bars on the side. So, I had black bars top and bottom and gray bars on the side. Regular TivoCast programs display correctly full screen 4:3 480i.

Has anyone else seen this issue?

- Mike


----------



## HomieG

Thanks TiVoStephen!


----------



## TiVoShanan

keenanSR said:


> That was very cool.


RE: the video you thought was cool, THANKS!! Sadly, though, we had a glitch and had to repost... here's the new URL:





And just in case you need a little Christmas silliness, there's this:


----------



## groovy9

Now that I've watched a few hours, I've noticed several shows have an annoying tinny sound under voices. I haven't noticed it in HD, and not in all SD shows. But Jeremiah and Weeds both did it, among others. It's almost like there's a very slight buzz in the speakers.

Is it just me?


----------



## hummingbird_206

A few hours ago I put 5 new movies in my queue that are all available to "Watch Instantly" and have the "Play" button next to them in the Netflix queue. But they don't show up on my S3 TiVo's Watch Instantly list. Anyone know how if there's something I can/must do to update the TiVo's WI list? The only WI selections I have on the TiVo are ones that have been in my queue for weeks.


----------



## sinanju

TiVoStephen said:


> Folks, thanks for your patience and we apologize for the launch issues that some of you have experienced.
> 
> Volume has been much higher than anticipated. We've been working around the clock to resolve these issues. As part of the solution, we are quickly moving to add more capacity to the system.


Yet, previously...



> I know this will sound hard to believe, but last night's problems were not load related. We apologize for the issues and continue to monitor closely.


I appreciate the update. But, I'm a fanboy sometimes, and I even I find this more than a bit annoying.


----------



## ThAbtO

hummingbird_206 said:


> A few hours ago I put 5 new movies in my queue that are all available to "Watch Instantly" and have the "Play" button next to them in the Netflix queue. But they don't show up on my S3 TiVo's Watch Instantly list. Anyone know how if there's something I can/must do to update the TiVo's WI list? The only WI selections I have on the TiVo are ones that have been in my queue for weeks.


Try pointing at the play button and it will open to say 'add to instant queue'.


----------



## hummingbird_206

ThAbtO said:


> Try pointing at the play button and it will open to say 'add to instant queue'.


Didn't work for me, but thanks. I think there's something screwed up on the Netflix end. I have 30 Rock Season 1 in my queue and I've watched part of the first disk instantly on my computer. I just tried watching more of it from the same computer and I'm getting an error that I don't have rights to view


----------



## sriggins

Both Real Genius and Network are awful, no lip sync, skipping, etc.


----------



## jgantert

"Maniac Nurses Find Ecstasy" video is screwed up (image is a Parallelogram). So we need to call Netflix 800 number for each movie that is bad? So far I have 4 duds (30 Rock Pilot, "Hot Times at Montclair High" and "Chained Heat 2") that won't play properly.

Picture quality on "Kinky Killers" (SD) was amazing! Very nice! Michael Par&#233; really has come a long way in his acting career. Started out with Greatest American Hero, and now this. haha.

-John


----------



## ThAbtO

hummingbird_206 said:


> Didn't work for me, but thanks. I think there's something screwed up on the Netflix end. I have 30 Rock Season 1 in my queue and I've watched part of the first disk instantly on my computer. I just tried watching more of it from the same computer and I'm getting an error that I don't have rights to view


What plan do you have? You need 1 with unlimited streaming. The lowest plan is $7.99 that has unlimited streaming and NO DVDs.

(I am streaming Ratatouille as I am posting.)


----------



## MickeS

I didn't really browse Netflix's Watch Instantly library until just now - they have a lot of good stuff! "Lilya 4 Ever", "Yes, Minister" + "Yes, Prime Minister", "Flash Gordon" and a few others got added to my queue.
Not sure if I'll keep it beyond the trial period, but I'm actually rather impressed.


----------



## shady

hummingbird_206 said:


> Didn't work for me, but thanks. I think there's something screwed up on the Netflix end. I have 30 Rock Season 1 in my queue and I've watched part of the first disk instantly on my computer. I just tried watching more of it from the same computer and I'm getting an error that I don't have rights to view


Are you sure you are adding it to your Instant Queue rather than your regular queue?


----------



## Arduinna

Working great and I'm really enjoying it.


----------



## hummingbird_206

ThAbtO said:


> What plan do you have? You need 1 with unlimited streaming. The lowest plan is $7.99 that has unlimited streaming and NO DVDs.
> 
> (I am streaming Ratatouille as I am posting.)


I have the 3 a month unlimited plan and I have other Watch it now items in my queue, just didn't add the ones I selected today.



shady said:


> Are you sure you are adding it to your Instant Queue rather than your regular queue?


I'm just clicking ADD and Netflix has always before added it to my regular queue and the instant queue at the same time if Watch Instantly was available for the selection. Has something changed that you have specify the instant queue? If so, how do you do that since there is only 1 ADD button?

Edit: I'll answer my own question...yes, something has changed. Now I see it, there is an "Add to Instant Queue" when you hover over the "Add" button. Got it working now. Thanks to those of you who tried to help me!


----------



## mbergen

I just wanted to add to this thread that I had some of the same problems others had on Tuesday - was unable to watch a movie for more than 2 minutes without getting kicked out to Tivo Central - this happened 3 times and I gave up.

I tried it yesterday, however and everything worked fine - I only watched part of the movie though - there was a bit of delay once at the beginning but then it was fine. I was transferring a file to the Tivo from my desktop computer so that may be the cause for the initial delay.

This really is great. I have never really used the netflix online watching cause I don't care for watching on my computer screen. I have the one at a time unlimited plan which is really quite reasonable.

Meg


----------



## mtchamp

I used it first time last night. Watched part of Weird Science. I wanted to FF and found I can only skip to the end. Is this normal?


----------



## ZeoTiVo

mbergen said:


> I tried it yesterday, however and everything worked fine - I only watched part of the movie though -
> Meg


same for me on Wednesday night. I did not use it anywhere as heavily as Teusday night though. Wonder if the problems TiVo sees do not crop up until a user has been working the streaming for a few hours


----------



## sriggins

mtchamp said:


> I used it first time last night. Watched part of Weird Science. I wanted to FF and found I can only skip to the end. Is this normal?


We can't even start Weird Science without it skipping and jumping on its own, but we watched the entire Unforgiven without one glitch.


----------



## dig_duggler

The service was quite useable for me for about an hour around 6 CST. Around 9 CST however, I couldn't get the app to launch (but I could get back to the main menu without hard reboots - an improvement for me).

I guess we can test out Stephen's declaration of improved performance later on today


----------



## hummingbird_206

Is there an online way to report problems with specific shows/movies to Netflix for the Watch Instantly stuff? I was searching last night and all I could find was FAQs and more FAQs and circular Help screens, and the phone number. I really don't want to sit on the phone to report a problem, but I'd happily type it in and send it to them online. If someone has a link, please post it! Thanks.


----------



## mtchamp

So, can anybody FF to a point in the movie?


----------



## bakerja

Started watching an HD movie, "Widows Peak" on Tuesday night. Got about a third of the way in and got kicked out. It was late so we went to bed. Last night went back to finish the movie, it picked up right where we left and continued, however not in HD.

Looks like they are throttling the quality while they work out the capacity issues. This sounds like a logical solution to me. I love the HD quality, but not at the expense of reliability. Even the throttled quality was quite nice.

I have been a "watch now" user for quite some time on the PC connected to my DLP tv and having Netflix available on the TIVO is so cool! I loaded up my queue with a bunch of movies and old TV series. This is such a great compliment to OTA reception, the only thing I miss about not having cable is ESPN.

I wish ESPN would come direct to TIVO!

jab


----------



## scurby2

How many total movies can be added to the "watch instantly que"


sorry if this has already been asked, but i couldnt find it


----------



## KarlH

mtchamp said:


> So, can anybody FF to a point in the movie?


Yes and no.

Some movies have problems, and Tivo claims that it's a Netflix problem. However, I'm not convinced that all of them are Netflix-owned. I've seen a problem where FF doesn't work for some movies, yet FF works perfectly if you view the same movie in a browser. This appears to be similar to your problem but, instead of going to the end, my FF always goes to the same pause/resume spot.


----------



## KarlH

TiVoStephen said:


> In the meantime, they request you contact them to report any problems you see with a particular video.


Is there an email address? Their technical contact info just points me to a phone number.


----------



## mtchamp

The inability to FF might be a deal breaker for me. I tend to watch only my favorite scenes from movies I've seen many times before. I'm on the 2 week trial. We'll see what happens.


----------



## RoyK

scurby2 said:


> How many total movies can be added to the "watch instantly que"
> 
> sorry if this has already been asked, but i couldnt find it


I don't think anybody has given a number if anybody knows one. I would guess it is a very large number, however, since the queue is just a list of titles probably with pointers to the last viewed point in each.


----------



## KarlH

sinanju said:


> I appreciate the update. But, I'm a fanboy sometimes, and I even I find this more than a bit annoying.


Yeah, I now have to cautiously consider anything he says.


----------



## tdel73

it's working great for me..I'm currently watching season 1 of the Incredible Hulk!!


----------



## ZeoTiVo

mtchamp said:


> The inability to FF might be a deal breaker for me. I tend to watch only my favorite scenes from movies I've seen many times before. I'm on the 2 week trial. We'll see what happens.


you can FFed and Rewind along with 8 sec skip back, I have done that on all the titles I watched so far.

It is just different in that you see a smaller screen in the middle and you move through thumbnails that have already been sent down to the TiVo. So it is not as precise as trickplay on a video fully loaded on the TiVo, but useable none the less.


----------



## kmkoch

This is my first post here on Netflix-Tivo. I briefly searched to see if others were reporting this problem, but other than one other mention of it (with no solutions), it looks like my situation is not common.

Activation worked fine, and I have no issues with my Instant Queue appearing on Tivo correctly. However, I've tried (last night and the night before, probably during primetime viewing hours) several times to play various movies, and each time the same thing happens: after the quality of the connection is analyzed (status message "Retrieving"), the film starts playing, but we see only a dark screen while hearing the audio track. Also, if we rewind (or subsequently fast-forward), we can see video images (in a "box" smaller on ALL sides--not just top and bottom--than the full TV screen). But we are unable to play the movie and experience anything other than audio.

Another inconsistently occuring issue is that sometimes selecting the Video on Demand menu item does nothing (there is a screen "flash", but instead of advancing to the Video on Demand menu, we remain on the Main Tivo menu). Other main Tivo menu items continue to function correctly (with the exception of the transient "Netflix on Tivo" menu item).

We have an S3 connected by 802.11b (not the Tivo USB adapter) to AT&T DSL, if that helps.

Any advice on how to troubleshoot this would be appreciated!

Karen


----------



## Tennesotans

I'm pretty thrilled...

Yep -- I've had it crash... during playback... during accessing my instant queue... just accessing the new menu item. I've seen it in HD mode, SD mode, and even "youtube" mode. I'm still very pleased... last night I:
-- watched Bing Crosby sing "White Christmas"
-- Don O'Conner perform "Make 'em Laugh"
-- Bogart deliver "...here's looking at you kid..."
-- Cloris Leachman "... Frau Blucher...neeeigh.."
-- and then watch 30 minutes of The Pixar Story

I was able to fast forward INCLUDING skip to next tick mark. We are catching up on "30 Rock" and will likely start "Weeds" sometime soon. I understand different stroke for different folks.... I'm pretty thrilled


----------



## ZeoTiVo

kmkoch said:


> We have an S3 connected by 802.11b (not the Tivo USB adapter) to AT&T DSL, if that helps.
> 
> Any advice on how to troubleshoot this would be appreciated!
> 
> Karen


I would first try a wired connection to the S3 to eliminate the adapter being the issue. It is known that the drivers for the other adapters were hard for TiVo to keep up with and also that other USB adapters demand much more of the CPU resources then the TiVo adapter since the TiVo adapter offloads much of the wireless/ethernet processing to do it on special chips on the TiVo adapter.

MAybe you have to move the S3 to do that but it will eliminate an obvious weak point in your setup to troubleshoot the problem


----------



## kmkoch

ZeoTiVo said:


> I would first try a wired connection to the S3 to eliminate the adapter being the issue.
> 
> MAybe you have to move the S3 to do that but it will eliminate an obvious weak point in your setup to troubleshoot the problem


We'll try that. Have a 1000-foot spool of CAT5 here at work, so I should be able to make an appropriately long cable to test with and avoid having to move any components. (Our condo is not THAT big anyhow.)

I guess that won't prove that the Tivo wireless adapter will work better than what we have (if wired is successful, could still be a signal strength issue?)... but it's a start. Thanks!


----------



## deluxesauce

I average about a 1.3mbps connection and have a 40" LCD. I have to say I am very pleased with the results even at around a quality of 9 of 13 bars. Sure it gets a bit pixelated especially with sweeping black scenes but it seems to get better as the program progresses. I decided to call my isp to bump my speed.
Love Netflix on Tivo...a real treat.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

kmkoch said:


> We'll try that. Have a 1000-foot spool of CAT5 here at work, so I should be able to make an appropriately long cable to test with and avoid having to move any components. (Our condo is not THAT big anyhow.)
> 
> I guess that won't prove that the Tivo wireless adapter will work better than what we have (if wired is successful, could still be a signal strength issue?)... but it's a start. Thanks!


I almost added that getting a TiVo adpater and being careful on opening so you can return it would be a way t ogo as well.
but I think doing the wired test and bypassing the whole wireless will tell you the most right off the bat


----------



## kichigai01

I am loving Netflix on my Tivo except for the sound issues. I can receive the sound but is higher pitched then it should be and once in awhile I hear a faint tick noise in the sound.

I am sure I am not the only one who has this problem nor I am the only speaking up about the issue.

I know this is rather new and bugs need to be worked out but I am curious if anyone has found a fix for the issue?

Setup is a direct connect via HDMI from a Tivo HD to a Samsung LN-S4051D.

One thing I have noticed is the people that have the same issues as I tend to have a Samsung TV too but I could be wrong.

Thanks


----------



## houman

For people who have problems over wireless, I strongly recommend you try with wired first to see if the problem is your wireless or not.


----------



## houman

I don't have problem in my Samsung (LNT4661F)


----------



## dslunceford

I'm really enjoying this...if nothing else to have some good kid material always at the ready without taking up drive space.

Having a way to find content directly from the TiVo vs adding to Netflix queue is the one thing missing.

I've had no problems with playback as yet. Both devices I'm using are THDs and both are hardwired to home network with 20MB service from Verizon FiOS.


----------



## Royster

Actually, I don't miss that last part. Entering text on the screen with the alphabet is very tedious.


----------



## TonyD79

mtchamp said:


> The inability to FF might be a deal breaker for me. I tend to watch only my favorite scenes from movies I've seen many times before. I'm on the 2 week trial. We'll see what happens.


I haven't watched anything I can't FF or REW or skip back yet. (30 second skip doesn't seem to work.) I haven't tried skip to tick (as I see tickmarks on the bar).

What I have seen is that I have to wait a few seconds before FF works. When it does, it shows a smaller screen within the screen with still frames showing where you are in the show. It does not do traditional FF Tivos users are used to. This is consistent with the FF on the Roku box, so I am sure it has to do with the nature of the stream itself. (I think the frames are seperate data within the stream if I recall correctly from the Roku forum.) When you hit play again, it has to rebuffer.


----------



## TonyD79

BTW, I like the GUI for the Tivo. Better than the one for Roku (although I think the Roku GUI is changing when they add HD to their box).

