# Feedback to Netflix on the new app



## sbiller

Margret at TiVo has agreed to provide a list of comments directly to Netflix on things the user community would like changed with the current app. These need to be items that are controllable by Netflix (i.e., integral to their app). Therefore things like adding Netflix to the My Shows queue, etc. might not be applicable.










Please let me know what changes you would like to see to the new Netflix app.

I will start and modify the post as feedback is received in this message thread.

--------------------------------------

*Requested changes to Netflix*

1) Start the stream in 1080p24 for those users who have that video resolution selected. This would avoid the TV black-out as the output stream switches from 1080i to 1080p and the HDMI sync is renegotiated.

2) Make "Info" button display information on what a viewer is watching. Be as consistent as possible with the TiVo buttons.

3) Don't use the "Clear" button to exit the application. If possible, let it clear the status bar during playback, but if not, just disable it.

4) Provide a description of the next watchable episode when selecting a series from my queue. Currently it puts a description of the entire series, a random picture from the episode and a unfriendly label like "S3:E12". That isn't very meaningful. It would be beneficial to provide the name and have description of the episode. That would be more useful than a random still image for the episode, if space is a concern.

5) Play button should show progress, and not pause the program.

6) When I watch a piece of content on Netflix that was found via the TiVo Browse and Search function the content should immediately start playing when I hit Watch Now from Netflix. This should also be a user choice since I am sure some people don't want the content to play immediately after they push Watch Now from...Netflix.

7) TiVo please pull in more metadata from Netflix into your HD menus. It would be nice if there was a DD 5.1/DD+ 5.1/DD 2.0 audio icons and 720p/1080i/1080p/24f video icons so purists can watch the content in the native format.

8) I wish TiVo could pull the Netflix recommendations into browse. Then I don't have to launch the app to see what Netflix has new for me to watch. The option could be in Collections for Netflix which than pulls in the recommendations and other category filters (Just For You, Based on X, More Supernatural, Popular on Netflix).

_V1.2_


----------



## moyekj

Well the buttons are all wrong for a TiVo remote but I doubt Netflix will change that. But at least make it so "Info" button gives you information on what you are watching...

I think the only way to get Netflix to be closer to TiVo experience is if there is an SDK to allow 3rd party developers to make it so. Can only hope that the so-called new SDK TiVo is supposed to release will include something along those lines.


----------



## TerpBE

sbiller said:


> Please let me know what changes you would like to see to the new Netflix app.
> 
> I will start and modify the post as feedback is received in this message thread.


3) Don't use the "Clear" button to exit the application. If possible, let it clear the status bar during playback, but if not, just disable it.

Having the clear button exit the app (which is completely inconsistent with everywhere else in Tivo), would be like if somebody said, "We just tinkered with your car, so now your brake pedal will accelerate your car just like your gas pedal. If you want to use your actual brakes, they're activated with your left turn signal." Sure you can inform us of the change, but it's only a matter of time before instincts kick in and we go slamming into the back of an 18 wheeler.


----------



## jrtroo

Thanks sbiller.

Having consistent button pushes to other tivo content is important. I'll quickly stop using the outliers and end up cancelling netflix because of it.

Case in point:
This reminds me of my short time with a comcast DVR. It killed me slowly to try and use one set of remote functions with the on-demand and yet similar, but different controls for the dvr playback. It was the primary reason I kicked it to the curb as quickly as I did (though it would have happened eventually).

I was watching something last night, and perhaps it was because it was the first time with the new software, but the initial resolution was almost a joke. Blobs of characters moving across the screen, it was quite funny. I assume I can adjust from the zoomed in view it defaulted to (Malcolm in the Middle), but I did not try since I was so confused by the button functions I was happy to just leave it alone once I got the show started.


----------



## sbiller

jrtroo said:


> Thanks sbiller.
> 
> Having consistent button pushes to other tivo content is important. I'll quickly stop using the outliers and end up cancelling netflix because of it.
> 
> Case in point:
> This reminds me of my short time with a comcast DVR. It killed me slowly to try and use one set of remote functions with the on-demand and yet similar, but different controls for the dvr playback. It was the primary reason I kicked it to the curb as quickly as I did (though it would have happened eventually).
> 
> I was watching something last night, and perhaps it was because it was the first time with the new software, but the initial resolution was almost a joke. Blobs of characters moving across the screen, it was quite funny. I assume I can adjust from the zoomed in view it defaulted to (Malcolm in the Middle), but I did not try since I was so confused by the button functions I was happy to just leave it alone once I got the show started.


jrtoo, I need specific feedback. Its clear that apps like Netflix, Hulu, etc. are not going to make their app look like a TiVo app. They want consistency across their multiple platforms. I understand your frustration.


----------



## Stevesreed

I'd like to see the description of the next watchable episode when selecting a series from my queue. 

Currently it puts a description of the entire series, a random picture from the episode and a unfriendly label like "S3:E12". That does not mean anything to me. It should say the name and have description of the episode. That would be more useful than a random still image for the episode, if space is a concern.


----------



## sghrush

Tried the new Netflix app this morning. Intuitively, I pressed the left arrow to exit Netflix app but it didn't work. I then tried the clear button and discovered it worked. I think the left arrow should be the exit button since this would be consistent with how we exit from other Tivo screens.


----------



## sbiller

sghrush said:


> Tried the new Netflix app this morning. Intuitively, I pressed the left arrow to exit Netflix app but it didn't work. I then tried the clear button and discovered it worked. I think the left arrow should be the exit button since this would be consistent with how we exit from other Tivo screens.


Changing the behavior of the D-Pad left arrow would be inconsistent with other Netflix implementations.


----------



## gweempose

I do find it curious that the Netflix app behaves so differently to button presses. It's like this app was developed in a vacuum, and there was no contact at all between TiVo and Netflix. I blame both companies.


----------



## jrtroo

I have many similar to those listed, one I have not seen yet is:

Play button should show progress, and not pause the program


----------



## L David Matheny

moyekj said:


> Well the buttons are all wrong for a TiVo remote but I doubt Netflix will change that. But at least make it so "Info" button gives you information on what you are watching...


Actions for buttons like Info, Clear, Select and up/down/left/right should be consistent with TiVo usage. And why should that be difficult for Netflix? Button mappings should just be entries in a table somewhere in the program code. Changing which button does what should be pretty easy. And Netflix should be striving to have their app integrated seamlessly into as many environments as possible, not obsessed with imposing the exact same interface onto all those different environments.


----------



## sbiller

L David Matheny said:


> Actions for buttons like Info, Clear, Select and up/down/left/right should be consistent with TiVo usage. And why should that be difficult for Netflix? Button mappings should just be entries in a table somewhere in the program code. Changing which button does what should be pretty easy.


Netflix has made a design decision to map the buttons consistent across their platforms versus unique to each box/remote. I could see us influencing adding behavior of additional buttons like "info" but I'm guessing they are using a very similar code base for each of these implementations and unique buttons could be an issue.


----------



## moyekj

L David Matheny said:


> Actions for buttons like Info, Clear, Select and up/down/left/right should be consistent with TiVo usage. And why should that be difficult for Netflix? Button mappings should just be entries in a table somewhere in the program code. Changing which button does what should be pretty easy.


 It's not difficult. In fact I bet it's trivial. The Netflix mantra/priority is consistency across all platforms. Looks like they are not interested in optimizing the experience for each individual platform which to me degenerates the experience on most of them.


----------



## sghrush

sbiller said:


> Changing the behavior of the D-Pad left arrow would be inconsistent with other Netflix implementations.


You are right. I meant it would be nice to use the left arrow option (instead of up arrow) to go back to previous screen while watching a movie. This is how the old Netflix appt used to be.


----------



## rhettf

I really do like the netflix app, but some small changes in application behavior would be nice. I know some of these might be Tivo and not specificly Netflix, but I think TiVo could do since its clearly possible (see xbox 360) 

1) When I watch a piece of content on Netflix that was found via the TiVo Browse and Search function the content should immediately start playing when I hit Watch Now from Netflix (or any other app source for that matter). This should also be a user choice since I am sure some people don't want the content to play immediately after they push Watch Now from...Netflix/Hulu/Amazon/Xfinity. 

2)The whole 1080p/24f thing.. Is there a hardware limitation that only allows for pass through or could you create a 1080p/24f signal from scratch so we don't have to wait for Netflix to send us the signal? If it is a limitation, I would rather wait 10-15 more seconds in the beginning than have the show start streaming in 360p.

3) Stop making me have to learn new remote setups! I understand using the D-pad for selecting and such but come on! Please allow the Play/Pause D-Pad during playback. Please allow us to hit the info button for the synopsis like on the xbox app! Let me use the 30 second skip and 15 second reply, let me also hold down the 30 second skip to jump to the next episode. Have the Guide button bring up the Netflix recommendations.