The Tivo has been flakier than my Roku box (which has been flawless) but the PQ is better on the Tivo for the same program (comparing SD to SD, obviously).

But the GUI!!! It is sharp. Any way to get Tivo to redo theirs to be as sharp.


----------



## TiVoStephen

hummingbird_206 said:


> Is there an online way to report problems
> with specific shows/movies to Netflix for the Watch Instantly stuff? I
> was searching last night and all I could find was FAQs and more FAQs and
> circular Help screens, and the phone number. I really don't want to sit
> on the phone to report a problem, but I'd happily type it in and send it
> to them online. If someone has a link, please post it! Thanks.


My contacts at Netflix say that, no, unfortunately they don't offer e-mail support or an online form to submit this information to them. Sorry!

The Netflix folks point out that a vast majority of customers prefer an immediate human response on the phone, which is why Netflix Customer Service is all done on the phone.

Our apologies again for any issues.

Please note this blog post from Netflix:
http://blog.netflix.com/2008/11/encoding-for-streaming.html

Silverlight and TiVo both use a different stream from Netflix than the stream for the Roku and XBox devices. So a bad encode on one might not be visible on another, or vice versa.

Best regards,
Stephen


----------



## TiVoStephen

TonyD79 said:


> I haven't watched anything I can't FF or REW or skip back yet. (30 second skip doesn't seem to work.) I haven't tried skip to tick (as I see tickmarks on the bar).


Correct, you should be able FF or REW for all content. And, skip to tick does work.


----------



## rainwater

TiVoStephen said:


> Correct, you should be able FF or REW for all content. And, skip to tick does work.


FF and RW do not work right after the content starts playing, so it could confuse users. You have to wait 5-10 seconds before FF and RW are enabled it seems.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

TiVoStephen said:


> The Netflix folks point out that a vast majority of customers prefer an immediate human response on the phone, which is why Netflix Customer Service is all done on the phone.


I think both TiVo and Netflix are wrong about that.
Certain movies that have a bad convert are a perfect example of where a web form could pay off big.

And actually both TiVo and Netflix has recently shown how this can be done - 
TiVo has added better account manageability in the form of pick out future sub plan.
Netflix has their "report a problem" link on the DVD queue page for each profile.

Why not just add that for instant watch as well and provide the categories of possible problems and drop-down for date, etc..?
Please pass that idea along to your counterpart at Netflix in case someone there has not already brought up that idea.

On the topic of suggestions - it is noted that some Starz stuff has expiration's - it would be cool if that was visible in TiVo interface.

Thanks for all you do and your valued participation here TiVoStephen :up:


----------



## KarlH

TonyD79 said:


> But the GUI!!! It is sharp. Any way to get Tivo to redo theirs to be as sharp.


What TV inputs are you using for the Roku and Tivo?

My HD Tivo is connected to an older HD-capable TV via a DVI input (HDMI from the Tivo), and the GUI is sharp. I'm currently using the hybrid 1080 mode, and so the (sharp) Tivo GUI is typically displayed in 480 mode, but the GUI does look slightly sharper during the few times it's displayed in 1080 mode.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

rainwater said:


> FF and RW do not work right after the content starts playing, so it could confuse users. You have to wait 5-10 seconds before FF and RW are enabled it seems.


that would probably be because all the thumbnails used for FF/RW need to download first so it will show correctly.


----------



## KarlH

rainwater said:


> FF and RW do not work right after the content starts playing, so it could confuse users. You have to wait 5-10 seconds before FF and RW are enabled it seems.


Some videos have problems, but it's unclear as to whether or not this is a Tivo or Netflix problem.

For example, last night, we had problems with Pan's Labyrinth. FF didn't work at all, and kept on kicking us back to a point around 1:09, when it didn't kick us out all the way back to the top Tivo menu. Could someone give that a try (try going to a point past 1hr 10 min)? If you have problems, it's likely a Netflix issue; if not, it may be a Tivo one.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

KarlH said:


> Some videos have problems, but it's unclear as to whether or not this is a Tivo or Netflix problem.
> 
> For example, last night, we had problems with Pan's Labyrinth. FF didn't work at all, and kept on kicking us back to a point around 1:09, when it didn't kick us out all the way back to the top Tivo menu. Could someone give that a try (try going to a point past 1hr 10 min)? If you have problems, it's likely a Netflix issue; if not, it may be a Tivo one.


I think you just experienced load perfomance issues

I have streamed PL and it worked fine and I have streamed PL at peak hours and seen issues.
I think the stream file itself is fine and can do FF/RW no problem if there are no volume/load issues


----------



## dig_duggler

So what's the verdict? Is performance improved today?


----------



## lordbah

Tuesday night - watched Weird Science. Odd how several of us seem to have chosen that movie. I just wanted something to test with. Twice I got dumped out to the menu. By habit at one point I hit the 30-second skip button and it skipped all the way to the end of the movie. Guess I just won't do that any more. Early on the audio was almost one second AHEAD of the video, somehow that worked itself out.

Wednesday night - wanted to catch the end of the Heroes episode from Monday since it must have been running late and the last 30 seconds got clipped (and I already had it padded 5 minutes over). FF would not work. Luckily the 30-second skip button was available  so I hit that and went all the way to the end. REW would not work. Managed to hit 'back 8 seconds' enough times to get where I needed to be. Some people are saying that FF/REW do work after a while, but that did not seem to be the case for me in Heroes - they have worked elsewhere. Also watched the National Treasures sequel, had no problems.

I spent close to an hour browsing what's available and in the end only added 10 movies, of which only 4 are semi-recent. To be fair there are several others which are good movies but for which either I already have the DVD or have put the DVD on my xmas list so don't want to watch it now. But it's not like there are hundreds of movies which are interesting to me - I might exhaust the supply quickly.

I've never seen it say HD quality. Appears to have all bars except the last one. It is using wireless.

On certain movies I expect that I will miss the better audio from a DVD.


----------



## rainwater

lordbah said:


> I've never seen it say HD quality. Appears to have all bars except the last one. It is using wireless.


The current season of Heroes is available in HD. However, I have noticed with a few other shows of current seasons that the latest available episode is not always in HD. It's possible it just takes longer for them to make all the bitrate versions available. Try watching earlier episodes of the current season of Heroes. If you don't get HD quality, then it means your speed is not fast enough. However, if you are getting 11 bars, my guess is you can probably do HD as well.


----------



## jmpivo

It took a few rounds to download version 11 software on my new HD unit. Prior to that, almost nothing (intra)networked properly. Since v11, MRV, etc works fine and after linking w/my netflix account, I'm a happy streaming camper! Works great. -jeff


----------



## morac

TiVoStephen said:


> Silverlight and TiVo both use a different stream from Netflix than the stream for the Roku and XBox devices. So a bad encode on one might not be visible on another, or vice versa.


If a video plays fine on a TiVo XL, but has playback issues on a TiVo S3 should we still report that to Netflix?


----------



## mikeyts

TiVoStephen said:


> The Netflix folks point out that a vast majority of customers prefer an immediate human response on the phone, which is why Netflix Customer Service is all done on the phone.


They're absolutely wrong about me. Several times in the past I've wanted to report a problem and found that the only way to do it was by phone, which I am absolutely _never_ going to do. For one thing, even if they've arranged things such that my call would be answered immediately, I would never _expect_ that--I'd expect to be kept waiting. I don't have time to sit around waiting to try to make some barely trained CSR understand the problem, when I could describe it in text quickly and go about my business. I feel as though I actually haven't been given a way to report problems, since doing it verbally isn't an option for me.

The only time when I want to talk to a person is when I'm pissed off about something and expect someone to be able to resolve the problem quickly: an overcharged bill, etc.


----------



## hummingbird_206

TiVoStephen said:


> My contacts at Netflix say that, no, unfortunately they don't offer e-mail support or an online form to submit this information to them. Sorry!
> 
> The Netflix folks point out that a vast majority of customers prefer an immediate human response on the phone, which is why Netflix Customer Service is all done on the phone.


Thank you for responding to our posts!

But as a few others have commented, I think TiVo and Netflix both are missing a vital customer service link by not having an online way to report non-urgent problems. Yes, there are many urgent issues that are better serviced by having an 'immediate' human response. But because 'immediate' is a relative term, I think having an online submittal form for non-urgent matters would be a great service to both Netflix and TiVo customers. Just because the 'majority' is happy with a phone call doesn't mean the 'minority' should be ignored, which is what is happening since those of us in the minority aren't willing to sit on hold to report non-urgent matters.


----------



## Timber

Stephen, thanks for all your work on this.



TiVoStephen said:


> The Netflix folks point out that a vast majority of customers prefer an immediate human response on the phone, which is why Netflix Customer Service is all done on the phone.


True however reporting movie problems doesn't require human interaction and a webform is cheap support. 

-=Tim=-


----------



## MickeS

Timber said:


> True however reporting movie problems doesn't require human interaction and a webform is cheap support.


Which is why TiVo's Lineup Problem reporting online rocks.  I've reported several issues and they always get resolved within the promised timeframe. I'd hate to have to do that with a live CSR on the phone every time.

I wish TiVo had some sort of detailed bug reporting tool online too, because the few times I've called and reported bugs to CSRs they have either disputed that they are bugs, or not understood the issue and I'm pretty sure they never reported it to anyone correctly (I've called and reported the 16:9 bug in the Series 2 twice, and both times I was met with the two responses above).

But that's a bit OT.


----------



## RoyK

Anybody who thinks that reporting a bug or any other problem verbally to a CS rep at a call center and that the report will be accurately passed on to someone who is in a position to act on it has never played that party game where a phrase is whispered from one person to the next and the last in the line repeats out loud what he heard.


----------



## dig_duggler

So, here's a new one. I tried out Netflix last night successfully for awhile. I went back in and the app locked up (unresponsive grey/black screen), so I got back to the Tivo Central via Tivo button. Shortly thereafter, my unit locked up. Strange. Pull the plug, everything is fine.

I try to use Netflix again around 10, same thing, grey screen. Hit Tivo Central button, back to Tivo central. I just now looked, but my unit locked up again (the clock froze) right after that. 

Failure of app to launch should not cause my machine to lock. Yes, it could be a hard drive issue, but I've had 0 problems until now and the timing is supremely suspect (both freezes occurred minutes after the app failure that I exited out of, the clock froze to indicate that). I will keep an eye on it, but fairly troubling.

Edit: I'm happy to pm anyone my service number if interested in logs


----------



## MickeS

RoyK said:


> Anybody who thinks that reporting a bug or any other problem verbally to a CS rep at a call center and that the report will be accurately passed on to someone who is in a position to act on it has never played that party game where a phrase is whispered from one person to the next and the last in the line repeats out loud what he heard.


Good analogy.


----------



## caspian31

Lykaon said:


> It's nice to see TivoStephen responding to some of the issues (Thanks!), but any news on the resets people are having when trying to play a netflix movie? I've detailed my experience here in another thread:
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=412618
> 
> Long story short: I have not been able to watch a single netflix movie (or any portion of one for that matter). Trying to do so causes my Tivo to reboot itself within 1 minute of starting the process.


I have had the same issues with the tivo - netflix streaming. I have not seen a single frame of video. Everytime I get as far as pressing play for the video on demand that I have chosen, then it shows like 11 bars goes black a few times then reboots my series 3. I have it hooked up with a cable rather than wireless. This problem is repeatable 100% of the time. I read something about kickstart 57 helping in some cases but that doesnt seem to be the problem. These are a few of the titles:

...And Justice for All
Spider-Man: Ssn 1: Heroes and Villains
The Breed

Anyone that was having rebooting issues find anything to fix them?


----------



## mrro82

I for one am loving the Netflix on my TiVo. I've only had a couple of minor issues so far. I was watching Beetlejuice and around minute 48 the audio cut out and would not come back. Then I tried to watch Changing Lanes and the sync was all out of whack. Left it alone the rest of the night and tried watching Changing Lanes agaain and it worked perfectly fine. I only have to wait about 4 seconds when I start one before the stream kicks in. It's really great. Thanks TiVo!


----------



## moyekj

caspian31 said:


> I have had the same issues with the tivo - netflix streaming. I have not seen a single frame of video. Everytime I get as far as pressing play for the video on demand that I have chosen, then it shows like 11 bars goes black a few times then reboots my series 3. I have it hooked up with a cable rather than wireless. This problem is repeatable 100% of the time. I read something about kickstart 57 helping in some cases but that doesnt seem to be the problem. These are a few of the titles:
> 
> ...And Justice for All
> Spider-Man: Ssn 1: Heroes and Villains
> The Breed
> 
> Anyone that was having rebooting issues find anything to fix them?


You know I have a theory about these crashing problems...

The Netflix blog & TivoStephen both state that there are different encodings for different players. Silverlight & Tivo require the newer VC-1 AP encodings in order to function.
My theory is that some S3 Tivos are getting the wrong encoding from Netflix (the old WMV9 encodings) and the Tivo doesn't know how to handle those which causes lockups/crashes in some cases.

As further support for above theory, if I use my tivostream application to stream some WMV9 streams to my S3s they don't play and in some cases cause my S3s to lockup/reboot. I found after a lot of experimentation the right encoding settings needed to generate .wmv files that will play properly via tivostream, and it's only a very specific combination of video and audio that work (VC-1 AP video with 2 channel CBR WMA audio).

Just a theory, but perhaps if someone from Tivo is monitoring this thread it could be of some value...

EDIT: Not knowing how Tivo/Netflix interface determines what encoding to pull down I don't know if it's even possible for the wrong encoding to be picked, so I could be completely wrong on this, but I figure I'd throw it out there just in case...


----------



## mikeyts

moyekj said:


> The Netflix blog & TivoStephen both state that there are different encodings for different players. Silverlight & Tivo require the newer VC-1 AP encodings in order to function.


Could you point me to where either source said that TiVo needs VC1AP? I've read in the blog entry that all HD encodings are VC1AP:


> Today we have rights to deliver about 400 streams in HD (720p). More titles will be added over time. We experimented with first-generation WMV3 encodes at 4000kbps and 5500kbps, but settled on second-generation HD encodes with VC1AP at 2600kbps and 3800kbps, which extends their accessibility down to lower home broadband connections.


So all HD-capable platforms have to be able to decode VC1AP.


----------



## moyekj

mikeyts said:


> Could you point me to where either source said that TiVo needs VC1AP? I've read in the blog entry that all HD encodings are VC1AP:So all HD-capable platforms have to be able to decode VC1AP.


It's all based on my findings by trying to stream my own wmv files to Tivo once 11.0 software was released and Tivo streaming started accepting wmv files. See starting at this post for the analysis:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6877504#post6877504
The details in the blog kind of pointed me in the right direction for encoding setup to find something that works.

In summary, only encodings with VC1 AP video work from my findings. For video if you try VC1 (not AP) or WMV they don't work, for audio if you try WMAPro instead of WMA they don't work. In many cases I would just get a black screen and no audio with a lot of the formats I tried, but in some cases I would get screeching audio and a hard crash of my S3. Those symptoms seem to be similar to what some people are experiencing here which is what triggered the thought.


----------



## MickeS

More encoding (I assume) issues: Both "Jay Jay the Jet Plane: Jay Jay's Big Mystery" and "Jay Jay the Jet Plane: Jay Jay's Wing Wigglin' Mystery" are unwatcheable. The sound was fine, but the pictures was "leaning" about 45 degrees diagonally across the screen, and blurry on top of that. I see in the comments that others have commented on the encoding of these too.

So far, I think my son is more disappointed in this than I am. 

I also noticed that "Caillou: Big Brother Caillou" can't be fast-forwarded (I have fast-forwarded through other movies), but maybe that is by design.

I am NOT calling Netflix to tell them this, it's ridiculous that they don't have some net-based feedback.


----------



## jgantert

Well, finally got around to calling Netflix. They already had my movies on the list of movies with issues. They said there are around 300 titles with issues. So they are aware of problem titles. I guess it is a new service, and it will just take a while for the problems to clear up.

On the Tivo side, except for the mad rush Monday and Tuesday evening, things have been ok. Seemed better last night, as I didn't have any problems getting kicked back out to Tivo Central.

I'm sure they'll get things worked out. I would bet it's staggering the number of unique users using this service, not to mention the number of simultaneous users using it during prime time.

Anyways, so far I'm impressed. Much more so than a year or so ago when I was streaming to my PC. The picture quality back then left a LOT to be desired.


----------



## shady

Mine has just locked up.
I just clicked on watch instantly and I got the beep, but that was it. That was 20 mins ago. Nothing is responding (Usually the TiVo button gets you out, but not this time)

By the Way, the clock is still correct. 

It's supposed to be recording something, so I don't want to pull the plug just yet, just in case it still is recording


----------



## topjazz

Anyone know of a reason why my HD unit would have the Netflix update, but not my S3? My series 3 is still at 9.2.


----------



## JimPa

Anybody else sitting on the sidelines waiting for this Netflix/tivo service to get some of the bugs out? I haven't had a problem with my TIVO in a couple of years and can't see intentionally trying the service that so many are having problems with.


----------



## aloudnoise

Tuesday - Netflix worked great on my S3 - watched 3 episodes of 30 Rock S1 (also had that sound sync problem everyone else has). And we finally got used to not using the FF/RW.
Thursday - every time we tried to start S1 E4 of 30 Rock, it would give me a black screen (bandwidth is OK). Went back out to the Tivo menu and tried a couple more times but it always failed. Then when we gave up and went to the Tivo Menu, we lost the background Tivo animation entirely. (Memory not released?) It eventually came back, but the next time we went to Netflix, it just locked up the Tivo entirely and we had to reboot.

Hopefully the bandwidth/encoding/whatever problems will be fixed soon, because when it works, it's fantastic!
I would also settle for some better error-handling so that the Tivo didn't hang or otherwise lose memory/processing power. An error message might be nice too.


----------



## JimPa

Case in point.


----------



## MickeS

jgantert said:


> On the Tivo side, except for the mad rush Monday and Tuesday evening, things have been ok. Seemed better last night, as I didn't have any problems getting kicked back out to Tivo Central.


Yeah, I had zero issues last night browsing or starting titles. That's a good sign at least.


----------



## dig_duggler

So judging by some responses here and other threads, I suppose all the kinks aren't worked out as hoped.

I just cancelled my trial membership. It would be great if it works, but it's locked up my box 8 times, twice after leaving the Netflix app. It just doesn't seem ready for prime time to me yet.


----------



## topless

Things have gotten much better on my end. We watched two episodes of Heroes last night during prime time and experienced no dropouts. The audio was out of sync at first on the first episode we watched but a quick drop out of playback and resume playback fixed the problem.

After the first couple of nights of frustration with the service my wife was ready to discount the whole netflix things. She was much more excited about it after last night's experience.


----------



## dig_duggler

Hey, when it's working it is great. It hasn't happened to everyone, but when your box locks up (and especially when it locks up more than once, and doubly especially if it locks up outside the app) your con list grows quite a bit.

I'm sure I'll be back once the kinks get worked out.


----------



## NJ Webel

Has anyone else noticed aspect ratio issues? Things that should be 4:3 (Airwolf episodes, etc) are automatically displayed 16:9 on my LCD. The 'Aspect' button is disabled for Netflix playback...

The reason I think this is a TiVo issue is because I have TWO S3's, one on a widescreen TV and the other on a 4:3 TV. If I stop Netflix playback on an improperly stretched episode of "family Ties", and pick back up watching on the 4:3 TV, the picture is properly displayed.


----------



## MickeS

dig_duggler said:


> So judging by some responses here and other threads, I suppose all the kinks aren't worked out as hoped.
> 
> I just cancelled my trial membership. It would be great if it works, but it's locked up my box 8 times, twice after leaving the Netflix app. It just doesn't seem ready for prime time to me yet.


While I think it's a good service, I too will cancel my trial membership when it's up. I'm pretty sure I will get a Netflix membership again within the next year though, provided the bugs are worked out. I have to say that the value for the money and the simple interface is great.


----------



## MickeS

NJ Webel said:


> Has anyone else noticed aspect ratio issues? Things that should be 4:3 (Airwolf episodes, etc) are automatically displayed 16:9 on my LCD. The 'Aspect' button is disabled for Netflix playback...
> 
> The reason I think this is a TiVo issue is because I have TWO S3's, one on a widescreen TV and the other on a 4:3 TV. If I stop Netflix playback on an improperly stretched episode of "family Ties", and pick back up watching on the 4:3 TV, the picture is properly displayed.


I pointed this out earlier in the thread. The aspect ratio you set with the "Aspect" button for TiVo DOES apply - you just can't change it in the Netflix app, you have to go out to live TV or a recording to do so, and then go back to the Netflix movie. Highly annoying, but at least that's the workaround.


----------



## brywalker

kichigai01 said:


> I am loving Netflix on my Tivo except for the sound issues. I can receive the sound but is higher pitched then it should be and once in awhile I hear a faint tick noise in the sound.
> 
> I am sure I am not the only one who has this problem nor I am the only speaking up about the issue.
> 
> I know this is rather new and bugs need to be worked out but I am curious if anyone has found a fix for the issue?
> 
> Setup is a direct connect via HDMI from a Tivo HD to a Samsung LN-S4051D.
> 
> One thing I have noticed is the people that have the same issues as I tend to have a Samsung TV too but I could be wrong.
> 
> Thanks


I am having the same problem here. If I play on the 360 it plays fine with all bars. On the TiVo it is 1 bar from max and the sound is all ticky and distorted. When I back out into the menus all navigation sounds are distorted. Live TV and recordings are fine, but the sounds persist in the menus. A reset fixes them until I play a Netflix video again. Lame as hell.


----------



## lautry

Thursday night 6pm CST. Tried Startrek S1 and when the episode began to load, screen went blank, clock stopped, all buttons unresponsive. Began the maddening process of pulling the plug (again, why no reset button or on/off switch?) waited 10 min or so to reboot.
When it came up a message from TIVO appeared and said I had a problem with the VOD screen and told me to do the download process from TIVO. I already had ver 11 software, but I thought maybe TIVO had a patch.
Tried again and worked perfectly in HD for 42 min, then began to rebuffer every 1 minute. Finally finished the episode, an hour and a half to view 50 min.
Still lovin TIVO and the Netflix concept, but man this launch seems rough.
4th nite in a row with problems. Think I will let it sit for a while.


----------



## modnar

lautry said:


> Thursday night 6pm CST. Tried Startrek S1 and when the episode began to load, screen went blank, clock stopped, all buttons unresponsive. Began the maddening process of pulling the plug (again, why no reset button or on/off switch?) waited 10 min or so to reboot.
> When it came up a message from TIVO appeared and said I had a problem with the VOD screen and told me to do the download process from TIVO. I already had ver 11 software, but I thought maybe TIVO had a patch.
> Tried again and worked perfectly in HD for 42 min, then began to rebuffer every 1 minute. Finally finished the episode, an hour and a half to view 50 min.
> Still lovin TIVO and the Netflix concept, but man this launch seems rough.
> 4th nite in a row with problems. Think I will let it sit for a while.


The message that VOD isn't available seems to indicate that there was a problem with your network connection. I was seeing that earlier this week when my router needed restarted.

The rebuffering while viewing might indicate that your connection speed was fine when the movie started (thus allowing HD quality) then lessened when you were 42 minutes.


----------



## djwilso

modnar said:


> The message that VOD isn't available seems to indicate that there was a problem with your network connection. I was seeing that earlier this week when my router needed restarted.
> 
> The rebuffering while viewing might indicate that your connection speed was fine when the movie started (thus allowing HD quality) then lessened when you were 42 minutes.


When I got the VOD not available page, following the directions to connect to the TiVo service worked.

The router was working fine as all of my computers and other devices were still able to connect to the Internet with no problems. It was definitely isolated to the TiVo as the device having the problem in my case.

But that aside, I was able to watch a movie lasting 1.5 hours yesterday afternoon and did not have any issues. So things are looking up (I hope).

Dennis


----------



## lautry

modnar said:


> The message that VOD isn't available seems to indicate that there was a problem with your network connection. I was seeing that earlier this week when my router needed restarted.
> 
> The rebuffering while viewing might indicate that your connection speed was fine when the movie started (thus allowing HD quality) then lessened when you were 42 minutes.


I don't think it was a router problem as I also have a ROKU box and it works fine over the same connection. When I get frustrated with TIVO I switch back to ROKU. I haven't had to reset my router in weeks.

As far as the rebuffering, it always rebuffers at max bars and HD, just every 60 sec when it acts up.

I appreciate your comment, and knowing my ISP's past performance you may be right, but I still suspect launch problems with the TIVO/Netflix interface.


----------



## morac

moyekj said:


> You know I have a theory about these crashing problems...
> 
> The Netflix blog & TivoStephen both state that there are different encodings for different players. Silverlight & Tivo require the newer VC-1 AP encodings in order to function.
> My theory is that some S3 Tivos are getting the wrong encoding from Netflix (the old WMV9 encodings) and the Tivo doesn't know how to handle those which causes lockups/crashes in some cases.


The problem with that theory is that the lockups don't seem to be video dependent. For example my TiVo locked up hard when I tried to play Heroes Season 3: Eclipse Part 2 before any video even appeared to buffer or play and Netflix's web site claims I never watched that video. The next day I tried the same video and it worked fine (other than booting me out after a few minutes).

It seems the S3 doesn't like when a video is requested, but none arrives. Thus my own theory is that somehow the TiVo is sending null data to the decoders because it never received the data from Netflix. The decoders bork on this garbage data and the whole system kernel dumps.


----------



## moyekj

morac said:


> The problem with that theory is that the lockups don't seem to be video dependent. For example my TiVo locked up hard when I tried to play Heroes Season 3: Eclipse Part 2 before any video even appeared to buffer or play and Netflix's web site claims I never watched that video. The next day I tried the same video and it worked fine (other than booting me out after a few minutes).
> 
> It seems the S3 doesn't like when a video is requested, but none arrives. Thus my own theory is that somehow the TiVo is sending null data to the decoders because it never received the data from Netflix. The decoders bork on this garbage data and the whole system kernel dumps.


 Yes it sounds like if the Tivo doesn't get exactly what it's expecting then the behavior is very unpredictable and certainly not stable. There should be a graceful rejection of bad data and a corresponding error trap with appropriate messages displayed. As I mentioned using my own video streaming application I can get the whole machine to lockup pretty easily by sending it "bad" data and for those cases I don't get any feedback that there is a problem - but then again I'm using unsupported/unpublished HME capability so have little expectation that it should be better behaved for my application. However, for Netflix it should be properly implemented.


----------



## Lykaon

morac said:


> It seems the S3 doesn't like when a video is requested, but none arrives. Thus my own theory is that somehow the TiVo is sending null data to the decoders because it never received the data from Netflix. The decoders bork on this garbage data and the whole system kernel dumps.


If that were the case, you would think that people in my situation would have intermittent Netflix compatibility. It would stand to reason that sometimes I would get video (and see it) and other times not (and crash).

But so far I have had a reboot 100% of the time on 12 attempts. If it's just netflix sending null data randomly, then I have some pretty bad luck.


----------



## modnar

lautry said:


> I appreciate your comment, and knowing my ISP's past performance you may be right, but I still suspect launch problems with the TIVO/Netflix interface.


You might want to try doing some speed tests from a pc/laptop (somewhere like http://www.speedtest.net ) before you start streaming, then again if you encounter buffering problems (after stopping your Netflix stream) to see if there is any difference.


----------



## JimPa

With this technology, can you pause at the beginning so that the system buffers enough to not run out of data??????


----------



## lautry

modnar said:


> You might want to try doing some speed tests from a pc/laptop (somewhere like http://www.speedtest.net ) before you start streaming, then again if you encounter buffering problems (after stopping your Netflix stream) to see if there is any difference.


Good suggestion, will try tonight. Thanks


----------



## lautry

JimPa said:


> With this technology, can you pause at the beginning so that the system buffers enough to not run out of data??????


Tried that several times, it doesn"t work. I think it can only store x amount of data and that is not enough for a constant, strong stream. ( I'm not a urologist, by the way)


----------



## rjgibson0066

lautry said:


> Tried that several times, it doesn"t work. I think it can only store x amount of data and that is not enough for a constant, strong stream. ( I'm not a urologist, by the way)


Good one.

I tried the pause thing too - no worky.


----------



## MickeS

I wonder if tonight might be a bigger test for this than the previous nights. Friday night is probably a bigger home movie night than Mon - Thu.


----------



## ThAbtO

I have had no more major problems since the 1 time the THD locked up and had to pull the plug. I have already watched movies like bridge to tarabithia, the mechanic, and some old TV series. I only had a little sync problem but it solved itself when I rew back a bit and it got back in sync, this was with Coyote Ugly. I also jumped to the dance scene of Dirty Dancing without much of a hitch except the time marker jumped back to 0:00 and had to repeat my action to get there again.


----------



## bradleys

Finally set up my two TIVO's tonight and it works brilliantly. My daughter is in the media room watching rattatouille right now.

I have been waiting a long time for this. We are very happy...


----------



## bizzy

Watched a 1 hour show last night with no problems. Tonight, trying to start another show hung my S3 at a grey screen and the dreaded "Please wait".

I guess I've gotten spoiled by my Apple TV; where I can't literally predict the software quality by flipping a coin.


----------



## MickeS

No issues for me tonight. Watched another "Caillou" and also "The Gameplan" with no problems at all.

I hope they work out the kinks so everyone can enjoy it.


----------



## Resist

Netflix really needs to add more new movies for watch instantly. And speeding up after a fast forward would be nice tool. It sucks having to wait and one reason DVD's won't go away anytime soon.


----------



## mikeyts

I haven't had any trouble on the past couple of nights. I only watched about 90 minutes on each of them. Last night, after watching my recording of Thursday's _CSI_, I recalled that I missed an episode earlier this season and used WI to watch it. It streamed in HD and while not quite as crisp as the 18.6 Mbps MPEG-2 of the recording, it was _quite_ good--astonish for a 3.8 Mbps stream. When this works, it's really good.

EDIT: BTW, I don't recall hearing mention of this, but scrolling through the Instant Queue on TiVo is horrible. If I scroll off the bottom of the visible list, it can be a few seconds before the screen fills with the next portion of the list. In the meantime, the selection goes back to the top of the list and starts down. Goofy and annoying. Scrolling by the page with the Chan- and Chan+ keys works fine.


----------



## mikeyts

Today it's working perfectly for me, although I've just been watching things straight through with the occasional pause.

One of the cool things about Watch Instantly is the selection of television series. If they've got something that that you've always wondered about you can check it out from the beginning--I tried the Showtime series _Weeds_ that way and determined after about 4 episodes that I didn't really care for it. If they've got something that you loved, you can watch it over again; I watched the first season of _Friday Night Lights_ a second time in the PC player last year. Today I've been watching the BBC series _Coupling_, which has only 6 half-hour episodes per season--it's hilarious .