4) TiVo please pull in more metadata from Netflix into your HD menus. It would be nice if there was a DD 5.1/DD+ 5.1/DD 2.0 audio icons and 720p/1080i/1080p/24f video icons so purists can watch the content in the native format. 

5) I wish TiVo could pull the Netflix recommendations into browse. Then I don't have to launch the app to see what Netflix has new for me to watch. The option could be in Collections for Netflix which than pulls in the recommendations and other category filters (Just For You, Based on X, More Supernatural, Popular on Netflix).


----------



## L David Matheny

sbiller said:


> Netflix has made a design decision to map the buttons consistent across their platforms versus unique to each box/remote. I could see us influencing adding behavior of additional buttons like "info" but I'm guessing they are using a very similar code base for each of these implementations and unique buttons could be an issue.


Are you saying that they load the exact same app code to run on a TiVo as they load to run on other boxes? It seems like they surely could recompile for various end uses. Major differences could cause them maintenance headaches, but surely customizing button usage to fit the target environment wouldn't tax their programming staff excessively.

And I edited my first post (while you and moyekj were replying) to comment on Netflix's possible misguided obsession with consistency across various platforms at the expense of a seamlessly integrated experience on any platform. As moyekj suggests, it will probably cost them (Netflix) business in the long run. As Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". I hope Netflix can rise above such thinking.


----------



## jrtroo

Ok. What would be nice, at a minimum, is if they could at least provide us with the key for how to work their remote functions. 

Up means back? Maddening. What does Right do- order a DVD? Does Down fast forward? I don't have the patience to experiment in each of the different screens.

It cannot hurt to ask them to make it consistent with the platform. It may be somewhat more complex to them, but we are not looking for different technology, just different mapping.


----------



## moyekj

Well, Netflix is known for making wise business decisions right, so who are we to judge?


----------



## aaronwt

if I were to pick one thing, it would be the startup resolution. SInce the TiVo has Native resolution output and does not scale to 1080P24, it would be nice to have the option to buffer a few seconds extra and just start playing at 1080P24 to avoid the resync issues when going from the 720P stream to the 1080P24 stream.


----------



## Drewster

I believe the UP button also works for exiting the NetFlix app. (that's how you do it on my Roku, and I'm pretty sure I replicated it with NetFlix on TiVo last night.)


----------



## sbiller

moyekj said:


> Well, Netflix is known for making wise business decisions right, so who are we to judge?


Agreed. They don't even have support forums on their website where we could b*tch and moan about their Netflix issues.


----------



## donnoh

Has anyone had any problem with the Netflix app not working after the service update? When I start Netflix I get a error that states that an unexpected error has occurred, either Netflix is unavailable or there was a network error. I restart the app and get the same error which Tivos advice is to go to the support page at Tivo.com, there they have two options to fix it, re-boot or un-pair and re-pair. Re-boot didn't work so my only other option is to un-pair every device and re-pair then - a real PITA.


----------



## sbiller

L David Matheny said:


> Are you saying that they load the exact same app code to run on a TiVo as they load to run on other boxes? It seems like they surely could recompile for various end uses. Major differences could cause them maintenance headaches, but surely customizing button usage to fit the target environment wouldn't tax their programming staff excessively.


I don't really know but a great question. I do think one of the reason's for the lengthy load time is related to the software from Netflix downloading to the TiVo box. If that is the case they could push changes to the app without having to significantly update the TiVo software. That would be a huge advantage to Netflix from a support perspective.


----------



## aaronwt

At least the videos start streaming super quick. Unlike with the Boxee Box.


----------



## sghrush

donnoh said:


> Has anyone had any problem with the Netflix app not working after the service update? When I start Netflix I get a error that states that an unexpected error has occurred, either Netflix is unavailable or there was a network error. I restart the app and get the same error which Tivos advice is to go to the support page at Tivo.com, there they have two options to fix it, re-boot or un-pair and re-pair. Re-boot didn't work so my only other option is to un-pair every device and re-pair then - a real PITA.


Yes, there is another thread regarding this. The answer is: you must wait 4 hours after the service update. The netflix app has to reauthorize your Tivo box since it is seen as a new netflix app rather than an update of the previous authorized netflix app. It is a PITA and one would think it should work right away.


----------



## aaronwt

sbiller said:


> I don't really know but a great question. I do think one of the reason's for the lengthy load time is related to the software from Netflix downloading to the TiVo box. If that is the case they could push changes to the app without having to significantly update the TiVo software. That would be a huge advantage to Netflix from a support perspective.





sghrush said:


> Yes, there is another thread regarding this. The answer is: you must wait 4 hours after the service update. The netflix app has to reauthorize your Tivo box since it is seen as a new netflix app rather than an update of the previous authorized netflix app. It is a PITA and one would think it should work right away.


You can go into the video provider section and de-select Netflix and/or youtube. Then reselect them. That fixed it for many people.

For me it worked on my first box. But it didn't with my other boxes. So I de-selected them, rebooted, and re-selected them after bootup and both Apps came right up last night. It was late and I didn't have time to wait four hours.


----------



## rhettf

aaronwt said:


> You can go into the video provider section and de-select Netflix and/or youtube. Then reselect them. That fixed it for many people.
> 
> For me it worked on my first box. But it didn't with my other boxes. So I de-selected them, rebooted, and re-selected them after bootup and both Apps came right up last night. It was late and I didn't have time to wait four hours.


You can also do just a HDUI GUI reset instead of the full blown restart so you don't interrupt recordings.

Thumbs up, thumbs down, play, play...


----------



## Balzer

sghrush said:


> Yes, there is another thread regarding this. The answer is: you must wait 4 hours after the service update. The netflix app has to reauthorize your Tivo box since it is seen as a new netflix app rather than an update of the previous authorized netflix app. It is a PITA and one would think it should work right away.


After I rebooted the system yesterday, the Netflix and Youtube apps were not working. I waited several hours and no change. I disabled and re-enabled them in the settings, rebooted a couple of times, but still no change. 
So I changed to the SDUI and tried it and they both worked. Then I changed back to HDUI and tried them again, and that's when they finally worked for me...


----------



## morac

The main problem with having Netflix tailor the remote buttons is that they don't do that for any of the apps on other devices. I'm guessing they want to be consistent and also it's cheaper to write one HTML5/flash app and just port it to different devices as is.

That's slightly different from Hulu. The Hulu Plus app is nearly the same on every device, but Hulu maps the remote buttons intelligently for the platform. For example they use "C" (if I'm remembering correctly) to exit on the Premiere. I believe "C" will also exit Netflix, which makes the clear button exit functionality superfluous. Though most users would be more likely to find clear than "C" since unlike Hulu there's no "help" screen in Netflix.


----------



## sbiller

morac said:


> The main problem with having Netflix tailor the remote buttons is that they don't do that for any of the apps on other devices. I'm guessing they want to be consistent and also it's cheaper to write one HTML5/flash app and just port it to different devices as is.


Agreed. Netflix has an extremely complex back-end architecture to support the myriad of devices on the user side. Here is an example --> http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/01/ephemeral-volatile-caching-in-cloud.html

Netflix did create a unique app for the Xbox 360 but that was the exception rather than the rule. I wonder who wrote the Apple TV app for Netflix. I'm guessing that Netflix is in the best position to write the TiVo app due to the complexity of interacting with their services.


----------



## jrtroo

I'm going to have to start rethinking Hulu instead of Netflix for my app viewing needs.


----------



## innocentfreak

rhettf said:


> 1) When I watch a piece of content on Netflix that was found via the TiVo Browse and Search function the content should immediately start playing when I hit Watch Now from Netflix (or any other app source for that matter). This should also be a user choice since I am sure some people don't want the content to play immediately after they push Watch Now from...Netflix/Hulu/Amazon/Xfinity.


Margret said Netflix's API doesn't support this which is why in the new app you no longer have the ability to do this.


----------



## sbiller

Does someone have 42 minutes to spare? I think the answer to our questions may be in this video.


----------



## TVCricket

sbiller said:


> Margret at TiVo has agreed to provide a list of comments directly to Netflix on things the user community would like changed with the current app. These need to be items that are controllable by Netflix (i.e., integral to their app). Therefore things like adding Netflix to the My Shows queue, etc. might not be applicable.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Please let me know what changes you would like to see to the new Netflix app.
> 
> I will start and modify the post as feedback is received in this message thread.
> 
> --------------------------------------
> 
> *Requested changes to Netflix*
> 
> 1) Start the stream in 1080p24 for those users who have that video resolution selected. This would avoid the TV black-out as the output stream switches from 1080i to 1080p and the HDMI sync is renegotiated.
> *2) Make "Info" button display information on what a viewer is watching. Be as consistent as possible with the TiVo buttons.
> 3) Don't use the "Clear" button to exit the application. If possible, let it clear the status bar during playback, but if not, just disable it.*
> 4) Provide a description of the next watchable episode when selecting a series from my queue. Currently it puts a description of the entire series, a random picture from the episode and a unfriendly label like "S3:E12". That isn't very meaningful. It would be beneficial to provide the name and have description of the episode. That would be more useful than a random still image for the episode, if space is a concern.
> *5) Play button should show progress, and not pause the program.*
> 6) When I watch a piece of content on Netflix that was found via the TiVo Browse and Search function the content should immediately start playing when I hit Watch Now from Netflix. This should also be a user choice since I am sure some people don't want the content to play immediately after they push Watch Now from...Netflix.
> 7) TiVo please pull in more metadata from Netflix into your HD menus. It would be nice if there was a DD/DD+ 2.0/5.1 icons and 720p/1080i/1080p/24f icons so the purists can watch it in its native format.
> 8) Add Netflix recommendations into browse, so I don't have to launch the app to see what Netflix has new for me to watch. There could be a option in Collections have a Netflix than pull in the Netflix recommendations with category filters(Just For You, Based on X, More Supernatural, Popular on Netflix).


Thank you for putting together this list. The ones I bolded were the ones I immediately noticed. And I agree with someone who mentioned about consistent controls throughout the Premiere. Do not understand how these types of features weren't passed along to Netflix at the outset. Another weird thing is having no sound or effects when navigating the Netflix app. Going up and down one by one isn't exactly fun either. I actually prefer the old List view because you could hit Channel Up/Down to quickly go through your Queue. Now it's slowed to a crawl because you have to go 1 by 1. This is one of the main reasons I hate using the PS3.


----------



## JfNebraska

I agree that the 1080P/24 ramp up is a problem. 

My network connection also seems to be too inconsistent to hold a 1080P/24 stream (i.e., my signal keeps switching back to something less). But I'm not yet seeing others complaining about that issue, so maybe it's my setup.


----------



## MrJedi

TVCricket said:


> I actually prefer the old List view because you could hit Channel Up/Down to quickly go through your Queue. Now it's slowed to a crawl because you have to go 1 by 1. This is one of the main reasons I hate using the PS3.


I love the PS3 Netflix compared to the old TiVo one. One awesome thing is that while watching a series it pops up a menu at the bottom of the screen during the end credits allowing you to start the next episode without having to exit the current one. Based on what I am reading here, I seems like I am going to be disappointed when I get home. (I have the new app, just haven't had a chance to mess with it).


----------



## crxssi

sbiller said:


> Changing the behavior of the D-Pad left arrow would be inconsistent with other Netflix implementations.


True, but one could make a case that this is a TiVo, and should act more like a TiVo. I will speculate that most of the customers using Netflix on a TiVo are not going to be bouncing back and forth between a TiVo, a Roku, a DVD player with Netflix, a TV with Netflix, a Wii, and an Xbox.

It is not like Netflix offers any support to end users, so they shouldn't care if the buttons are mapped differently. As a programmer, I also find it hard to believe that different key mapping is difficult, technologically, at all.

Looks like the key mapping is the #1 complaint from users so far, so who is "right"- Netflix or the users? Maybe we should take a poll of everyone and forward the results through Margret to them. Maybe if they see 99% of TiVo users saying the key mapping is "broken" and should be changed, they might listen?


----------



## CharlesH

OK, suppose I am someone who hasn't used Netflix on other platforms. The TiVo Netflix app comes up. How am I supposed to intuit what keystrokes do what (like using "Clear" to exit the app)? On all the other TiVo screens, there is some hint as to how you can navigate out of it.

How does Netflix work on iOS devices? Apple is very strict that applications fit in with *THEIR *UI guidelines, and I would expect that Netflix saying that "we do it this way on other platforms" would get them a patronizing snicker from Apple.

In my opinion, multi-application platforms should conform with the UI guidelines of the particular platform as much as possible. When I am using an application on my TiVo, I expect it to work like the rest of TiVo. When I am on a Windows PC, I am thinking the Windows UI model, and similarly if I am on an Apple OSX device. It wouldn't occur to me to go into a "this is how this particular application does things" mode.


----------



## rhettf

innocentfreak said:


> Margret said Netflix's API doesn't support this which is why in the new app you no longer have the ability to do this.


That Sucks...Netflix create that API PLEASE.


----------



## sbiller

As I suspected the long load times for the Netflix App are related to the app being a download every time it is launched.










The good news is that Netflix can update the app whenever they want based on user feedback.

Here is my prediction. Right now TiVo doesn't have enough users to demand a unique app. If Netflix is turned on for the Virgin Media TiVo in the UK, I could definitely see them updating it to be more TiVo-like. There will be 1M+ Virgin Media TiVo users this year and they are adding about 1M users per year.


----------



## aaroncgi

1. How about a user guide? I just noticed this update, and it's no longer logical which button does which function - ie not consistent with other Tivo functions. We need to know which buttons do what, particularly for exit, back, etc.

2. I still haven't found any way to exit a Netflix program without going all the way back out to the Tivo main menu. This is maddening and needlessly time wasteful when trying to watch multiple episodes of a TV series.

3. When viewing a selection with multiple episodes (ie a TV series), the first selection no longer brings up a list of episodes. There's yet another step where you have to select 'more episodes', pointless. The list should come up when you first select the show.

4. The channel down/up and skip forward/back buttons no longer function. Now I have to scroll through our entire list of 90+ selections ONE AT A TIME, or use a clunky search, instead of scrolling a page at a time or to the start/end of the list. This is ridiculous. And there are only four selections of the list shown on the screen at a time, instead of the 15+ that were on the previous version. What is this, 1995?? And despite only having four selections showing at a time, they're much harder to read than a simple text list.

5. To top all this off, the new application is at least twice as slow to load initially and to start a program once you hit play. And the old application was no speed demon already. Plus, the quality for everything so far is no better, and often much worse.


So to me, this is the definition of an epic fail. How do I revert to the old application?


----------



## Drewster

I find the on-screen keyboard to be excessively slow. Both the keyboard itself (physical key press to on-screen movement if the cursor) and the delay of the live-search results for EVERY key press.

And the keyboards for user/pass login vs search are different. I struggle to think of how that was a good idea.

I would appreciate heavier fonts.

-Andrew


----------



## GoEagles

I found this odd but, when you search for content on TiVo and then click on an item to view a specific episode, it doesn't play that episode directly, you have to search for that specific episode. That isn't intuitive at all.


----------



## rogmatic

I don't have the Netflix folder in my Now Playing list in SD menus buy I do in HD. I can't add it because when I go to video on demand there is no option to do so. Any ideas?


----------



## morac

aaroncgi said:


> 2. I still haven't found any way to exit a Netflix program without going all the way back out to the Tivo main menu. This is maddening and needlessly time wasteful when trying to watch multiple episodes of a TV series.


Press up.


----------



## mrsean

Does anyone know how to reset the Netflix app? Everytime I start it, I see the "Are you a member?" screen in gray and then it immediately asks me for my credit card info as in for a new signup. I am already a Netflix subscriber.

So far, I've tried all of the arrow keys and clear. I've also removed Netflix and re-added it but that did nothing.

*Update:* I found out that I improperly entered my username the first time. So how can get back to the "Are You A Member?" screen.


----------



## gteague

crxssi said:


> Looks like the key mapping is the #1 complaint from users so far, so who is "right"- Netflix or the users? Maybe we should take a poll of everyone and forward the results through Margret to them. Maybe if they see 99% of TiVo users saying the key mapping is "broken" and should be changed, they might listen?


i'm not a programmer, and i can prove it! but for the life of me i can't see why tivo can't map the button presses on their end. in other words, if netflix requires a given signal to exit, why can't tivo map the left arrow button to perform whatever netflix thinks is an 'exit' code while the tivo user is in the netflix app?

am i over-simplifying the problem here? or perhaps when we enter the netflix module there is no tivo control whatsoever and tivo cedes all button control. but even then it would seem to me that netflix could do a simple 'tivo overlay' layer on top of the application software to remap the buttons.

/guy


----------



## moyekj

rogmatic said:


> I don't have the Netflix folder in my Now Playing list in SD menus buy I do in HD. I can't add it because when I go to video on demand there is no option to do so. Any ideas?


 Mine shows up in both, however the SD My Shows launch point doesn't work while the HD launch point does. I can launch from SD Showcases though. The option to add/remove Netflix from My Shows is gone probably because that was an SDUI relevant option and TiVo is slowly crippling SDUI more and more to get remaining stragglers over to HDUI.


----------



## crxssi

GoEagles said:


> I found this odd but, when you search for content on TiVo and then click on an item to view a specific episode, it doesn't play that episode directly, you have to search for that specific episode. That isn't intuitive at all.


Margret explained this in another thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9088530#post9088530

_"If you find movie in TiVo Search, we can take you directly to that movie in the Netflix app.