I'm not much of a standard sit-com fan (though I enjoy really quirky ones), but I might try both the original British and the American versions of _The Office_ (they even have the American version in HD). I've heard that one of the main characters has my name.


----------



## Rose4uKY

So it getting better now or are more people still having problems. I just got the update tonight on my LR Tivo. Haven't checked the BR one yet but I am still kind of leary about trying it just yet. I have 2 x Series 3 Tivos. Rose


----------



## sriggins

Can someone try:

Network
Real Genius
Liar Liar

and let me know if they are in sync, etc?


----------



## DrWho453

sriggins said:


> Can someone try:
> 
> Network
> Real Genius
> Liar Liar
> 
> and let me know if they are in sync, etc?


I tried Real Genius 3 times today and could not get it to play properly. It would play the title for 3 or 5 seconds, then go to grey screen and skip some of the title then play another 3 or 5 seconds then go grey again and skip some more title. Then it would finally start playing intro part of the movie but then you could tell that every 3 to 5 seconds it would skip a few seconds ahead. I ended up not watching it. I had already seen it before but thought I would see how it played on the tivo netflix stream.


----------



## sriggins

DrWho453 said:


> I tried Real Genius 3 times today and could not get it to play properly. It would play the title for 3 or 5 seconds, then go to grey screen and skip some of the title then play another 3 or 5 seconds then go grey again and skip some more title. Then it would finally start playing intro part of the movie but then you could tell that every 3 to 5 seconds it would skip a few seconds ahead. I ended up not watching it. I had already seen it before but thought I would see how it played on the tivo netflix stream.


ok so it is a bad encoding, that is exactly what happens to us.

I'm not impressed by their quality control.


----------



## mikeyts

sriggins said:


> Can someone try:
> 
> Network
> Real Genius
> Liar Liar
> 
> and let me know if they are in sync, etc?


I tried all three, with different bad results on TiVo. _Network_ was badly out of audio sync as was _Liar Liar_ and _Real Genius_ skipped (it'd play 5 seconds or so, then skip many seconds forward, then play another 5 seconds, etc).

So, I tried all three on the Xbox. (My Xbox came up without automatically logging me in and when I forced a login, I got a message saying that Xbox Live content wasn't currently available, though I'd be able to communicate with friends and play multiplayer games. After I dismissed the message, I could only see two dashboard "channels", being My Xbox and Friends--the Netflix app is on the Video Marketplace channel. I hit the guide button and accessed the Netflix app from there. I don't know what was going on, but all the channels are up now). I first tried to get _Real Genius_ playing three times with no success (it displayed the quality bars, but wouldn't start buffering). I then tried the other two, which played just fine--no skipping or audio sync problems. I tried _Real Genius_ again, and it played fine.

Then I tried all three on the PC. All of them played (in the Silverlight player), but with audio sync problems.

I guess I've been lucky--according to the "Instant Watching Activity" in my account info, I've played exactly 100 titles since May of 2007 (obviously, mostly on the PC with the old, non-Silverlight web player) and I've never seen any of these problems (skipping, audio sync) on the old web player, Silverlight, Xbox or TiVo.

Since I was able to get all of them to play fine on the Xbox, it was obviously not a simple matter of bad encoding, unless I was getting a higher or lower quality encoding than you--I got highest quality readings in all three players for all three titles.


----------



## NJ Webel

MickeS said:


> I pointed this out earlier in the thread. The aspect ratio you set with the "Aspect" button for TiVo DOES apply - you just can't change it in the Netflix app, you have to go out to live TV or a recording to do so, and then go back to the Netflix movie. Highly annoying, but at least that's the workaround.


Thanks, Mike. I went away from this thread and figured it out on my own as well. Coing back here to report my solution, which I now see _wasn't_ my solution!


----------



## mikeyts

Another cool thing about the TiVo player is that the CLEAR button works on the Instant Queue list to delete items from it in one step, as it does in the Now Playing list.


----------



## catkey94

Another cool thing about the Netflix service is that the movies don't use space on the TiVO unlike with the other movie download services.


----------



## slimoli

catkey94 said:


> Another cool thing about the Netflix service is that the movies don't use space on the TiVO unlike with the other movie download services.


That's a good thing but I wish the download was possible. On a 73" screen the picture quality is pretty bad due to the low quality stream and a download would probably allow a much better picture. The way it is now, HD looks like my cable SD and SD looks like an old VHS tape . I can't deal with poor quality.


----------



## nrc

slimoli said:


> That's a good thing but I wish the download was possible. On a 73" screen the picture quality is pretty bad due to the low quality stream and a download would probably allow a much better picture. The way it is now, HD looks like my cable SD and SD looks like an old VHS tape . I can't deal with poor quality.


I'm hoping that Amazon won't got to a streaming only scheme for just this reason. I'd rather have the option of getting the best quality even if my connection won't support it as a stream.


----------



## rodneyremington

My HD has looked good on a 60 inch screen. Now if it would only stop locking up the Tivo.


----------



## Royster

Ugh. How do I report bad picture/sound sync? "Hellboy: Sword of Storms" has the sound way, way ahead of the picture.


----------



## mikeyts

Royster said:


> Ugh. How do I report bad picture/sound sync? "Hellboy: Sword of Storms" has the sound way, way ahead of the picture.


Huh. I checked it out, and this is yet another stream that has problems in both the PC Silverlight player and TiVo, but not on the Xbox (_Network_, _Real Genius_ and _Liar Liar_ are the others, as discussed above). Anybody got a Roku box they can try it (and maybe the others) on?

To answer your question they stupidly don't have an online form in which to report problems--you can go to this page, click "Watch instantly on your TV" (near the bottom of the yellowish-beige square titled "Contact Customer Service" on the lower-right), click "Video playback" when that opens up and call the "Answers by Phone" number on the right. (As I look at it right now, there's an estimated 12 minute wait ).


----------



## eochs

Can someone try these?

Evening with kevin smith - no audio, TiVo hd with hdmi

Evening with kevin smith 2 - 20 second audio delay


----------



## Caesarv

I wanted a P2550 BD player for the Netflix feature. The firmware update for this arrived last week. Performance has been very good. Some movies had a slight audio sync problem.
So now TiVo has this and I tried out the same thing. Using Star Trek (which is in HD) as a reference, I thought I would compare the two, going back and forth a bit. 
While the P2550 worked great, the TiVo had the sound messed up and everyone sounded a bit like Donald Duck. I tried starting/stopping with no luck. Eventually the TiVo locked up and was unresponsive for about 5 minutes after which it rebooted. 
Both the TiVo and the P2550 are connected via HDMI to a Sharp 52SE94U TV. Both are hard wired to the same LAN switch which connects to my solid 6mbps DSL line via a router. I slightly prefer the user interface of the P2550, but both are ok.
Maybe this is not quite ready for prime time.


----------



## gear

Tivo series 3 and Samsung P2550 comparison #2
Watched 4 movies with the Samsung unit and no issues whatsoever.
Watched 2 movies with the Tivo unit and had problems with both. The Tivo froze and needed to have the plug pulled. Twice movies started with no audio and had to be restarted to get audio. Tivo paused for a long time when "instant downloads" was chosen in tivo central then took a lot longer to load the movie. Tivo also paused during the movie.
Both units are connected to the router by ethernet and both units are connected to the Tv by hdmi. Watched movies at about the same time of day.
Picture quality is the same.

Samsung works great Tivo needs a lot of fine tuning.

Netflix needs more choices and some quality control.


----------



## wmcbrine

Caesarv said:


> Using Star Trek (which is in HD) as a reference, I thought I would compare the two, going back and forth a bit.
> While the P2550 worked great, the TiVo had the sound messed up and everyone sounded a bit like Donald Duck.


Star Trek worked well for me. Specifically, I watched "Errand of Mercy".


----------



## TonyD79

eochs said:


> Can someone try these?
> 
> Evening with kevin smith - no audio, TiVo hd with hdmi
> 
> Evening with kevin smith 2 - 20 second audio delay


I have sound on the first one but I am not using HDMI. Using optical audio.


----------



## morac

wmcbrine said:


> Star Trek worked well for me. Specifically, I watched "Errand of Mercy".


I'll mention that when reporting if something plays fine or not, it would be useful to state which model of TiVo you used for testing as the S3 and HD/XL have different VC-1 decoder chips. The S3 has Broadcom BCM7411 (separate chip for H.264 and VC-1) and the HD has a Broadcom BCM7401 (does all decoding).

Because of the difference in decoder chips, it's possible that the S3 and HD/XL models may play things back differently.


----------



## Caesarv

My Star Trek P2550 comparison with TiVo was on an HD TiVo upgraded to a 750GB drive. I tried "Errand of Mercy" tonight and everyone still sounds like Donald Duck. The P2550 sounded great. As far as I am concerned, TiVo streaming is useless unless the audio is fixed.


----------



## JimPa

gear said:


> Tivo series 3 and Samsung P2550 comparison #2
> Watched 4 movies with the Samsung unit and no issues whatsoever.
> Watched 2 movies with the Tivo unit and had problems with both. The Tivo froze and needed to have the plug pulled. Twice movies started with no audio and had to be restarted to get audio. Tivo paused for a long time when "instant downloads" was chosen in tivo central then took a lot longer to load the movie. Tivo also paused during the movie.
> Both units are connected to the router by ethernet and both units are connected to the Tv by hdmi. Watched movies at about the same time of day.
> Picture quality is the same.
> 
> Samsung works great Tivo needs a lot of fine tuning.
> 
> Netflix needs more choices and some quality control.


Is it a given that everyone with a S3 Tivo is currently having problems with the streaming service? I'd like to try out the free trial service but don't want to burn off the two weeks trial period while they're still too many problems with it.


----------



## gear

JimPa said:


> Is it a given that everyone with a S3 Tivo is currently having problems with the streaming service? I'd like to try out the free trial service but don't want to burn off the two weeks trial period while they're still too many problems with it.


Its far from flawless at this point.


----------



## Royster

JimPa said:


> Is it a given that everyone with a S3 Tivo is currently having problems with the streaming service? I'd like to try out the free trial service but don't want to burn off the two weeks trial period while they're still too many problems with it.


I've had some video/audio sync issues with my S3, but none of the freeze-ups mentioned.


----------



## angra

I have gotten the v11 software, but have yet to even get into the Video on Demand menu. When I try, I get:



> There was a problem accessing the Video on Demand screen. To resolve this issue, please try the following:
> 
> 1. Connect to the TiVo service: Go to TiVo Central and select 'Messages & Settings' > 'Settings' > 'Phone & Network' > 'Connect tot he TiVo service now'.
> 
> 2. If the issue persists, please refer to the Networking pages on the TiVo Web site at www.tivo.com/support.


Of course I have forced many connections and verified that everything else networking wise works (that I can think to check). Practically no one else on the internet has reported similar behavior. Anyone have any suggestions on what to check or how to troubleshoot this? Anyone else seen this and fixed it somehow?


----------



## husky55

angra said:


> I have gotten the v11 software, but have yet to even get into the Video on Demand menu. When I try, I get:
> 
> Of course I have forced many connections and verified that everything else networking wise works (that I can think to check). Practically no one else on the internet has reported similar behavior. Anyone have any suggestions on what to check or how to troubleshoot this? Anyone else seen this and fixed it somehow?


Did you get "Preparing" then "connect.." successfully?

VOD is NOT available if your Tivo did not connect regardless of your network working or not. If Tivo connects successfully, then your ONLY recourse is to reboot your Tivo with your network connected and verified according to StephenTivo, Tivo rep on this site.


----------



## angra

Thanks for the response. I am not 100&#37; sure I follow your question, but I think you are asking if the tivo service connection went all the way through and completed, which it did. Preparing, connect, etc, to "loading data 100%"


----------



## Adam1115

JimPa said:


> Is it a given that everyone with a S3 Tivo is currently having problems with the streaming service? I'd like to try out the free trial service but don't want to burn off the two weeks trial period while they're still too many problems with it.


I used it a few times since the first night with no problems....


----------



## husky55

angra said:


> Thanks for the response. I am not 100% sure I follow your question, but I think you are asking if the tivo service connection went all the way through and completed, which it did. Preparing, connect, etc, to "loading data 100%"


That's what I mean. This is the TivoStephen post referred to:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6921665#post6921665


----------



## angra

Thanks again for the clarification/validation.

I've verified that my tivo has network connectivity during bootup. I saw the thread that you linked, and since I have not been able to get to the netflix app, I felt like his comment in post #13 toward "Ted" implied that that was really not the place for me to request help on this paticular issue.

The tivo.com/support section has nothing on this problem as well. Getting a bit frustrating.


----------



## JimPa

angra,

....and you do have a Netflix subscription that includes the streaming service(not the bottom level) and have selected content to be streamed.


----------



## angra

JimPa,

I do not, but I do have amazon fully activated and should be able to at least get to the VoD screen, right? I would activate a subscription if not for this issue.


----------



## Mindflux

Fiancee and I watched War Inc last night over Netflix. Worked well.


----------



## lordbah

I picked up an old Linksys router on ebay and installed the Tomato firmware so I could boost the power on the wireless. It improved my signal strength at the Tivo about 10%. I was able to watch a movie from Netflix with no hiccups.


----------



## husky55

angra said:


> JimPa,
> 
> I do not, but I do have amazon fully activated and should be able to at least get to the VoD screen, right? I would activate a subscription if not for this issue.


You should be able to get to the VOD screen, then to Netflix screen which will then give us the Tivo ID for Netflix. You then will be able to activate Tivo on your computer at the Netflix site with your Tivo ID in your account. I had my Netflix account before Tivo activation.


----------



## lautry

angra said:


> I have gotten the v11 software, but have yet to even get into the Video on Demand menu. When I try, I get:
> 
> Of course I have forced many connections and verified that everything else networking wise works (that I can think to check). Practically no one else on the internet has reported similar behavior. Anyone have any suggestions on what to check or how to troubleshoot this? Anyone else seen this and fixed it somehow?


I have had that happen to me twice after lockups during Netflix use. Twice I connected to TIVO and completed a 100% download. The Netflix VOD option worked after that.

I experienced and went along with just about all of the problems with the Netflix launch until I started to read the posts about TIVOs locking up so bad they could not reboot and were advised by TIVO to return units for swap out, usually involving more money.

At that point I sensed "a bad moon on the rise" with this launch, stopped using Netflix on TIVO and returned to the trusty ROKU box to use Netflix. (No Problems) I decided to give this launch a couple of weeks to settle down or until these post clear up. I am a huge TIVO fan and Netflix use is a great concept.

There is nothing wrong with my internet connection and it works fine with ROKU, max quality. I have a series three box.


----------



## SugarBowl

I watched Beer For My Horses. Worked great.


----------



## dig_duggler

lautry said:


> I experienced and went along with just about all of the problems with the Netflix launch until I started to read the posts about TIVOs locking up so bad they could not reboot and were advised by TIVO to return units for swap out, usually involving more money.
> 
> At that point I sensed "a bad moon on the rise" with this launch, stopped using Netflix on TIVO and returned to the trusty ROKU box to use Netflix. (No Problems) I decided to give this launch a couple of weeks to settle down or until these post clear up. I am a huge TIVO fan and Netflix use is a great concept.


Box lock ups have a reason at least:

* Issues regarding freezes and reboots

If you lose network connectivity (for example, if your router is unplugged or your ISP has a hiccup or the cat chews through the Ethernet cable) while watching a Netflix video, you may experience a rare issue with your DVR becoming completely unresponsive to the remote.