If you find a specific episode of a series in the TiVo UI, we can tell that Netflix has that episode, but there is no way for us to take you directly to that episode in the Netflix app. (They don't have an API to support it.) The best we came up with was to take you to the Netflix app and execute a Search for that series. "_


----------



## crxssi

moyekj said:


> Mine shows up in both, however the SD My Shows launch point doesn't work while the HD launch point does. I can launch from SD Showcases though. The option to add/remove Netflix from My Shows is gone probably because that was an SDUI relevant option and TiVo is slowly crippling SDUI more and more to get remaining stragglers over to HDUI.


This needs confirmation and rewording- sounds like it should be in the changelog... (I do not have Netflix, so I cannot test/experiment).


----------



## L David Matheny

gteague said:


> i'm not a programmer, and i can prove it! but for the life of me i can't see why tivo can't map the button presses on their end. in other words, if netflix requires a given signal to exit, why can't tivo map the left arrow button to perform whatever netflix thinks is an 'exit' code while the tivo user is in the netflix app?
> 
> am i over-simplifying the problem here? or perhaps when we enter the netflix module there is no tivo control whatsoever and tivo cedes all button control. but even then it would seem to me that netflix could do a simple 'tivo overlay' layer on top of the application software to remap the buttons.
> 
> /guy


Good point. It does seem like some TiVo driver subroutine would have to map hardware codes received from the remote control to some kind of logical button codes. Maybe they could just swap in a different mapping table before entering Netflix mode and then switch back to the normal table when exiting Netflix mode.


----------



## b_scott

I like it, it's the same as the PS3 app which I always used because of the PQ and the 1080p/5.1

My only issue other than the non-intuitive exit controls, is that once it switches to 1080p my Tivo freaks out and blacks out for a moment. This should be seamless like on PS3, a graduated change.

I only have 1080i/p selected in my Tivo settings, and I don't think I can ONLY select 1080p upconversion. So this will happen every time.

edit: new issue. If you rewind and then play, the audio un-syncs and you have no audio until you go back to the menu and hit play again.


----------



## moyekj

crxssi said:


> This needs confirmation and rewording- sounds like it should be in the changelog... (I do not have Netflix, so I cannot test/experiment).


 I don't think it's a bug. It's intentional. Netflix launch point from My Shows in SDUI is no longer intended to be available, so you have to use HDUI if you want this. Else just go to Showcases in SDUI to launch it.


----------



## moyekj

BTW I haven't seen much mention of this but having working captions in Netflix is a significant feature IMO and I will use it all the time. One small issue with it is with captions enabled when there is music but no dialog all you see is a box with an X in it for a caption (instead of ideally no caption or a music symbol). Like other remote functions for Netflix it's not the easiest thing to toggle on/off and you have to enable it separately for each show you play back but it's still great to have something available.


----------



## aaronwt

b_scott said:


> I like it, it's the same as the PS3 app which I always used because of the PQ and the 1080p/5.1
> 
> My only issue other than the non-intuitive exit controls, is that once it switches to 1080p my Tivo freaks out and blacks out for a moment. This should be seamless like on PS3, a graduated change.
> 
> I only have 1080i/p selected in my Tivo settings, and I don't think I can ONLY select 1080p upconversion. So this will happen every time.
> ...


The only way to avoid this is to only select one resolution output like 720P or 1080i. SInce the TiVo cannot scale to 1080P, any time it switchcs between resolutions it is going to have to re-sync the HDMI input, just like every HDMI device has to when it switches output resolutions

Other devices like the PS3 can be set to scale everything to 1080P output so this never happens. If the TiVo could scale to 1080P60 like the PS3 it would not happen with this. But just switch to one output resolution of 720P or 1080i if you want to avoid it.


----------



## jrtroo

So, does anyone know how to show progress without pausing? I'm tired of guessing. Does it even exist?


----------



## aaronwt

jrtroo said:


> So, does anyone know how to show progress without pausing? I'm tired of guessing. Does it even exist?


You pause. Just like on most of the Netflix Apps on other devices.


----------



## JfNebraska

I just want to weigh in again that the picture quality of this app is very, very good. I don't use Hulu or Amazon, so I can't compare those, but this Netflix app has better picture quality than Comcast HD, Dish Network HD (which is inferior to Comcast HD), or AppleTV. 

Personally, I will sacrifice a large amount of convenience and gladly climb a non-intuitive learning curve to get the best possible picture. Put another way, if something is available on Netflix (a fairly paltry selection to be sure), I will watch it there, even if it's also available on my other sources.


----------



## Larry in TN

Has anyone put together a summary of what the remote buttons do in the new Netflix app?


----------



## aaronwt

Larry in TN said:


> Has anyone put together a summary of what the remote buttons do in the new Netflix app?


Play is play/pause
FF is FF
REW is REW
Pause will pause/play during playback

Right on the D pad is FF
Left of the D pad is REW

Select or Play will start a title
Pause/Play/Select will pause and play the title during playback

Up on the D-pad exits to the Netflix app while playing a title.

And of course Live TV, the TiVo button, etc will completely exit the App and take you back to the normal TiVo menus and TV playback etc.
(And I think someone mentioned the clear button will exit out of the Netflix App too, but I've never tried it since I don't use that button since you only need the upper two thirds of the remote when using the Netflix app)


----------



## rdodolak

rhettf said:


> You can also do just a HDUI GUI reset instead of the full blown restart so you don't interrupt recordings.
> 
> Thumbs up, thumbs down, play, play...


Tried this and I still can't get the new apps to work in the HDUI. 



Balzer said:


> After I rebooted the system yesterday, the Netflix and Youtube apps were not working. I waited several hours and no change. I disabled and re-enabled them in the settings, rebooted a couple of times, but still no change.
> So I changed to the SDUI and tried it and they both worked. Then I changed back to HDUI and tried them again, and that's when they finally worked for me...


I've tried just about everything I can think of, forcing a connection, removing/adding video providers, rebooting, changing between HDUI and SDUI, etc. and I still can't get the new apps to load in the HDUI. It's been over two days now with no change yet the new apps worked immediately in the SDUI. It really can't be this hard to get the TiVo to update correctly to use the new apps in the HDUI! :down:


----------



## compnurd

rdodolak said:


> Tried this and I still can't get the new apps to work in the HDUI.
> 
> I've tried just about everything I can think of, forcing a connection, removing/adding video providers, rebooting, changing between HDUI and SDUI, etc. and I still can't get the new apps to load in the HDUI. It's been over two days now with no change yet the new apps worked immediately in the SDUI. It really can't be this hard to get the TiVo to update correctly to use the new apps in the HDUI! :down:


I got them to work by removing all of the apps(not just the new ones) going back to the main menu and then re-adding them


----------



## rhettf

aaronwt said:


> And of course Live TV, the TiVo button, etc will completely exit the App and take you back to the normal TiVo menus and TV playback etc.
> (And I think someone mentioned the clear button will exit out of the Netflix App too, but I've never tried it since I don't use that button since you only need the upper two thirds of the remote when using the Netflix app)


Hitting the TiVo button or clear achieves similar results, both take you to the TiVo main menu but each have different landing destinations.

When you push the TiVo button you end up on MY Shows

When you push the clear button you end up on Netflix (App List).

I also noticed that while play and the yellow pause both pause/play the do it differently.

The play button brings up the scrub bar and the video image stills (good if your planing on rewinding/fast forwarding).

The yellow pause simply pauses the video and brings up the scrub bar, this was slightly faster for me.


----------



## sbiller

sbiller said:


> Does someone have 42 minutes to spare? I think the answer to our questions may be in this video.


I've watched about 25 minutes of this video and I've learned more about how the Adobe Air / Webkit implementation of Netflix works than anything I've read on TCF or elsewhere.

It makes many of the Netflix design decisions much more understandable. They clearly have many more optimization's they can do for the TiVo Netflix App but this V1.0 app is a good start.


----------



## rdodolak

compnurd said:


> I got them to work by removing all of the apps(not just the new ones) going back to the main menu and then re-adding them


Thanks for the suggestion, compnurd. I did try that multiple times the other day with no sucess.

Reboots do appear to put it in an intermediate step, by that I mean when trying to load the Netflix or YouTube apps, for the first time after the reboot, the screen goes black for approx. 30 secs or so, which appears to be indicitive of the new interface, but then the please wait shows up and it loads the old apps. After the first try it just goes immediately to the old apps.


----------



## rogmatic

I am pretty disappointed that you can't watch Netflix from the now playing menu in SD menu. I really prefer the SD to the clutter of the HD menu but I guess they want to force you to watch the ads.


----------



## moyekj

rogmatic said:


> I am pretty disappointed that you can't watch Netflix from the now playing menu in SD menu. I really prefer the SD to the clutter of the HD menu but I guess they want to force you to watch the ads.