If your DVR does freeze, the only solution is to reboot the unit.

However, if you still do not have network connectivity during the boot up process, the boot will not finish. So you MUST have a working network to reboot, if you experience a freeze while using the Netflix application. If your reboot seems to take a long time (e.g. more than 5 minutes) we suggest that you confirm your network is up and running (e.g. verify with a PC on the network).

Not that that's really acceptable, but it's nice to know the reason. I'd hope anybody that got charged for a swap or return due to inability to boot gets a full refund. I'd be hoping mad.


----------



## wmcbrine

morac said:


> I'll mention that when reporting if something plays fine or not, it would be useful to state which model of TiVo you used for testing


S3


----------



## larrs

I posted this in another thread, but I guess it is more appropriate here. I had such hope for the Netflix thing as I have been using it on a PC for a while and it does an acceptabe job, but HD is really where I want to be.

I have 3 THDs and one S3. When Netflix arrived, I watched a movie on the S3 (hard wired ethernet) and although SD, the pic quality was good- got full bars on the quality scale. The next evening, I watched a movie (SD) on my THD in my Master Bedroom (Tivo Wireless Adapter) and, again, the pic was good- same full bars.

On Friday, we watched a Blu Ray movie in our media room (100" screen) and then I stayed down there to watch another movie on Netflix on the THD. This one is also hardwired through an ethernet switch, which is shared by my PS3, my HD DVD player, a PC and the THD. This time, the quality indicator would only go to half way and the pic quality was super fuzzy- especially after having watched a Blu-Ray. I ended up diconnecting the switch and wiring straight to the THD with the same result. I went to the PC and speed tested the connection at 35Mbps (I have FIOS) and then loaded the same movie on the PC and it was fine with the quality bars full (three bars on the PC vs. a bunch on the Tivo).

I tried an HD movie, even though there is little to choose from and got the same result on the THD, half quality bars, down rezzed result. Now, every HD movie I attempt reads the quality bars at full then slips to half full and down rezzes the movie. On SD, I get full or almost full quality indicators excpet in the media room. Is this a Netflix issue?

I can download a file on my PC at blinding speeds and I continually test out at 30-55Mbps on various speed test sites.

Weird, huh?


----------



## mikeyts

larrs said:


> I can download a file on my PC at blinding speeds and I continually test out at 30-55Mbps on various speed test sites.
> 
> Weird, huh?


Can you take a laptop or something down to your media room, connect it to the network cable attached to your TiVo and run a connection speed test there? I assume that you used the same cable to connect your "modem" straight to the THD as was connected with your router--there might be a problem with it.


----------



## ThAbtO

angra said:


> Thanks again for the clarification/validation.
> 
> I've verified that my tivo has network connectivity during bootup. I saw the thread that you linked, and since I have not been able to get to the netflix app, I felt like his comment in post #13 toward "Ted" implied that that was really not the place for me to request help on this paticular issue.
> 
> The tivo.com/support section has nothing on this problem as well. Getting a bit frustrating.


On www.tivo.com/mma, in DVR Preferences, is your boxes checked under allow transfer and video downloads?


----------



## morac

JimPa said:


> Is it a given that everyone with a S3 Tivo is currently having problems with the streaming service? I'd like to try out the free trial service but don't want to burn off the two weeks trial period while they're still too many problems with it.


The S3 model appears to have more problems than the HD or XL models. Some things that play fine on the HD/XL models have play back issues on the S3 models ranging from minor audio drop outs to being completely unplayable.

Many things do play back fine on the S3, but the S3 appears to be less forgiving than the HD or XL when it comes to the video stream.


----------



## mikeyts

I've got an S3 and I've had very few problems, watching 2-4 hours of Netflix daily. Basically, I had multiple problems during the first few days starting on the evening of the day when the service started (I'd been playing with it on TiVo on and off since midnight without incident until everyone came home from work ). When I tried films that people reported problems with, I had the same problems that they had. Those titles exhibited much the same behavior in the Silverlight player on my PC but not on my Xbox, from which I'd deduce that there were encoding problems with the VC-1 AP versions used for Silverlight and TiVo that aren't present in the versions for Xbox and other platforms.

All in all it's been pretty smooth after the first few days.


----------



## angra

All boxes are checked! Thanks for suggesting!


----------



## moyekj

My S3s also have been working well with Netflix, but I've only used Tivo/Netflix for about 1 hour per day lately so not a big sample size to come to any conclusions. All the reports of S3 units locking up and going into endless reboot loop are certainly disturbing and I'm curious as to why I haven't experienced anything like that so far.


----------



## aloudnoise

Been trying to watch 30 Rock S1 episodes every night for the past 5 days. Most of the time I have to give up since the episodes pause so often. Goes from HD quality, down to non-HD quality and still has to pause. Using a S3 with a Tivo Wireless Adapter. Of course, everything works fine on the laptop using Silverlight. I just hope Tivo allows more of a buffer in their next update. Otherwise Netflix on Tivo is just plain unwatchable.


----------



## JimPa

aloudnoise,

Is it possible that you're problems are with the Tivo Wireless Adapter? Have you tried to hard wire it?


----------



## web1b

I got it and I love the idea of it.
I only watched about 10 minutes as a test to verify it worked.

I probably won't use it much because the movie selection is so poor.
Even if they can't get the very latest new releases, I wish they at least had the most popular movies of even 2007. They have handful of hit movies from the last 2 years such as "Ratatouille," but 99&#37; old movies. Most of the newer movies are movies that flopped or were straight to video B movies.


----------



## JimPa

web1b,

I think the deal has to be that the studios don't want to immediately kill sales of their most recent movies.

Since the movies aren't all that recent, I'm not convinced that I'd want to subscribe to the Netflix service. Sounds like by the time they're available, they'd be popping up on the other services that I subscribe to.


----------



## web1b

I didn't mean they needed to be the "most recent" new release movies. A good selection of hit movies from 2006-2007 would be still be a huge improvement.
The studios still gets paid by Netflix for movies being streamed.


----------



## Adam1115

Netflix on TiVo Rocks! Way to go TiVo!


----------



## sriggins

Adam1115 said:


> Netflix on TiVo Rocks! Way to go TiVo!


I would say it is cool, not rocks. When I can watch all of the media they offer without stalling, stuttering and audio sync issues, then it will rock


----------



## Adam1115

sriggins said:


> I would say it is cool, not rocks. When I can watch all of the media they offer without stalling, stuttering and audio sync issues, then it will rock


It seems to have stabilized for me...

Maybe the issue is with your ISP?


----------



## sriggins

Adam1115 said:


> It seems to have stabilized for me...
> 
> Maybe the issue is with your ISP?


Nope, others have confirmed the same issues with many of the movies i am having issues with in this thread.......


----------



## lordbah

Is there really nowhere on the netflix site where we can make suggestions? No email address? I couldn't find anything. That surprises me - this is 2008 after all. I will not endure the telephone just to make a suggestion/request. (If I had a problem which needed fixing then I guess I would be forced to do so, although I certainly wouldn't like it)


----------



## sriggins

lordbah said:


> Is there really nowhere on the netflix site where we can make suggestions? No email address? I couldn't find anything. That surprises me - this is 2008 after all. I will not endure the telephone just to make a suggestion/request. (If I had a problem which needed fixing then I guess I would be forced to do so, although I certainly wouldn't like it)


Nope, I spent a lot of time trying to find one, all I got was the phone number


----------



## mikeyts

They really ought to have a form for entering descriptions of problems in text, with the proviso that they might contact you by e-mail or phone for clarifications. Making people wait for a phone operator in order to report a problem is ridiculous, and they probably get many fewer valuable problem reports because of it. I, for one, will never report a problem that way, and having no alternative way to report a problem just frustrates me and decreases my satisfaction with their service. (I'd report _that_ if they gave me a way to do it ).

Clever, really. If you have little intention of fixing problems, this is a pretty good way to remain uninformed of them.


----------



## djwilso

mikeyts said:


> They really ought to have a form for entering descriptions of problems in text, with the proviso that they might contact you by e-mail or phone for clarifications. Making people wait for a phone operator in order to report a problem is ridiculous, and they probably get many fewer valuable problem reports because of it. I, for one, will never report a problem that way, and having no alternative way to report a problem just frustrates me and decreases my satisfaction with their service. (I'd report _that_ if they gave me a way to do it ).
> 
> Clever, really. If you have little intention of fixing problems, this is a pretty good way to remain uninformed of them.


I don't know. As someone who has in the past answered technical support emails for a large company, in most cases, non-technical people are extremely incapable of communicating in writing what problems are occurring. They do not see things that technical, detail-oriented people see, and can sometimes only see them when they receive verbal coaching over the phone.

Problem reports that just say something like "Heroes won't play" and don't include all of the necessary details to perform adequate troubleshooting are simply useless and a huge waste of time. It is better to get on the phone with these people and walk through with them exactly what is happening, asking them what equipment they have and collecting all of the little details that require too much time for them to write down.

Doing this provides the customer with the immediacy of problem resolution that they want.

Everyone is different, and I do agree that they should offer more ways to give them feedback, but phone support is probably the most effective for them.

I do not believe that they are doing this in an attempt to not have to correct customer problems.

Dennis


----------



## mikeyts

djwilso said:


> Problem reports that just say something like "Heroes won't play" and don't include all of the necessary details to perform adequate troubleshooting are simply useless and a huge waste of time.


You have a point (I've been a software engineer for 30 years and dealt with a billion problem reports in that time), but you can train any minimum wage monkey to triage incomplete problem reports. You can also design the problem report form to require some characterization of the problem (a box for distorted audio, a box for unsynchronized audio, a box for bad video, etc, check all that apply, minimum one), and require that the user identify which registered player he or she experienced the problem on (display a list of them with check boxes).

Netflix _knows_ how to do this--they have a hierachical form for describing problems with rented discs. You go to the "DVD Rental Activity" page for your account, where the far left column is labelled "Details" and will contain a "Report Problem" link for discs which haven't been returned yet. Clicking it gives you a list of 6 types of problems: "not recv'd", "recv'd empty mailer", "recv'd wrong disc", "recv'd unplayable disc", "I returned it", "I lost or damaged it". Click "recv'd unplayable disc" and you get a page with some tips for troubleshooting unplayable discs and some check boxes with which to describe the problem. The "Instant Watching Activity" list could easily have a similar mechanism for reporting problems watching streams. There's just no defense for requiring a phone call.

I was being facetious when I accused them of not wanting to resolved problems. However, they ask for way too much of my time, for which they're not going to compensate me, to report problems to them which are almost certainly screw ups on their part. Each of these streams should be tested from remote locations in the field on every possible player before they release them. Between the problems I've experienced personally and those I've read reported in this forum, I have a very hard time believing that they have an adequate testing process in place.


----------



## sriggins

It is too bad that it is perceived as bad PR to have a "Report a Problem..." menu option on the TiVo when starting a movie........


----------



## mikeyts

sriggins said:


> It is too bad that it is perceived as bad PR to have a "Report a Problem..." menu option on the TiVo when starting a movie........


To his credit, Neil Hunt, Netflix chief product officer, who wrote the "Encoding for streaming" blog entry says (at the very end):


> One new feature that I want to add is a post-play screen that appears when a playback is stopped, so that users can easily flag when encodes fall below par, so that we can prioritize identifying and fixing issues.


----------



## larrs

mikeyts said:


> Can you take a laptop or something down to your media room, connect it to the network cable attached to your TiVo and run a connection speed test there? I assume that you used the same cable to connect your "modem" straight to the THD as was connected with your router--there might be a problem with it.


Did that with same issue; right now I am also getting quality issues everywhere. Can a "too fast" connection cause an issue?


----------



## mikeyts

larrs said:


> Did that with same issue; right now I am also getting quality issues everywhere. Can a "too fast" connection cause an issue?


I'm not aware of applications with problems caused by having too fast a connection, but there's always a first time .


----------



## larrs

mikeyts said:


> I'm not aware of applications with problems caused by having too fast a connection, but there's always a first time .


yeah, I understand. That being said, I am unable to access netflix on any TV right now, but I did get a perfect quality HD of Tony Bennett last night via the wireless adapter on the THD in my bedroom. Interesting that I went to one of the hardwired units and it down rezzed the same show. Makes one think since I verifed the speed of each connection with my laptop and wireless is the slowest by far (speed tested at 15Mb vs. 50-55 via each wired outlet in the house.


----------



## AgentMunroe

I have to say, Netflix feels far more stable on my 360 than on TiVo. I watched through a season and a half of 30 Rock using Netflix/360, and had a rock-solid HD viewing experience the entire time. On TiVo, I would only get HD roughly half the time, and highest-quality SD the rest of the time. Same hard-wired connection in my living-room, too, on a 10Mb down/512kbps up connection.

It iss massively easier to hit the TiVo button and go to Video on Demand, rather than switch to 360, log into Xbox Live, and navigate through the dashboard... so it does have that going for it.


----------



## rodneyremington

Netflix on TiVo is a killer app for me. Unfortunately I've had to do a unplug hard reboot multiple times because of freezing. This is a serious problem with implementation and I think TiVo should roll back the release until they have a fix for this. Many people less patient than me would simple write off neflix on their TiVo. My wife was using it, it froze, and she said "it's too buggy" and she will never use it again. I'm afraid that's what many people will do.


----------



## JimPa

rodney,

I would agree with you if everyone was having problems. But that's not the case. Enough are having it work as intended so much so that I doubt that they'd pull it.


----------



## jrmsp

Not working for me. I have 6mbs cable and a fast powerline network, all I get is "error communicating with netflix"....anyone else have the same problem and solution?


----------



## KarlH

jrmsp said:


> Not working for me. I have 6mbs cable and a fast powerline network, all I get is "error communicating with netflix"....anyone else have the same problem and solution?


I've been getting this intermittently for the past few days. In most cases, retrying a couple of times (waiting a moment between tries) clears it up. One time, I had to restart the Tivo.


----------



## BruceShultes

djwilso said:


> Problem reports that just say something like "Heroes won't play" and don't include all of the necessary details to perform adequate troubleshooting are simply useless and a huge waste of time. It is better to get on the phone with these people and walk through with them exactly what is happening, asking them what equipment they have and collecting all of the little details that require too much time for them to write down.
> 
> Dennis


In this case, the solution used by DirecTV to test their new software releases seems to make the most sense.

Whenever one of the CE testers encounters a problem, he can generate a report that includes all of the relevant information from the box and the report is sent to DirecTV with no further user action required.

The CE testers also post a message on dbstalk.com describing the problem and the report-id generated, but as long as the report contains enough information, the seperate message posting should not be necessary.


----------



## Armchair Bronco

mikeyts said:


> I was being facetious when I accused them of not wanting to resolved problems. However, they ask for way too much of my time, for which they're not going to compensate me, to report problems to them which are almost certainly screw ups on their part. Each of these streams should be tested from remote locations in the field on every possible player before they release them. Between the problems I've experienced personally and those I've read reported in this forum, I have a very hard time believing that they have an adequate testing process in place.


+ 1000

This is exactly what I've been moaning about on other (similar) threads. The bottom line is that both TiVo & NetFlix *utterly dropped the ball* with respect to testing. This current offering is little more than unstable beta software, and any 3rd rate tester with a few days of training under his belt could have uncovered 90% of the *obvious* problems without breaking a sweat.

It's obvious that little to *no in-depth testing was done* prior to foisting this "great new feature" on unsuspecting end-users.