 From SDUI you can get still get to new Netflix from Showcases or Video On Demand screens. No need to use HDUI. I do think TiVo is either basically ignoring or downgrading SDUI now as all their focus is on trying to improve HDUI. For next hardware platform it's very likely SDUI will be completely gone.


----------



## box464

morac said:


> Press up.


Thank you! Never would have figured that out on my own.

Makes no sense and I'm sure I will be clicking the Left button constantly for months.


----------



## caryrae73

Was watching a movie last night and at one point more then halfway through it kept switching back and forth from 1080i to 1080p several times in a row, eventually it did stop and it was fine before that.


----------



## rhettf

caryrae73 said:


> Was watching a movie last night and at one point more then halfway through it kept switching back and forth from 1080i to 1080p several times in a row, eventually it did stop and it was fine before that.


Been having this issue too while watching Family Guy. It was very annoying, sometimes it would happen 3-4 times in a row with each time causing two black screens.


----------



## rogmatic

Maybe I will get used to the app in time, but I am currently using AppleTv fo Netflix.


----------



## ewy99

I have a question that I am afraid of being out of luck. I do not have an HD tv yet. So when I go to the new Netflix app, the screen is very hard to read. Is there an option that can change this to make it easier to view on a regular tv? Thanks!


----------



## aaronwt

I watched several more hours of Netflix yesterday and today on my Elite. It has consistently been rock solid. Once it gets to 1080p24 it has stayed there and not dropped down to 720p. The only issue I have is when it resyncs when going from 720p to 1080p24. But there is no way around that if you want to view the content in 1080p24.


----------



## HockeyFan

sbiller said:


> It makes many of the Netflix design decisions much more understandable. They clearly have many more optimization's they can do for the TiVo Netflix App but this V1.0 app is a good start.


I agree with you.

On the PS3 you can enter an actor/actress name and it will bring up all available shows by that person. This is new to the ps3 and will most likely be added to tivo in an update. Of course Tivo central search is much better since it doesn't limit it to just available netflix shows.

Also ps3 needed many updates for shows not to lock up while fast forwarding requiring a reboot. The tivo search not only doesn't lock up but it shows a much more acurate frame position while fast forwarding. This I was very impressed by.:up:

Tivo's aspect ratio for SD shows are also more pleasant than netflix and amazon prime from the ps3.

Don't get me wrong. I like the ps3. It's great for blu-rays, streaming, and gaming.


----------



## avg99

Really like the new Netflix app even with its quirks hd and 5.1 rocks

http://www.techofthehub.com/2012/05/tivo-netflix-player-hands-on-review.html


----------



## marqattacks

I love the way I can browse Netflix on my Xbox. I would enjoy a similar browsing experience on my TiVo.


----------



## williamsca

I just received the latest TiVo update. TiVo PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go back to the original Netflix app. The new one is HORRIBLE! I can't watch a single title without the app constantly changing audio/video resolution. I have Verizon FIOS which should give me a consistent high quality HD connection but the TiVo Netflix app is constantly switching between resolutions. The old Netflix app NEVER had any problems - GO BACK TO IT!!!!


----------



## sbiller

marqattacks said:


> I love the way I can browse Netflix on my Xbox. I would enjoy a similar browsing experience on my TiVo.


I was just using the Xbox 360 Netflix app this evening. Its launch time is about the same as TiVo. I find browsing the TiVo Netflix app with my slide remote so much better than using the Xbox game controller. What do you like better about the Xbox app? The Xbox app also doesn't support 1080p24.


----------



## sbiller

williamsca said:


> I just received the latest TiVo update. TiVo PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go back to the original Netflix app. The new one is HORRIBLE! I can't watch a single title without the app constantly changing audio/video resolution. I have Verizon FIOS which should give me a consistent high quality HD connection but the TiVo Netflix app is constantly switching between resolutions. The old Netflix app NEVER had any problems - GO BACK TO IT!!!!


What problems are you having? The app is switching between what resolutions? You do have the option to turn of 1080p24 if that is causing your issues. I'm surprised that you would be having speed problems with FiOS. Do you have a router or switch between the FiOS modem and your network? Is your TiVo wired or wireless to your network (i.e., how do you have your TiVo connected)?


----------



## Drewster

A question about the TiVo's resolution: why is the TiVo set to allow anything but your set's highest resolution?

I have only 1080p selected in my TiVo, and it upscales anything it needs to. Works ok for me, and no pauses for resolution resync.

-Andrew


----------



## aaronwt

williamsca said:


> I just received the latest TiVo update. TiVo PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go back to the original Netflix app. The new one is HORRIBLE! I can't watch a single title without the app constantly changing audio/video resolution. I have Verizon FIOS which should give me a consistent high quality HD connection but the TiVo Netflix app is constantly switching between resolutions. The old Netflix app NEVER had any problems - GO BACK TO IT!!!!


Try changing the DNS IP addresses. I have FiOS too. And can stream multiple concurrent Netflix streams and they are rock solid here. It stays at 1080P24 without dropping down to the 720P stream. Unless I course I FF or REW a several minutes. Then it starts back at 720P and ramp sup to 1080P. But that is standard from any Netflix streaming device.


----------



## aaronwt

Drewster said:


> A question about the TiVo's resolution: why is the TiVo set to allow anything but your set's highest resolution?
> 
> I have only 1080p selected in my TiVo, and it upscales anything it needs to. Works ok for me, and no pauses for resolution resync.
> 
> -Andrew


You have to at the very least have 1080i and 1080P24 set on the TiVo. You cannot just select 1080P on the TiVo since the TiVo cannot scale to 1080P, it only has 1080P24 pass through. The TiVo can only scale to 1080i resolutions and lower. On the streaming HD content Netflix mostly has 720P streams and 1080P24 streams. So it will start streaming the 720P stream and ramp up to 1080P24. So whether you have 720P or 1080i checked it will start streaming at a lower resolution(either at 720P or at 1080i with the 720P stream scaled to 1080i) and will have to re-sync when it starts streaming 1080P24.


----------



## sbiller

aaronwt said:


> You have to at the very least have 1080i and 1080P24 set on the TiVo. You cannot just select 1080P on the TiVo since the TiVo cannot scale to 1080P, it only has 1080P24 pass through. The TiVo can only scale to 1080i resolutions and lower. On the streaming HD content Netflix mostly has 720P streams and 1080P24 streams. So it will start streaming the 720P stream and ramp up to 1080P24. So whether you have 720P or 1080i checked it will start streaming at a lower resolution(either at 720P or at 1080i with the 720P stream scaled to 1080i) and will have to re-sync when it starts streaming 1080P24.


Correct. You'll notice in the video settings menu that TiVo explicitly labels the 1080p as "pass-through". I have my Elite/XL4 set to 1080i and 1080p only and have deselected the other resolutions to minimize the amount of switching the TV is required to perform.


----------



## Balzer

williamsca said:


> I just received the latest TiVo update. TiVo PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go back to the original Netflix app. The new one is HORRIBLE! I can't watch a single title without the app constantly changing audio/video resolution. I have Verizon FIOS which should give me a consistent high quality HD connection but the TiVo Netflix app is constantly switching between resolutions. The old Netflix app NEVER had any problems - GO BACK TO IT!!!!


No thanks. I'll keep the new one.


----------



## jrtroo

Finally watched some HD content, very nice, nicer than expected. But as I watch a lot of tv shows with my family, I'm not sure if that outweighs the pain of the new remote mapping.

I had an issue the other day, not sure if it was user error, a netflix problem, a set up issue, or just lack of understanding of the goofy remote functions. When watching a "malcom in the middle" (a show that always was 4:3 with the back bars) the screen on my premiere was zoomed in, removing the bars and making everyone huge while cutting off their heads. 

I tried as many remote buttons as seemed reasonable to "zoom" out (with dropping out the the app a bunch of times, ouch), to no avail. I don't see any options to set in the menus on this. In looking at the same show on my HD, it still had the 4:3 with bars.

User error? Netflix issue?


----------



## Drewster

sbiller said:


> I have my Elite/XL4 set to 1080i and 1080p only and have deselected the other resolutions to minimize the amount of switching the TV is required to perform.


That's what I have as well. I'm not yet seeing a reason to have lower resolutions selected at all.

-Andrew


----------



## aaronwt

jrtroo said:


> Finally watched some HD content, very nice, nicer than expected. But as I watch a lot of tv shows with my family, I'm not sure if that outweighs the pain of the new remote mapping.
> 
> I had an issue the other day, not sure if it was user error, a netflix problem, a set up issue, or just lack of understanding of the goofy remote functions. When watching a "malcom in the middle" (a show that always was 4:3 with the back bars) the screen on my premiere was zoomed in, removing the bars and making everyone huge while cutting off their heads.
> 
> I tried as many remote buttons as seemed reasonable to "zoom" out (with dropping out the the app a bunch of times, ouch), to no avail. I don't see any options to set in the menus on this. In looking at the same show on my HD, it still had the 4:3 with bars.
> 
> User error? Netflix issue?