Look, I tried to watch "Das Boot" in the original German the other night. Not only was the dialog horribly out of sync with the action, but the subtitles were chopped off. On my HDTV, I could only see the top one-third of the text in the first row! How can you miss something like that?

And easily 50% or more of the other "classic" movies I've tried to watch had horrid lip sync issues rendering them unwatchable.

I also agree that requiring end-users to call a number to report problems is worse than *"Old School"*. What's next? We'll be asked to *fill out a post card* and mail it in to NetFlix?

Sure, they can have phone operators to help out "technology challenged" individuals, but the rest of us savvy computer users need a way to short-cut the reporting process...and from what I've seen so far, the majority of NetFlix titles seem to have at least one "issue" when streaming to a TiVo.

A web-based wizard for reporting problems would be the way to go, and it's shocking to me that something like this wasn't put in place BEFORE this not-ready-for-prime-time offering was released. That belies a bit of *arrogance* if you ask me.

Anway, I've already read about enough horror stories of folks whose S3 TiVos have been rendered unusable by NetFlix, so an hour ago I deactivate the link between my NetFlix account and my S3 TiVo. Better to wait for all these *shenanigans* to be worked out (or at least admitted to) before taking the plunge.


----------



## spolebitski

I think that this feature is great! I have watched several episodes of the office just to see how it works in HD. I am a bit disappointed with the selection available --- I would like to see more! With time i'm sure it will get better.


----------



## j_sunne

Armchair Bronco said:


> Look, I tried to watch "Das Boot" in the original German the other night. Not only was the dialog horribly out of sync with the action, but the subtitles were chopped off. On my HDTV, I could only see the top one-third of the text in the first row! How can you miss something like that?


This can be corrected by changing aspect for SD programming outside of Netflix. The aspect button does nothing in Netflix.

While I've had few problems myself, it sure seems like more testing could have been done, and then launch Netflix as a sneak preview beta.

You Tube was unwatchable for me without changing my video format to 480P from 720P, with the new software update it's been fixed, so there's hope.


----------



## HomieG

According to a few business news articles today, the Roku Netflix box is being HD enabled. From what little info there seems to be on the Roku forums, Roku is rolling out a software upgrade (to v1.5) that enables HD on these boxes. So far, my Roku box hasn't been upgraded, nor can I "force" it to upgrade.


----------



## mikeyts

j_sunne said:


> This can be corrected by changing aspect for SD programming outside of Netflix. The aspect button does nothing in Netflix.


No, it can't. We discussed this problem in another thread--see this.


----------



## KarlH

HomieG said:


> According to a few business news articles today, the Roku Netflix box is being HD enabled. From what little info there seems to be on the Roku forums, Roku is rolling out a software upgrade (to v1.5) that enables HD on these boxes. So far, my Roku box hasn't been upgraded, nor can I "force" it to upgrade.


It started a couple of days ago:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/20/roku-v1-5-firmware-update-brings-hd-netflix-streaming/​


----------



## djwilso

HomieG said:


> According to a few business news articles today, the Roku Netflix box is being HD enabled. From what little info there seems to be on the Roku forums, Roku is rolling out a software upgrade (to v1.5) that enables HD on these boxes. So far, my Roku box hasn't been upgraded, nor can I "force" it to upgrade.


Same here - no update on my Roku yet.

I'm sure that it will get updated before the 31st according to the posts over at the Roku forum.

http://forums.rokulabs.com/viewforum.php?f=28

Dennis


----------



## djwilso

djwilso said:


> Same here - no update on my Roku yet.
> 
> I'm sure that it will get updated before the 31st according to the posts over at the Roku forum.
> 
> http://forums.rokulabs.com/viewforum.php?f=28
> 
> Dennis


For anyone interested, Roku has graciously provided a way to get the new 1.5 firmware immediately.

Just go into the settings on the Roku and check for the update 3 times within a 30 second period and you will get the update.

It worked for me.

Thanks,
Dennis


----------



## TiVo Steve

rodneyremington said:


> Netflix on TiVo is a killer app for me. Unfortunately I've had to do a unplug hard reboot multiple times because of freezing. This is a serious problem with implementation and I think TiVo should roll back the release until they have a fix for this. Many people less patient than me would simple write off neflix on their TiVo. My wife was using it, it froze, and she said "it's too buggy" and she will never use it again. I'm afraid that's what many people will do.


I put my Netflix account "on vacation" for a month after locking up my (previously error free) TiVo HD 3 times (requiring a reboot) in 2 days! 

TiVo HD, V11 software, wired connection (12Mbs downstream), component to display, TOSlink to receiver.


----------



## Brad516

Tivo HD, Tivo wireless, RCN, working great. I like managing the queue online, my laptop keyboard is a heck of a lot quicker than the Tivo remote... and it's an instant update.

Found HD movies under genre, they look very good. No doubt more titltes are coming so I'm not bummed about the current selection. I do have a problem with how long it takes to get new movies through the mail but I've resorted to Redbox and that's pretty cool too.

Had one movie, the Bedford Incident, that had an audio synch issue, otherwise everything has worked fine. Pretty cool that while telling my son about the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still" I could go online, put it in the queue and we could watch it immediately.


----------



## JimPa

Any improvement on the Tivo S3 streaming downloads?


----------



## kevinivey

I got my tivo hd setup yesterday, and I have streamed 4 HD movies. No pauses , or delays. Found a listing of netflix HD movies @ http://www.isitinhd.com/


----------



## jk5598224

I have two questions and a comment. I wish somebody would start a FAQ/Sticky on Netfix/Tivo.

#1 - Is it possible to display the Quality Meter after a movie is launched? 

#2 - I try to play a HD Movie and after about one minute the movie aborts and goes one screen back to the the Play Movie option. Is this due to internet bandwidth? (I have Comcast and they suck). 

Thanks in advance.


----------



## HomieG

djwilso said:


> For anyone interested, Roku has graciously provided a way to get the new 1.5 firmware immediately.
> 
> Just go into the settings on the Roku and check for the update 3 times within a 30 second period and you will get the update.
> 
> It worked for me.
> 
> Thanks,
> Dennis


Presumably you mean on the Roku box (since your post says Roku).

Just tried it here (several times). Did not work


----------



## mikeyts

kevinivey said:


> I got my tivo hd setup yesterday, and I have streamed 4 HD movies. No pauses , or delays. Found a listing of netflix HD movies @ http://www.isitinhd.com/


Thanks, but that seems to be a less complete list than you can get at Netflix's site. You can list HD movies by using a special HD "genre", as follows:http://www.netflix.com/WiHD?ftr=false​(For some reason, the "Exclude seen and rated titles" option is on by default for this list and the "?ftr=false" part turns it off). If you want the list in alphabetical order, click the "See sortable list view" link, then click the "Title" column heading.

Though Netflix claims over 300 HD titles, this list shows 167 (if you count individual TV episodes, it's over 500). The list at the site you gave only shows 152 (though it's possible that some of them aren't listed in Netflix's HD genre).


----------



## Adam1115

jk5598224 said:


> #1 - Is it possible to display the Quality Meter after a movie is launched?


Yes, just hit the skip back button...


----------



## HomieG

HomieG said:


> Presumably you mean on the Roku box (since your post says Roku).
> 
> Just tried it here (several times). Did not work


Ok, now working here. Also forced the quality to "4 dots" per the Roku forums. So now I have the Roku Netflix player in HD, and the Series 3 Netflix in HD. Cursory comparison - - - to my eyes, the Series 3 PQ looked better, but I need to spend more time comparing.


----------



## [email protected]

djwilso said:


> For anyone interested, Roku has graciously provided a way to get the new 1.5 firmware immediately.
> 
> Just go into the settings on the Roku and check for the update 3 times within a 30 second period and you will get the update.
> 
> It worked for me.
> 
> Thanks,
> Dennis


Thanks for the tip - I updated to 1.5 last night.
Now I just have to actually *try* HD streaming.


----------



## mikeyts

Adam1115 said:


> Yes, just hit the skip back button...


You're right! There's an advantage of the TiVo player over the Xbox and PC Silverlight ones--whenever it has to pause to refill its buffer (when you skip back, rewind or fast-forward), it displays the "quality meter". The Xbox player doesn't and the Silverlight player never displays a connection speed indicator.


----------



## aaronwt

The quality is still adjusted on the fly isn't it? Doesn't drop down to a lower quality encode when the connection speed drops, or increase to a better quality encode when teh connection improves?


----------



## amarand

I've heard a few people complaining about the Netflix with TiVo, and I have to say that I've had pretty good luck with it. The only problem I've experienced was using the 30-second skip and instant replay. I was able to fast forward and rewind within a movie, and pause no problems. I've watched about five shows and am on a TiVo HD. Have others had problems with the Series 3 units?

A few of my concerns:

1) The Instant Play videos don't have closed captioning or subtitles, so that's a bit of a pain.

2) The audio does not appear to be any higher than 2.0, and I'm not sure what quality it is above and beyond stereo.

3) I wish the videos had chapters, as it's a bit of a pain trying to get back where you were if you need to close out and come back again.

Otherwise, it's pretty cool to be able to add them to your Instant Play anywhere you are, and then view them at home later, or even on your Windows or Mac system with Silverlight. Not bad!


----------



## morac

aaronwt said:


> The quality is still adjusted on the fly isn't it? Doesn't drop down to a lower quality encode when the connection speed drops, or increase to a better quality encode when teh connection improves?


I've seen the quality level drop automatically (from HD to SD), but I've never seen the reverse.


----------



## Dan203

I've had good luck with Netflix on TiVo until now. For the last 20 minutes I've been trying to get anything from my queue to play on either of my two S3 units but all I get is a black screen. I can see the little clips if I use FF/RW, but the actual video will not play on either unit. I even tried rebooting one just in case there was some sort of problem with the decoder chip or something. Still no dice.

I guess it's possible that there are just a lot of people who got Netflix enabled devices for Christmas that are overloading the service, but it still sucks that I want to use the service and it's nonfunctional with no explanation as to why.

Dan


----------



## visionary

I am afraid to ever try it given what I read. However, even so I know how to solve the problem. Netflix should have only so many ports that can be opened, that number being where service is degraded just a bit. Everyone else gets a simple "busy signal, try later". That would ensure if you got connected you would have a great time. The other current way, no one has good service, so why can't they think of this? As they add servers and stuff they then increase how many can be served, so simple.


----------



## berkshires

morac said:


> I've seen the quality level drop automatically (from HD to SD), but I've never seen the reverse.


Me too. Don't know if it goes up without notice though.

When my quality drops, a little while later I'll trigger buffering (hit back or exit and play again...) to make sure it tries again.

BTW I was very impressed that on my 1.5Mb DSL I got good quality while simultaneously downloading an Amazon rental to another TiVo in the apartment. It ran 6 bars (vs 8 usually) and was perfectly acceptable.


----------



## rainwater

berkshires said:


> Me too. Don't know if it goes up without notice though.


I don't think it does, but having the quality shown on the info bar would be most helpful.


----------



## berkshires

Dan203 said:


> I've had good luck with Netflix on TiVo until now. For the last 20 minutes I've been trying to get anything from my queue to play on either of my two S3 units but all I get is a black screen. I can see the little clips if I use FF/RW, but the actual video will not play on either unit. I even tried rebooting one just in case there was some sort of problem with the decoder chip or something. Still no dice.
> 
> I guess it's possible that there are just a lot of people who got Netflix enabled devices for Christmas that are overloading the service, but it still sucks that I want to use the service and it's nonfunctional with no explanation as to why.
> 
> Dan


I suppose this is going to happen once in a while especially in the early days. Has anyone really difinitively found their bit rate limited from Netflix as opposed to some other reason along the "road" to their TiVo?

One thing I had was a particular movie that took an inordinate length of time to buffer when first played. So much so I thought it wouldn't play and exited it. After several tries to watch it several hours apart, I got distracted for a minute while waiting, and lo and behold the thing started played - probably 30+ sec longer buffering than usual.

(Oh and the movie stunk...I skimmed though it and deleted it.)


----------



## berkshires

rainwater said:


> I don't think it does, but having the quality shown on the info bar would be most helpful.


Or maybe the banner would be more convenient than the play bar.


----------



## mikeyts

berkshires said:


> Or maybe the banner would be more convenient than the play bar.


He said "info bar" (presumably the banner with program description that you get when you hit the INFO key or RIGHT key); I think that you're talking about the same thing.


----------



## jay0k

berkshires said:


> Me too. Don't know if it goes up without notice though.
> 
> When my quality drops, a little while later I'll trigger buffering (hit back or exit and play again...) to make sure it tries again.
> 
> BTW I was very impressed that on my 1.5Mb DSL I got good quality while simultaneously downloading an Amazon rental to another TiVo in the apartment. It ran 6 bars (vs 8 usually) and was perfectly acceptable.


Don't worry as people realize realize "Back to the Future" is about the only thing on Netflix streaming the usage will fall off. Add to that there is pretty much nothing worth while but a hand full of titles in HD it's pretty much worthless.


----------



## mikeyts

jay0k said:


> Don't worry as people realize realize "Back to the Future" is about the only thing on Netflix streaming the usage will fall off. Add to that there is pretty much nothing worth while but a hand full of titles in HD it's pretty much worthless.


I take it that means that you've stopped using it? Great! Good for the rest of us .


----------



## mikeyts

jay0k said:


> Don't worry as people realize realize "Back to the Future" is about the only thing on Netflix streaming the usage will fall off. Add to that there is pretty much nothing worth while but a hand full of titles in HD it's pretty much worthless.


I take it that means that you've stopped using it? Great! Good for the rest of us .

Netflix Watch Instantly may not feature the top grossing latest theatrical releases to DVD, but I'm never interested in more than half dozen of those and I'd rather watch them on Blu-ray in any case. I've watched 130+ hours of it over the past year or so, and counting. I've enjoyed much of it immensely, though most of it's stuff that I'd never have bothered renting. I've been a Netflix customer since they began and nobody's asking me to pay anything extra for the service. It's 12,000+ titles that I can watch, from the beginning at any time--it's brilliant even given its current limitations.


----------



## jay0k

mikeyts said:


> I take it that means that you've stopped using it? Great! Good for the rest of us .
> 
> Netflix Watch Instantly may not feature the top grossing latest theatrical releases to DVD, but I'm never interested in more than half dozen of those and I'd rather watch them on Blu-ray in any case. I've watched 130+ hours of it over the past year or so, and counting. I've enjoyed much of it immensely, though most of it's stuff that I'd never have bothered renting. I've been a Netflix customer since they began and nobody's asking me to pay anything extra for the service. It's 12,000+ titles that I can watch, from the beginning at any time--it's brilliant even given its current limitations.


I too prefer Blu-ray. I find most of the non-HD titles available for streaming to be poor quality and on par with normal SD programming.

I've watched a couple of the HD titles but they're far and few between.

Granted it's a new service and a step in the right direction but I just wish it was a better selection which I'm sure is the fault of the MPAA and studios.

Too be honest I wish they would save the money on the streaming stuff and not charge me $1 extra per blu-ray title I have out at a time. Netflix has to be hemorrhaging on it.

On the other hand iTunes offers modern movies and new releases in HD for a modest price to buy or rent. Cable and satellite also offer modern on demand HD titles. Maybe Netflix should offer a premium streaming service so people like me can pay extra and actually get media I want.


----------



## Resist

Tonight as I was trying to watch a movie from Netflix on my Tivo S3 the audio was out of sync with the video. So I fired up my XBox 360 instead and played the same Netflix movie from it with no issues. 

Why can't Tivo fix the problems when XBox has no issues at all with Netflix? Come on already!


----------



## keenanSR

I haven't been getting any post notifications for the past 3 weeks(a common occurrence with this site for some reason) so I just skimmed through the last 8 pages, and I'm wondering what the consensus is on this, is it working properly now, or not?

I just tried to finish watching Cashback and it kept stalling, retrieving and dropping to SD and restarting, and since I run native the aspect ratio gets squeezed(16x9 OAR) to 4x3 making the image unacceptable for viewing.

There's nothing wrong with my connection, it's usually a minimum of 14-16Mb/s DL speed, so I have to assume there's still issues with this application. 

At this point I'm going to fire up the crusty old Internet Explorer(as Netflix is still living in the past with no Firefox support) and finish the film that way, at least that has always worked in the past.


----------



## morac

jay0k said:


> Too be honest I wish they would save the money on the streaming stuff and not charge me $1 extra per blu-ray title I have out at a time. Netflix has to be hemorrhaging on it.


I don't like the $1 charge either, but it's $1 per month total, not $1 per disk. Personally I think it's stupid since blu-ray disks are very cheap these days and nearly indestructible so even if Netflix is spending more money on blu-ray disks, they'll save money in the end run.



keenanSR said:


> At this point I'm going to fire up the crusty old Internet Explorer(as Netflix is still living in the past with no Firefox support) and finish the film that way, at least that has always worked in the past.


Netflix works fine in Firefox (even on a Mac), if you have Microsoft's Silverlight plugin installed and you opt in at Netflix's site.


----------



## keenanSR

morac said:


> Netflix works fine in Firefox (even on a Mac), if you have Microsoft's Silverlight plugin installed and you opt in at Netflix's site.


Excellent, I guess I'm the one still living in the past.


----------



## mikeyts

Resist said:


> Tonight as I was trying to watch a movie from Netflix on my Tivo S3 the audio was out of sync with the video. So I fired up my XBox 360 instead and played the same Netflix movie from it with no issues.
> 
> Why can't Tivo fix the problems when XBox has no issues at all with Netflix? Come on already!


It should be noted that, at least in the case of standard def stuff, the Xbox isn't playing the same streams as TiVo (Xbox uses the WMV3 streams and TiVo uses the VC-1 AP ones). In my experience, if the steam you get on TiVo is screwed up, you'll get the same screwed up stream in the PC Silverlight player, so that wouldn't seem to be TiVo's fault.

There are enough problems with this that _are_ TiVo's fault (TiVo jamming up during playback, etc) that we don't need to blame them for anything extra .


keenanSR said:


> I'm wondering what the consensus is on this, is it working properly now, or not?


I'd say that it's far from working properly for everyone--some people have even complained of their TiVo getting so jammed up by it that they couldn't get it to cold boot and had to send it back for service. Others have had few or no problems using it. There's no pattern that I can discern.


keenanSR said:


> I just tried to finish watching Cashback and it kept stalling, retrieving and dropping to SD and restarting, and since I run native the aspect ratio gets squeezed(16x9 OAR) to 4x3 making the image unacceptable for viewing.
> 
> There's nothing wrong with my connection, it's usually a minimum of 14-16Mb/s DL speed, so I have to assume there's still issues with this application.


I've seen the occasional drop in quality (though I've never seen an HD stream drop into a 4:3 SD one), but I've been through many hours of watching with no problems, other than some screwed up encodings. For instance, all but the first episode of _Doctor Who, Season 2_ plays terribly, skipping and stuttering--I had to watch the rest on my Xbox. (The first episode plays beautifully and is in widescreen standard-def besides). _Doctor Who, Season 3_ is playing just fine on TiVo (also in widescreen SD, though PQ is a bit lacking).

I'm viewing on a TiVo Series3 with a hardwired connection to a router on a cable modem with 10 Mbps service.


----------



## keenanSR

mikeyts said:


> I'd say that it's far from working properly for everyone--some people have even complained of their TiVo getting so jammed up by it that they couldn't get it to cold boot and had to send it back for service. Others have had few or no problems using it. There's no pattern that I can discern.


I just read all the available threads and that concerns me as it seems to be most prevalent with the S3, which makes me very hesitant to continue using/trying to use the service.


> I've seen the occasional drop in quality (though I've never seen an HD stream drop into a 4:3 SD one), but I've been through many hours of watching with no problems, other than some screwed up encodings. For instance, all but the first episode of _Doctor Who, Season 2_ plays terribly, skipping and stuttering--I had to watch the rest on my Xbox. (The first episode plays beautifully and is in widescreen standard-def besides). _Doctor Who, Season 3_ is playing just fine on TiVo (also in widescreen SD, though PQ is a bit lacking).
> 
> I'm viewing on a TiVo Series3 with a hardwired connection to a router on a cable modem with 10 Mbps service.


My S3 is set to native output which is then processed by a DVDO VP50 to output 1080i to the display, the drop in quality seems to force the image into a SD 4x3 output which gets squeezed(to 4x3) when finally presented on the display. I suppose I could play with the resolution settings, but frankly I'm not really interested in doing that just to get this one application to behave.

My connection is hard-wired/router/16 Mb/s service(Comcast), so I really don't believe the quality drops are bandwidth ISP related. Should also note that I've had my S3 since a few days after they were released and it's work virtually flawlessly, a few minor issues with the external drive, but other than that, it's been worth the money, even at the initial price of $800.

I'm going to try and play with it some more today, but that "bricking" really concerns me.


----------



## KarlH

keenanSR said:


> I haven't been getting any post notifications for the past 3 weeks(a common occurrence with this site for some reason) so I just skimmed through the last 8 pages, and I'm wondering what the consensus is on this, is it working properly now, or not?.


At this point, it appears to be working for many people (certainly not all), but:

Video-specific issues appear to exist, which seem to cause out-of-sync audio, problems with FF/REW, etc.. Netflix is supposedly trying to address these.
There may be crash/hang problems, possibly caused by the video-specific issues, pressing the Tivo/FF/REW buttons at just the right time, etc., etc..
We may just be unlucky, but, of the (40-50+??) videos that we've watched, I'd say that around 10-20% have issues (mostly out-of-sync audio). We've also had to cycle power twice (on an HD Tivo).


----------



## morac

mikeyts said:


> In my experience, if the steam you get on TiVo is screwed up, you'll get the same screwed up stream in the PC Silverlight player, so that wouldn't seem to be TiVo's fault.


Maybe I haven't tried enough videos, but I've found that videos that are screwed up on the TiVo play back fine in the PC Silverlight player.

Granted the videos problems I've seen are not as simple as the audio and video being out of sync. The two biggest issues I've seen are:

1. The video playing too slowly and then the video just ending and going back to the main menu as if it hit the end of the stream. Basically it refuses to play past a specific point. Plays back fine in Silverlight player.

2. The video plays too quickly and then all the sudden "jumps" a few minutes into the future (as if someone did a 3 minute skip ahead) and then a "retrieving" pop up will display and the whole process will repeat. If you let it play this way, you can watch a 30 minute program in about 3 minutes. Once again, plays fine in the Silverlight player. This specific playback problem seems to only affect S3 units as far as I can tell.


----------



## KarlH

morac said:


> Maybe I haven't tried enough videos, but I've found that videos that are screwed up on the TiVo play back fine in the PC Silverlight player.


Same here. Like you, I haven't tried all of the problematic videos that I've seen, but, of the ones that I have tried, they play back fine on the PC.


----------



## mikeyts

morac said:


> Maybe I haven't tried enough videos, but I've found that videos that are screwed up on the TiVo play back fine in the PC Silverlight player.
> 
> Granted the videos problems I've seen are not as simple as the audio and video being out of sync. The two biggest issues I've seen are:
> 
> 1. The video playing too slowly and then the video just ending and going back to the main menu as if it hit the end of the stream. Basically it refuses to play past a specific point. Plays back fine in Silverlight player.
> 
> 2. The video plays too quickly and then all the sudden "jumps" a few minutes into the future (as if someone did a 3 minute skip ahead) and then a "retrieving" pop up will display and the whole process will repeat. If you let it play this way, you can watch a 30 minute program in about 3 minutes. Once again, plays fine in the Silverlight player. This specific playback problem seems to only affect S3 units as far as I can tell.


I've tried a bunch. _Doctor Who, Season 2_, episodes 2-14--skip and stutter on TiVo, skip and stutter in Silverlight, play fine on Xbox (just tried a few). The movies _Network_, _Real Genius_, _Liar Liar_ and _Hellboy: Sword of Storms_ all have problems on TiVo and Silverlight, but not on Xbox. (These were reported by others and I confirmed the problems that they had with them on TiVo, and further tested them in Silverlight and the Xbox. I just retested those and they all still suck in Silverlight, in much the same way that they suck on TiVo). The only thing that I've tried that plays better in Silverlight than on Tivo is _Das Boot_, and that's just because TiVo zooms it to fill the screen, clipping low hanging subtitles, rendering it unwatchable by non-German speakers. The film has the same problem on Xbox, but Silverlight shows it in 1.85:1 OAR, with slender black bars top and bottom where most of the low hanging subtitles can be seen, though they still get clipped a bit.

Do you have specific examples of stuff that plays fine in Silverlight but has problems on TiVo?


----------



## mikeyts

Someone on AVS Forum points out this this post in the Netflix Community Forums by a Netflix representative (Adrian Cockcroft, apparently an engineering manager on Netflix and, from what I see about him on the web, a serious techno guru and computing theory wonk ):


> ...there are three different encodes:
> 
> Windows Media format: The original PC player, original Roku 1.01, Xbox 360, original LG and Samsung
> VC1 Advanced Profile for Slverlight: PC/Mac Silverlight Player
> VC1 Advanced Profile for embedded devices: Tivo, Roku 1.5, LG BD300 with .480 firmware, latest Samsung
> 
> Each encode is at up to 4 different speeds for standard def, plus two more for HD on the TV devices. See more details here http://blog.netflix.com/2008/11/encoding-for-streaming.html


Which would mean that the encoding for Silverlight are different from the ones for the embedded devices (and when the embedded devices all have latest firmware, only Xbox 360 is using WMV3 encodings anymore), despite the fact that I've observed screwed up TiVo encodings to be screwed up in the same fashion in Silverlight, though that would explain why _Das Boot_ is OAR in Silverlight but not on TiVo or Xbox. (It might also be read to say that the Xbox is using HD WMV3 encodings, though the "Encoding for streaming" blog entry says that they abandoned making those).

Earlier, I'd read the following in TiVoStephen's root post of the "Netflix issues" thread:


TiVoStephen said:


> Please note that the original PC client, XBox 360 units, and Roku units use a different set of video files than TiVo DVRs and the PC Silverlight player.


...to imply that Silverlight and TiVo were using the same encodings, but as I re-read it, it doesn't actually say that .

Interesting. It'd be nice to have a less ambiguous story about which devices use which encodings.


----------



## morac

I think I posted specific videos I had problems with earlier in this thread. 

Thanks for the link to the Netflix forum post though. I wonder if that would be a good place to post problem videos. I've only really reported one video as being bad over the phone (I was calling about another issue at the same time), but that video still doesn't play correctly (at least on my S3).


----------



## Timber

Watched Yankee Doodle Dandy yesterday via Netflix/TiVo. Awesome movie and no technical problems whatsoever!!! :up:

-=Tim=-


----------



## Adam1115

Ugh, TiVo hung and rebooted....


----------



## Adam1115

And just froze solid...


----------



## Rose4uKY

So people are still having porblems of freezing up and rebooting? I still haven't tried it yet.. Rose


----------



## moyekj

Rose4uKY said:


> So people are still having porblems of freezing up and rebooting? I still haven't tried it yet.. Rose


 I have had very few issues with my S3s even after watching a marathon of Netflix instant movies over the Christmas break. The only issues I've had is on 2 occasions I got thrown out of Netflix interface completely. Both times I returned to Netflix and started playback again and it continued where it left off to the end without further issue. I'm sure there are plenty of others without problems as well. I'm not sure of the percentage of people with problems vs. those without but know that certainly not everyone is having serious issues with this application.


----------



## Rose4uKY

So maybe I will try it! Thanks,


----------



## keenanSR

Has the question been asked if it isn't possibly ISP interference that might be causing some problems? I know that Comcast has been testing, or even using at this point, a protocol that will drop the throughput of data if it reaches a point of node saturation - a specific situation where they've determined that others on the node may be suffering a slow down, something like that anyway. A constant 4mb/s stream might trigger such an action.

I've stayed away from the application as I really don't want to deal with possibly ending up with a disabled S3.


----------



## spolebitski

I still think that more streaming titles need to be offered. It is a great way to watch movies but the selection is very limited.


----------



## Rose4uKY

Well I guess it won't hurt me to try it. But I record so many shows I as it is I wouldn't have much time. I was going to join this movie downloads site for35 bucks for unlimited downloads of movies and tv shows but didn't know much about it and never did. But I like the concert videos netflix has. Rose


----------



## morac

keenanSR said:


> I've stayed away from the application as I really don't want to deal with possibly ending up with a disabled S3.


Based on TiVoStephen's post over in the Netflix issues it doesn't sound like Netflix can permanently disable your S3, but it can temporarily disable it. For example if your Internet connection goes down while streaming from Netflix, your TiVo may lock up and you won't be able to boot it back up until your Internet connection is restored. That alone may be enough to keep people from using it, especially if they have flaky Internet service.

I don't know how to explain the issues people have had where they still can't boot up even with a working network connection.

I've personally seen one lock up on my S3 and a simple plug pull got it working again. Still locking up is not something I want happening, especially if there is a recording in progress so I only tend to use Netflix when there's nothing recording or scheduled to be recorded. That wasn't much of an issue the past two weeks, but as the TV season starts up again it will become an issue.

Not that I stream much from Netflix any way as I've only watched a handful of stuff.

As for streaming itself, it's hit or miss whether a movie or show will play back correctly, Some do, some don't. Also sometimes I can get HD working, sometimes I can't (I think that depends on the time of day I try).


----------



## keenanSR

morac said:


> Based on TiVoStephen's post over in the Netflix issues it doesn't sound like Netflix can permanently disable your S3, but it can temporarily disable it. For example if your Internet connection goes down while streaming from Netflix, your TiVo may lock up and you won't be able to boot it back up until your Internet connection is restored. That alone may be enough to keep people from using it, especially if they have flaky Internet service.
> 
> I don't know how to explain the issues people have had where they still can't boot up even with a working network connection.
> 
> I've personally seen one lock up on my S3 and a simple plug pull got it working again. Still locking up is not something I want happening, especially if there is a recording in progress so I only tend to use Netflix when there's nothing recording or scheduled to be recorded. That wasn't much of an issue the past two weeks, but as the TV season starts up again it will become an issue.
> 
> Not that I stream much from Netflix any way as I've only watched a handful of stuff.
> 
> As for streaming itself, it's hit or miss whether a movie or show will play back correctly, Some do, some don't. Also sometimes I can get HD working, sometimes I can't (I think that depends on the time of day I try).


Yes, I didn't mean to imply that "permanent" lockups were the norm, only that because they have happened to some, I'm very hesitant to spend much time at all with the program. The few times I've used it, it was annoying enough that it would drop from HD>SD and even just stall on occasion.

As far as connection speed goes, I'm fairly certain I have no issues there as I have Comcast with their 16/2 service. That doesn't preclude Comcast from doing some sort of throttling or bandwidth management that might possibly cause the application problems.

I'd would love to see the application become reliable as I think it's a great idea, but until I hear/see of some improvements, I'll probably just pass on it.