This is no different than it was with the previous Netflix app. You could not use the zoom function while in the Netflix app. You had to set it prior to using the Netflix app.

Although it could have also been the content that was streamed. There is alot of content that was originally in the 4:3 aspect ratio that is sent as zoomed in when watching to fill the screen. And if the content is that way and you are watching an HD stream, the zoom button would have no effect anyway.


----------



## jrtroo

I'll verify again tonight (with another show or two for good measure), but as I suspected and (based upon these comments) it appears to be a problem.


EDIT: Completely user error. I never use the zoom button function and did not realize that it was used when launching the netflix app and that you need to exit the app to reset. I blame the kids or the dog for bumping the remote, as that is one of the few buttons that still has all of its paint on it.


----------



## MrJedi

MrJedi said:


> I love the PS3 Netflix compared to the old TiVo one. One awesome thing is that while watching a series it pops up a menu at the bottom of the screen during the end credits allowing you to start the next episode without having to exit the current one. Based on what I am reading here, I seems like I am going to be disappointed when I get home. (I have the new app, just haven't had a chance to mess with it).


Between the issues with how long it takes to scale up to 1080p, reinitialize the handshake after doing so, and not being able to start the next episode of a series at the end credits I stopped using the new app after a day and went back to the PS3. I really wanted to like the new app, but the implementation is still better on the PS3. Now, if I ever get a second TV and TiVo I will just deal with it. It is a major improvement, but I got too used to using the PS3 app to go back to the TiVo one at this time.


----------



## JfNebraska

MrJedi said:


> Between the issues with how long it takes to scale up to 1080p, reinitialize the handshake after doing so, and not being able to start the next episode of a series at the end credits I stopped using the new app after a day and went back to the PS3. I really wanted to like the new app, but the implementation is still better on the PS3. Now, if I ever get a second TV and TiVo I will just deal with it. It is a major improvement, but I got too used to using the PS3 app to go back to the TiVo one at this time.


The PS3 app is great, but, since I use a universal remote and not the PS3 controller, I have two problems with it. 1) I have to walk up to my system (or find the controller) to tun on my PS3 and 2) I need the PS button on the controller to exit the Netflix app (that's still true, right?).

Those delays make the TiVo Netflix app preferable to me.


----------



## hefe

Netflix must be consolidating their app design. This new one is exactly like the one I've got on the Google TV Logitech Revue.


----------



## aaronwt

Yes, they have been doing this for a while now. TiVo is just late to the party.


----------



## MrJedi

JfNebraska said:


> The PS3 app is great, but, since I use a universal remote and not the PS3 controller, I have two problems with it. 1) I have to walk up to my system (or find the controller) to tun on my PS3 and 2) I need the PS button on the controller to exit the Netflix app (that's still true, right?).
> 
> Those delays make the TiVo Netflix app preferable to me.


Do you have a Logitech Harmony Remote? There is an adapter that converts the Harmony's IR signal to Bluetooth. I haven't sprung for the adapter, but the controller is always sitting on the couch so it has never been a big deal to me.


----------



## aaronwt

The adapter works great for the PS3. I've been using one since they were first released and I've never had any issues with it. Although I rarely use my PS3 now.


----------



## nycmiddle

I am delighted.


----------



## Leon WIlkinson

Maybe a Netflix remote on a android & IOS could be made.

Now, I wonder if when you are playing a show if holding the remote like a joy stick would help, the backing out is just the killer headache for me.


----------



## b_scott

aaronwt said:


> The only way to avoid this is to only select one resolution output like 720P or 1080i. SInce the TiVo cannot scale to 1080P, any time it switchcs between resolutions it is going to have to re-sync the HDMI input, just like every HDMI device has to when it switches output resolutions
> 
> Other devices like the PS3 can be set to scale everything to 1080P output so this never happens. If the TiVo could scale to 1080P60 like the PS3 it would not happen with this. But just switch to one output resolution of 720P or 1080i if you want to avoid it.


yes, I realize. I just wish it would scale to 1080p same as the PS3. I won't sacrifice 1080p because of the couple seconds switching, but it's annoying that it's flawed. I've seen the difference after it resyncs and it's very noticeable.


----------



## b_scott

aaronwt said:


> This is no different than it was with the previous Netflix app. You could not use the zoom function while in the Netflix app. You had to set it prior to using the Netflix app.
> 
> Although it could have also been the content that was streamed. There is alot of content that was originally in the 4:3 aspect ratio that is sent as zoomed in when watching to fill the screen. And if the content is that way and you are watching an HD stream, the zoom button would have no effect anyway.


zoom is for noobs.  Makes me want to smack people upside the head when I see them do that.


----------



## caryrae73

I have a PS3, TiVo Premiere, and AppleTv that have Netflix and right now I like the AppleTv Netflix much better, the UI is just much nicer.


----------



## moyekj

So what I really don't understand about this "consistency" argument as reason why the buttons don't make sense for a TiVo is how come the Netflix application "Search" does work with alphanumeric input (slide remote or equivalent) yet the "Info" button doesn't do anything? Seems to me alphanumeric support is device specific so why can't one extra button like "Info" be that way as well?


----------



## crxssi

moyekj said:


> So what I really don't understand about this "consistency" argument as reason why the buttons don't make sense for a TiVo is how come the Netflix application "Search" does work with alphanumeric input (slide remote or equivalent) yet the "Info" button doesn't do anything? Seems to me alphanumeric support is device specific so why can't one extra button like "Info" be that way as well?


Actually, to me, logically, the argument doesn't hold water at all, under any circumstance. Netflix doesn't "support" the app users in any way shape or form. And it doesn't make sense that anyone would care or expect it to operate the exact same way on multiple devices with totally different UI designs and remotes.

It makes sense to have most of the same FEATURES available, and similar look. But ignoring the platform you are on and how it integrates with that platform is a disservice to users on every platform.

Same thing for the horrible, HORRIBLE new YouTube interface.


----------



## djwilso

Man, yes, the new YouTube interface is just about the dumbest design ever created.

The TiVo version is exactly the same as the one built into my Sharp HDTV. Except that on the TiVo version, many button presses result in a 2-4 second delay before the TiVo responds, whereas the one built into the TV reacts instantly.


----------



## mikeyts

hefe said:


> Netflix must be consolidating their app design. This new one is exactly like the one I've got on the Google TV Logitech Revue.


It's almost identical on the PS3, my 2012 Sony BD player and my 2012 Panasonic BD player. The Roku 2 maintains its UI design (I probably prefer the common UI for its ability to navigate directly to a given TV series season). As has been pointed out, the Xbox has different UI, consistent with MS' "Metro" UI look and feel, which Netflix supposed wrote, though who know what they paid for that (previous dashboard-look-and-feel-consistent Xbox Netflix players were written by MS). There's got to be an order of magnitude or two more Xboxes in the field than TiVos, so maybe they did it gratis.

I was thinking of "upgrading" my S3 to a Premiere given these new players but, given TiVo's inexplicable inability to upscale video to 1080p, I think that I'll pass. It's a really sad design deficiency--my BD players, PS3, Xbox and $100 Roku 2 XS can all do it.


----------



## morac

mikeyts said:


> I was thinking of "upgrading" my S3 to a Premiere given these new players but, given TiVo's inexplicable inability to upscale video to 1080p, I think that I'll pass. It's a really sad design deficiency--my BD players, PS3, Xbox and $100 Roku 2 XS can all do it.


You could also reword that to say TiVo is the only player that displays Netflix at the correct resolution, 1080p/24 (just like Amazon). All the other players convert the 24 fps to 60 fps which can introduce jitter. If Netflix could just fix it so that the video started playing at 1080p/24 instead of a lower resolution, that would get rid of the resolution switches. They could do something similar to what Vudu does on the PS3 and what Amazon did on my old and now broken DMX-NV1. Run a speed test to see if the bandwidth is good enough to start playing at the best resolution and use that. For me, I have a 25 Mbps downstream connection and there's no reason to drop to a lower resolution as it literally takes less than a second to fill e buffer.


----------



## moyekj

djwilso said:


> Man, yes, the new YouTube interface is just about the dumbest design ever created.
> 
> The TiVo version is exactly the same as the one built into my Sharp HDTV. Except that on the TiVo version, many button presses result in a 2-4 second delay before the TiVo responds, whereas the one built into the TV reacts instantly.


 Yes, the delay on TiVo version is because the application is actually running on a TiVo server, not on the TiVo (using HME). So your TiVo is essentially just a dumb display at that point and interaction with the application goes to the TiVo server and back, hence the delay. The delay is even worse than the previous HME Netflix application, probably because there is now Flash overhead as well in addition to the HME lag.


----------



## mikeyts

morac said:


> You could also reword that to say TiVo is the only player that displays Netflix at the correct resolution, 1080p/24 (just like Amazon).


Not true--the 2012 Panasonics can output VOD services (Netflix, VUDU, Amazon, etc) at 24p when they provide 24p encodings (the most common AFAICT). You have to turn it on every time (at least once per session with the player; my 6 y/o Mitsubishi panel can't accept 24p so I don't know for sure EDIT: you only need to turn it on once per session and it can be done in the library browser). I think that there may be other streamers which can do the same.

My guess is that the percentage of Netflix users who are sensitive to that jitter (or who are videophiles with fancy outboard scalers) are a very, very small minority.


> If Netflix could just fix it so that the video started playing at 1080p/24 instead of a lower resolution, that would get rid of the resolution switches.


Since their adaptive bit rate tech works fine with all of the other 1080p capable players, I can't see them ever doing that. The PS3 uses it to acheive extremely fast stream starts, 2 to 3 seconds (for some reason the first stream you start in a session with Netflix can take longer).


----------



## compnurd

moyekj said:


> Yes, the delay on TiVo version is because the application is actually running on a TiVo server, not on the TiVo (using HME). So your TiVo is essentially just a dumb display at that point and interaction with the application goes to the TiVo server and back, hence the delay. The delay is even worse than the previous HME Netflix application, probably because there is now Flash overhead as well in addition to the HME lag.


The Tivo Netflix app loads in the same amount of time as my PS3 ones


----------



## moyekj

compnurd said:


> The Tivo Netflix app loads in the same amount of time as my PS3 ones


 We're talking specifically about the lags associated with button presses, not the initial load time. For example if you play a show for a while and then press pause there can be a couple seconds of delay before the pause actually happens. i.e. Remote control actions are far from being instant while the app is running.


----------



## sandycityscott

Since my upgrade, I am no longer able to access Netflix. It tells me "an unknown error has occurred, please visit www.tivo.com/help"


----------



## bwardy77

I am not sure if this is the right place, but... The new Netflix app does not have audio at all. I have to restart the premiere and re-access the app to have sound. I am referring to the sound in the movie not ui sounds. Any one else have this problem or a solution?


----------



## muzzymate

sandycityscott said:


> Since my upgrade, I am no longer able to access Netflix. It tells me "an unknown error has occurred, please visit www.tivo.com/help"


When did you check? There is some sort of authorization that occurs after your receiver installs the update resulting in an up to 4 hour delay. Some have been able to speed up this process by going into the "Manage my providers" menu screen, turning off Netflix & Youtube then turning them back on.


----------



## Just_Chris

aaronwt said:


> Play is play/pause
> FF is FF
> REW is REW
> Pause will pause/play during playback
> 
> Right on the D pad is FF
> Left of the D pad is REW
> 
> Select or Play will start a title
> Pause/Play/Select will pause and play the title during playback
> 
> Up on the D-pad exits to the Netflix app while playing a title.
> 
> And of course Live TV, the TiVo button, etc will completely exit the App and take you back to the normal TiVo menus and TV playback etc.
> (And I think someone mentioned the clear button will exit out of the Netflix App too, but I've never tried it since I don't use that button since you only need the upper two thirds of the remote when using the Netflix app)


pressing the red C button also takes you out of the netflix app and back to my shows.


----------



## aaronwt

Just_Chris said:


> pressing the red C button also takes you out of the netflix app and back to my shows.


Thanks. That is a nice shortcut. I never tried any of those buttons.


----------



## CharlesH

How is the average user supposed to intuit all of these navigation keystrokes? Basically, you land in the Netflix application, with no hint as to how you are supposed to navigate.

So basically they have their own UI conventions, so people on ALL platforms are equally lost.


----------



## jrtroo

Agreed. I wonder if one of those buttons provides progress without pausing? I don't want to risk trying as so many buttons seem to kick you out of the application which is annoying.


----------



## mikeyts

This is typical of other platforms with multiple streamers, like BD players and streaming STBs like Roku and Boxee (there is some token consistency of UI control in some of Roku's gazillion streaming apps). The Xbox is the only platform that I know of where Microsoft has somehow managed to get some semblance of a common GUI out of a buttload streamers, but it and the other platforms each have orders of magnitude more units in use in the field than TiVo, which I imagine gets them special treatment if they ask for it. (The Xbox ESPN player is horribly inconsistent with the rest, though, with most of the control buttons not doing what they do in the other streaming apps. In its first iteration it was highly consistent--I don't know what happened there).

Even the Playstation has no common UI, though they could probably insist on the streaming services using one in their players. Netflix, Amazon, VUDU, PSN and Hulu Plus are all very different from one another (just as an aside, the PS3's recently released Amazon player is a wonder of modern UI design--just beautiful and wonderfully easy to use).


----------



## crxssi

mikeyts said:


> This is typical of other platforms with multiple streamers, like BD players and streaming STBs like Roku and Boxee (there is some token consistency of UI control in some of Roku's gazillion streaming apps). The Xbox is the only platform that I know of where Microsoft has somehow managed to get some semblance of a common GUI out of a buttload streamers, but it and the other platforms each have orders of magnitude more units in use in the field than TiVo, which I imagine gets them special treatment if they ask for it. (The Xbox ESPN player is horribly inconsistent with the rest, though, with most of the control buttons not doing what they do in the other streaming apps. In its first iteration it was highly consistent--I don't know what happened there).
> 
> Even the Playstation has no common UI, though they could probably insist on the streaming services using one in their players. Netflix, Amazon, VUDU, PSN and Hulu Plus are all very different from one another (just as an aside, the PS3's recently released Amazon player is a wonder of modern UI design--just beautiful and wonderfully easy to use).


Yet TV's and bluray players are not primarily/traditionally multi-function UI type devices. They are start or end components with things like streaming just "tacked on". Xbox and PS3 and Wii are game consoles. Roku/Boxee *are* video devices, but without the history of TiVo, and they are cheap- users expect far less.

I would flip this around and say- do the game console designers give the gaming developers the option to just totally change the specialized controls on their remotes? Ignore the "start" button? Redefine the primary "fire" button to be an exit game button? Use the "home" key as "jump"? No. That is a much better analogy that I think people can relate to. It would reflect very badly on the gaming console, as a whole, if games were to do that.

The TiVo is an expensive, robust, well established device that has a well known and thought out interaction UI for what the device does- video. And until now, all components worked mostly together around a consistent interface so it doesn't feel like when you go to a different module, you are using some cheap, not-well-thought-out, incompatible, unknown, frustrating control set. Yes, the modules like Netflix and Youtube were previously just as slow to load and had a bunch of quirks and limitations, but you still felt somewhat like you were using a TiVo. You didn't have to go find a user's guide just to figure out how to do basic navigation.


----------



## aaronwt

I still don't understand how people can't figure out how to navigate in the Netflix app. It seems very intuitive. You navigate like anything else using the up, down, right, and left keys. You can also play, pause, FF, and REW with those same four keys you use for playing back recorded content.

I just don't see how anyone would try and navigate with any other keys. In the TiVo menu you use those same keys on the Dpad to navigate.


----------



## mikeyts

crxssi said:


> I would flip this around and say- do the game console designers give the gaming developers the option to just totally change the specialized controls on their remotes? Ignore the "start" button? Redefine the primary "fire" button to be an exit game button? Use the "home" key as "jump"? No.


Uh, yeah they do. The only thing that's generally the same from game to game is the way that you move and look around--firing controls, jumping, etc, etc vary from game to game. Some games are the same as some others, but certainly all are not.

In the same way, the arrow keys, OK, and basic transport buttons (PLAY, FF, REW, PAUSE) generally do similar things in these modular players.


> The TiVo is an expensive, robust, well established device that has a well known and thought out interaction UI for what the device does- video.


TiVo is not particularly expensive anymore. The basic Premiere, which is beefier than my $700 S3 is now $150--a year or two ago, the high-end Roku cost more than that (they've worked hard and shaved hardware features to get that price down to get more Rokus into more homes). I know that TiVo has fashioned itself the "one box" but when I bought my S3, I paid that $700 (w/o service) for what you can best do with TiVo--record television, watch recorded TV and watch live television with trick-play functions. It didn't do anything else then and it's been quite some time since I bothered to use any of the crap they added to it, since it did none of it as well as other products I own.

The bottom line is that, whether you think that the controls should be consistent between these apps, this is the way things are and it's not likely to change. Netflix and YouTube are standardizing on the UI that you see in TiVo for embedded apps. I really don't think that TiVo should spend money trying to make those apps have a consistent look and feel with the main TiVo UI and I doubt that they will no matter how much carping a few users do here.

It's actually appalling to read these complaints. This Netflix UI is tons better and more feature-full than the old one, with superior sound and video available on some titles as well as offering access to the entire Netflix library (through search) and the ability to add and remove things from your queue. There's no "100 episode limit" that people complained about for so long. It's a huge improvement and well worth a little bit of learning to use.