----------



## JimPa

Conceptually, I've thought from the beginning that it would be better for the movies to starat downloading to your disc and after ten minutes or so allow you to start watching them. That way, an internet glitch wouldn't crash your system. It might also allow you to have full HD quality where otherwise real time streaming would only allow SD quality. Then factor in that you can load your movies while you're asleep or during off peak load times of the internet.


----------



## berkshires

JimPa said:


> Conceptually, I've thought from the beginning that it would be better for the movies to starat downloading to your disc and after ten minutes or so allow you to start watching them. That way, an internet glitch wouldn't crash your system. It might also allow you to have full HD quality where otherwise real time streaming would only allow SD quality. Then factor in that you can load your movies while you're asleep or during off peak load times of the internet.


Some buffering would be nice. It would especially help with the 8-sec back button which requires re-queue


----------



## wmcbrine

I wouldn't want to have to wait ten minutes to start watching, but it sure would be nice to have Instant Replay working properly.

Buffering would make so much sense, in fact, that I think we have to assume that its omission was not on technical grounds, but for policy reasons -- as in, "Our (Netflix's) agreement with the MPAA prohibits recording, so you (TiVo) have to figure out some way to do it without involving the hard disk." Something along those lines, I imagine.


----------



## mikeyts

wmcbrine said:


> Buffering would make so much sense, in fact, that I think we have to assume that its omission was not on technical grounds, but for policy reasons...


I wouldn't assume that. Traditionally, streaming always involves minimal buffering to make start up fast. I rarely skip back or rewind, mostly watching from beginning to end with occasional pauses, perhaps stopping and coming back to it much later. I'd imagine that's true for most people. It'd be nice if going backward and forward worked quickly, but it's more important that start up be as fast as possible.


----------



## dmbpj

I got this set up over the weekend, but I am reluctant to try it....


----------



## berkshires

mikeyts said:


> I wouldn't assume that. Traditionally, streaming always involves minimal buffering to make start up fast. I rarely skip back or rewind, mostly watching from beginning to end with occasional pauses, perhaps stopping and coming back to it much later. I'd imagine that's true for most people. It'd be nice if going backward and forward worked quickly, but it's more important that start up be as fast as possible.


Start right away, but accumulate a buffer of about 16 sec. At the bit rates involved HD would take about 6MB of RAM to buffer 16sec; perhaps too much out of the 128 or 256 available on the units.

However, I doubt the contracts permit any such buffering, even in RAM, anyway.


----------



## keenanSR

Oaky, so for Comcast subs, how do you imagine the below might affect the usage of the Netflix application? My initial take on it is that it's not going to have a positive result on using the Netflix app, especially for those on lower speed tiers. Granted, several conditions have to exist, but those conditions are most likely to happen during the peak hrs of Netflix usage.

New Comcast Throttling System 100% Online
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/New-Comcast-Throttling-System-100-Online-100015

Thoughts?


----------



## keenanSR

berkshires said:


> Start right away, but accumulate a buffer of about 16 sec. At the bit rates involved HD would take about 6MB of RAM to buffer 16sec; perhaps too much out of the 128 or 256 available on the units.
> 
> However, I doubt the contracts permit any such buffering, even in RAM, anyway.


My less-than-experienced guess would be the same, I doubt any actual data transfer to the HDD is allowed.


----------



## aaronwt

JimPa said:


> Conceptually, I've thought from the beginning that it would be better for the movies to starat downloading to your disc and after ten minutes or so allow you to start watching them. That way, an internet glitch wouldn't crash your system. It might also allow you to have full HD quality where otherwise real time streaming would only allow SD quality. Then factor in that you can load your movies while you're asleep or during off peak load times of the internet.


Then it wouldn't be streaming.
My VUDU boxes download the movies. Netflix is streaming.


----------



## lkupersmith

Just received the first of two TiVo HDs I have coming. After going through the setup and updating the software, I was ready for some testing. Although I only have some analog channels for now - Comcast can't bring me cable cards for a week and a half and won't let me pick them up - I enabled Netflix (already have an account) and watched CSNY Deja Vu in HD. Worked perfectly. No glitches, great picture, and audio and video were in sync. I even paused a few times and rewound. 

Just wanted to let you all know that not everyone is having problems with the Netflix streaming. I do have a wired connection, and set a static IP for the unit.

My second box arrives tomorrow. Hopefully it works as well.


----------



## berkshires

keenanSR said:


> Oaky, so for Comcast subs, how do you imagine the below might affect the usage of the Netflix application? My initial take on it is that it's not going to have a positive result on using the Netflix app, especially for those on lower speed tiers. Granted, several conditions have to exist, but those conditions are most likely to happen during the peak hrs of Netflix usage.
> 
> New Comcast Throttling System 100% Online
> http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/New-Comcast-Throttling-System-100-Online-100015
> 
> Thoughts?


It is a little unclear in that it says only if there is congestion and you are the cause you will be throttled, but then it says sustained 70%+ usage will result in throttle. So does the first condition have to apply before the second applies, or is 70%+ sustained defined as causing congestion in and of itself - resulting in throttling?

If both conditions are necessary, I doubt there will be much problem. Also if you are the cause, then lowering your priority is unlikely to result in much restriction, since other users probably aren't using that much and if there were continued congestion, those that cause it would also get lowered...eventually everyone ends up at the same low priority...

The consequence is presumably that Netflix steps down one quality level. At that point, no way are you at 70%+ (Netflix 40% headroom requirement also may prevent ever hitting 70%+) and are below 50% criteria for reinstatement after 15min.

Another thought: if there truly is congestion, how likely is it Netflix will "throttle" you by stepping down a quality level even before Comcast comes into play?


----------



## drcos

So where and who do we tell about movies that won't REW/FF at all? I can get Star Trek:TOS, Season 1 to stream in HD and can REW/FF, but movies will not (The Thing, Spies Like Us) REW/FF at all.


----------



## ThAbtO

View attachment 11290


Found this on my THD. Note it says Series 2.


----------



## pdhenry

The onscreen text doesn't match the Netflix banner - Netflix doesn't provide 30,000 movies. Everything in the text is available on an S2, just not through Netflix.


----------



## nirisahn

I just signed up for Netflix and watched a couple of programs yesterday. Wow!But the picture quality is amazing. And it started right away, unlike Unbox that takes hours to transfer to the machine before I can start watching it. I'm really impressed. I'm not thrilled with the way it rewinds. It has to download (not sure if that is the right term) again if you do that. But overall - excellent.


----------



## CrispyCritter

drcos said:


> So where and who do we tell about movies that won't REW/FF at all? I can get Star Trek:TOS, Season 1 to stream in HD and can REW/FF, but movies will not (The Thing, Spies Like Us) REW/FF at all.


Go to Netflix/"Your Queue". On the right side near the top is "Show all DVD and Instant activity". Click on Instant and you'll be given a list of all your recently viewed Instant shows. On the right hand side for each show is a "report problem", which gives a reasonable list of default instant problems, as well as space for other problems.


----------



## tgibbs

Yes, I find it works very well, but I wish they at least buffered enough of the show so that it didn't have to re-stream just for a 7-second backstep.


----------



## mpkeefe

westside_guy said:


> I'm on Comcast cable - I've supposedly got 6mbps download speeds, but usually I can get closer to 8 (and for the first part, with "powerboost", I can get 14-16mbps). My Tivo is connected to the internet via an 802.11n wireless network.


Can you let us know which 802.11n wireless network adapter you have used successfully with Tivo Series 3?

I would like to do the same, and in addition, I would prefer to use a 5GHz or dual-band 802.11n adapter.

I have found through experience that keeping my "N" high speed network completely separate from my "G" network is the best way to ensure uninterrupted downloads of HD movies to my AppleTV, and thus this will be important for streaming HD movies to Tivo as well.


----------



## ThAbtO

For all you lovers of the LOST series, You can now stream from Netflix, the seasons of LOST from Season 1 through 4.


----------



## husky55

mpkeefe said:


> Can you let us know which 802.11n wireless network adapter you have used successfully with Tivo Series 3?
> 
> I would like to do the same, and in addition, I would prefer to use a 5GHz or dual-band 802.11n adapter.
> 
> I have found through experience that keeping my "N" high speed network completely separate from my "G" network is the best way to ensure uninterrupted downloads of HD movies to my AppleTV, and thus this will be important for streaming HD movies to Tivo as well.


I used a Netgear router with DD-WRT firmware, configured as a bridge. A bridge is the equivalent of a wireless network adapter plus the function of a switch which I need for my BD live and Tivo and laptop etc...The bridge is connected to the router in a different area for internet connection.

The Netgear WRN-3300 (not sure about the exact model) has both 5 and 2.4 GHz bands. and is compatible with DD-WRT.


----------



## carknc

Unfortunately I've been having nothing but problems with instant streaming of Netflix onto my series 3. I am doing it over wireless with decent signal strength using the Tivo branded wireless adapter, but it buffers repeatedly, then just drops back to the "Now Playing" menu with no error message. Ironically, my Xbox 360 sitting directly below the Tivo, also on wireless, is streaming Netflix just fine with no stuttering at all.

I'm not sure if there's anything else I can try to fix this, I've hard restarted the tivo and router to no avail. My internet connection tests as 20MB/5MB.


----------



## orangeboy

ThAbtO said:


> For all you lovers of the LOST series, You can now stream from Netflix, the seasons of LOST from Season 1 through 4.


:up:
Nice! I've been catching up with Lost season 1 with two episodes being rerun every Sunday. How did I miss this program (and Heroes) the first time around?!


----------



## rocko

orangeboy said:


> :up:
> Nice! I've been catching up with Lost season 1 with two episodes being rerun every Sunday. How did I miss this program (and Heroes) the first time around?!


I didn't start with Lost until Season 5. Netflix sure answered a pantload of questions from Seasons 1-4 - I watched them all in 2 days.

Now about that bomb ...


----------



## ThAbtO

rocko said:


> I didn't start with Lost until Season 5. Netflix sure answered a pantload of questions from Seasons 1-4 - I watched them all in 2 days.


You watched all 4 seasons in 2 days??? Sleep comes to mind pretty quick.


----------



## rocko

ThAbtO said:


> You watched all 4 seasons in 2 days??? Sleep comes to mind pretty quick.


<snore> Huh ??? </snore>


----------



## mikeyts

rocko said:


> I didn't start with Lost until Season 5. Netflix sure answered a pantload of questions from Seasons 1-4 - I watched them all in 2 days.


How is that even possible? There were 85 episodes of _Lost_ through the first four seasons (24 eps in seasons 1 and 2, 23 eps in season 3 and 14 eps in season 4). Assuming 42 minutes per with the ads ommitted, that 59.5 hours worth. You managed to watch it all in 48 hours?


----------



## rocko

mikeyts said:


> How is that even possible? There were 85 episodes of _Lost_ through the first four seasons (24 eps in seasons 1 and 2, 23 eps in season 3 and 14 eps in season 4). Assuming 42 minutes per with the ads ommitted, that 59.5 hours worth. You managed to watch it all in 48 hours?


OK, maybe it was 3. The point being I watched it pretty much nonstop - that's how riveting I found that show. JJ Abrahms definately has the formula.


----------



## ThAbtO

I just received my Netflix disc for instant watching on the Wii, and I must say the interface is better than what is currently on the THD. I can browse all the available categories as well as my instant queue. Although it seems to have a limit of 100 titles per category. Wonder why the THD doesn't have a similar interface.


----------



## ZeoTiVo

ThAbtO said:


> I just received my Netflix disc for instant watching on the Wii, and I must say the interface is better than what is currently on the THD. I can browse all the available categories as well as my instant queue. Although it seems to have a limit of 100 titles per category. Wonder why the THD doesn't have a similar interface.
> 
> View attachment 12649


Nice - I need to be on the lookout for my disc


----------



## gweempose

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Wii limited to SD resolution? It may have the best interface in the world, but why would I want to stream stuff in SD when I can stream it in HD using the TiVo?


----------



## Test

gweempose said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Wii limited to SD resolution? It may have the best interface in the world, but why would I want to stream stuff in SD when I can stream it in HD using the TiVo?


xbox lets me browse the catalog AND stream in HD


----------



## slowbiscuit

Yep, the Wii is SD only.


----------



## Jon545

The Wii disk I just got lets you stream your instant catalog and also browse all their instant catalog. Unfortunately, no "Search" function, just browse. Works great on my old S2 using wi-fi even for those programs that breakup or get audio out of sync on my S3 with a fast ethernet connection. Yes it's only SD, but it looks pretty good over component on my 32" TV. Try "Torchwood: Children of Earth". Unwatchable on my S3 but plays great on the Wii.


----------



## mikeyts

Jon545 said:


> The Wii disk I just got lets you stream your instant catalog and also browse all their instant catalog.


I kinda doubt that it lets you browse their entire instant catalog. The UIs for the Xbox 360 and PS3 let you look at your instant queue plus 100 selections in each of 17 genres (as well as some titles in a "genre" labelled "Recently Watched"). You flip left and right through titles and up and down through the genres (well, on the PS3, you click up one to get from the title browser to the genre tabs then left and right to flip through the genres, and down again to get back to the title browser in a new genre list or your instant queue).

Still, those 1700 or so selections can be useful. I gave my housemate a PS3 disk for the console in the living room and registered it to my Netflix account; he generally has no trouble finding stuff that he wants to watch. (Netflix sent me another PS3 disc; I mostly don't normally use the PS3 when watching Netflix streams in my private space, preferring the Xbox UI over it and the S3).

FWIW, there's a video of someone comparing the PS3 and Wii interfaces here. The Wii GUI is kind of interesting, using buttons selected with a Wiimote controlled pointer instead of just up/down/left/right/OK.

Note that when the guy brings up the list of "Recently Released Television" titles, it says "1/100" in the lower right hand corner--they all will.


----------



## skiguy32

I called netflix last week to ask when they would be sendng these disk out and was told they hadn't even beta tested it yet! All of a sudden everybody is getting their disk now so where's mine?


----------



## mikeyts

skiguy32 said:


> I called netflix last week to ask when they would be sendng these disk out and was told they hadn't even beta tested it yet! All of a sudden everybody is getting their disk now so where's mine?


In a Netflix blog entry posted Thursday one of their marketing people said:


> Today, we shipped out instant streaming discs for the Wii to some of our Netflix members. Their feedback will ensure that we deliver a great experience to everyone when we launch.


So don't feel bad--they've only sent them out to a group they've chosen for beta.


----------



## ThAbtO

You can get your disc at www.netflix.com/wii


----------



## Adam1115

ThAbtO said:


> You can get your disc at www.netflix.com/wii


That just allows you to put in your email address for them to let you know when it's available, unless I'm missing something...?


----------



## mikeyts

Adam1115 said:


> That just allows you to put in your email address for them to let you know when it's available, unless I'm missing something...?


If it's like www.netflix.com/ps3 was before they shipped the disc, you will get the disc when it finally ships (presumably after they're done with the current beta).

Someone on AVS Forum mentioned that he got his Wii disc yesterday, but because he has an Xbox and a PS3 he wasn't planning to use it, but that he would try it. He was a bad choice for beta tester .


----------



## ThAbtO

Adam1115 said:


> That just allows you to put in your email address for them to let you know when it's available, unless I'm missing something...?


It was where I went to reserve my copy and then to activate.


----------



## Adam1115

ThAbtO said:


> It was where I went to reserve my copy and then to activate.


Are you a member?


----------



## ThAbtO

Adam1115 said:


> Are you a member?


duh?


----------



## ThAbtO




----------