----------



## DJQuad

aaronwt said:


> I still don't understand how people can't figure out how to navigate in the Netflix app. It seems very intuitive.


Yeah it is. Clear is back, back is up, meanwhile instead of having a list of the instant queue, there are 4 pretty pictures instead of a nice list like the previous version. What's even better is no sound with laggy menus, along with text so small you need a big screen TV to read it.

The new Netflix app, quite frankly, sucks. Why Tivo left it up to Netflix to develop a Tivo app I'll never understand, especially since it relies on the API.


----------



## DJQuad

mikeyts said:


> There's no "100 episode limit" that people complained about for so long. It's a huge improvement and well worth a little bit of learning to use.


Whether it's just an improvement on Tivo's previous Netflix app (which would have been better IMO), or relying on Netflix to "develop" the new app, it relies on Netflix's API. Tivo seems to have gotten lazy by relying on Netflix to develop the app that Tivo could have done much better.


----------



## DJQuad

mikeyts said:


> Netflix and YouTube are standardizing on the UI that you see in TiVo for embedded apps.


Both UI's do nothing more than access their respective API's, which any app on any platform can do.


----------



## aaronwt

DJQuad said:


> Yeah it is. Clear is back, back is up, meanwhile instead of having a list of the instant queue, there are 4 pretty pictures instead of a nice list like the previous version. What's even better is no sound with laggy menus, along with text so small you need a big screen TV to read it.
> 
> The new Netflix app, quite frankly, sucks. Why Tivo left it up to Netflix to develop a Tivo app I'll never understand, especially since it relies on the API.


I was using Netflix on my GFs 32" HDTV this morning. I had no problem reading any text from eight feet away on the Premiere I bring over. You don't need a large screen to read it. It is easily readable.

So people were complaining about the old Netflix app saying it was text based and looked like something from the 20th century. So they update the app so that is is consistent with their other apps and now people want to go back to the old version?


----------



## DJQuad

aaronwt said:


> I was using Netflix on my GFs 32" HDTV this morning. I had no problem reading any text from eight feet away on the Premiere I bring over. You don't need a large screen to read it. It is easily readable.


Congrats on your great vision.



> So people were complaining about the old Netflix app saying it was text based and looked like something from the 20th century. So they update the app so that is is consistent with their other apps and now people want to go back to the old version?


With who's other apps? Not everyone compares it to Xbox's, iPads, etc. The ones you refer to as complaining are *Tivo* customers and the only major complaint was the 100 episode limit, which could have just as easily have been fixed by Tivo than by Netflix. Both rely on Netflix's API.


----------



## aaronwt

I


DJQuad said:


> Congrats on your great vision.
> 
> With who's other apps? Not everyone compares it to Xbox's, iPads, etc. The ones you refer to as complaining are *Tivo* customers and the only major complaint was the 100 episode limit, which could have just as easily have been fixed by Tivo than by Netflix. Both rely on Netflix's API.


My vision isn't great its 20/30 now. It was.20/20 seven years ago when I had Lasik surgery.


----------



## copwriter

moyekj said:


> BTW I haven't seen much mention of this but having working captions in Netflix is a significant feature IMO and I will use it all the time. One small issue with it is with captions enabled when there is music but no dialog all you see is a box with an X in it for a caption (instead of ideally no caption or a music symbol). Like other remote functions for Netflix it's not the easiest thing to toggle on/off and you have to enable it separately for each show you play back but it's still great to have something available.


+1 to this. I have a hearing loss and miss about half the dialogue without closed captioning. I see the option for it when I watch Netflix videos on my computer or iPhone, but not with TiVo. This would be a huge plus for me.


----------



## mikeyts

copwriter said:


> +1 to this. I have a hearing loss and miss about half the dialogue without closed captioning. I see the option for it when I watch Netflix videos on my computer or iPhone, but not with TiVo. This would be a huge plus for me.


It's there--for that subset of titles which have captions/subtitles, go to the "Audio & subtitles" menu and turn them on. You can see a picture of that here, in TechofTheHub.com's review.

The Roku 2 has a problem in that they could convert Netflix's DD+ 5.1 sound into anything else, so if your AVR couldn't decode DD+, you couldn't use it. They therefore can't make 5.1 sound the default as many other players do. It was driving me and other who did have DD+ capable AVRs nuts to have to turn 5.1 sound on for every title we played which had it. They "solved" the problem in a recent upgrade by making 5.1 sound selection persistent, even across reboots. They did the same thing with English captions/subtitles; I love it .


----------



## Balzer

I like the new Netflix app. Yes, there are a couple of issues, but it is much better than what we had previously (and better than the Netflix app on my Blu-ray player that I had been using until this TiVo Update). The 1080p is beautiful, and once I get my surround sound system, the 5.1 will be great too. I like the closed captioning too. That isn't available on my Blu-ray player either. People complain about the weird remote control button usage (hit up to go back, etc). It took me about a half hour of usage to get accustomed to it, but now it's second nature. 

Overall, I am happy with it as it is, but would welcome any future tweaks. 

Although I did have an issue watching an episode of 24 the other night. It kept switching from 1080i to 1080p, every 5-10 seconds. Irritating to say the least, so I had to go back to Tivo display settings and disable the 1080p setting. It worked fine in 1080i after that. I probably had some Internet issues going on that night.

Anyway, just my $0.02.


----------



## jrtroo

Netflix and TiVo cannot certainly please everyone at the same time. Clearly we can all agree to that.

I never had an issue with the old one, though the new resolution is fantastic, flipping through content is a nice touch, and the elimination of the 100 episodes is well anticipated. I only wish that the buttons had better correspondence with other tivo controls when in programs and that some sort of guide to their use was created. Both of these just seem lazy, though I'm beyond wanting to cancel Netflix for the moment. 

Question that has never been addressed- how often does netflix update their apps on other devices (especially after launch)? If they DID choose to listen to us, (especially eliminating play=pause behavior) would that be something that can happen.

My main beef is that during content, its easy to forget the source is not a recorded show. So, when going into automatic its easy to drop out of the app altogether or pause annoyingly. To me, its like flipping the turn signals with the gear selector in a rental car. Sure we could see that its different, but habit would have people putting on their blinkers instead of going into drive or flipping into neutral when turning left.


----------



## mikeyts

I'm not sure that Netflix actually wrote this app. It's supposedly a flash app and Netflix on many other platforms is HTML5 downloaded to run on Webkit (see this and this). They used this to beta test a number of different UI versions, settling on the one on TiVo, which appears on many other devices (this one, which they codenamed "Special", was my favorite; "Special" is still on one of my BD players). The HTML5/Webkit player running on my PS3 changed twice, I believe, without prearrangement or any update notification.

Perhaps Netflix also offers a Flash version of the player.


----------



## mrizzo80

mikeyts said:


> I'm not sure that Netflix actually wrote this app. It's supposedly a flash app and Netflix on many other platforms is HTML5 downloaded to run on Webkit (see this and this). They used this to beta test a number of different UI versions, settling on the one on TiVo, which appears on many other devices (this one, which they codenamed "Special", was my favorite; "Special" is still on one of my BD players). The HTML5/Webkit player running on my PS3 changed twice, I believe, without prearrangement or any update notification.
> 
> Perhaps Netflix also offers a Flash version of the player.


Hasn't Margret said Netflix wrote the Tivo client a few times, including today?

https://twitter.com/#!/tivodesign/status/204963009074962432


----------



## mrizzo80

I wonder if they can/will roll the downloading of the Netflix flash app into the nightly/2am download so that the Netflix app does not have to be downloaded from Tivo's servers every time you open it? Seems like that download takes up at least half of the Netflix app startup time. 

I do like that the architecture allows for an iterative development rollout experience for us.


----------



## aaronwt

mrizzo80 said:


> I wonder if they can/will roll the downloading of the Netflix flash app into the nightly/2am download so that the Netflix app does not have to be downloaded from Tivo's servers every time you open it? Seems like that download takes up at least half of the Netflix app startup time.
> 
> I do like that the architecture allows for an iterative development rollout experience for us.


20 to 30 seconds isn't terrible. Of course faster is always better. But at least it starts streaming the content in a few seconds. Netflix on the Boxee Box takes anywhere from 25 to 50 seconds to start streaming.
I certainly prefer using the TiVo for 1080P24 stereo content. Although for DD+ 5.1 content I use my Roku 2.


----------



## sbiller

mikeyts said:


> I'm not sure that Netflix actually wrote this app. It's supposedly a flash app and Netflix on many other platforms is HTML5 downloaded to run on Webkit (see this and this). They used this to beta test a number of different UI versions, settling on the one on TiVo, which appears on many other devices (this one, which they codenamed "Special", was my favorite; "Special" is still on one of my BD players). The HTML5/Webkit player running on my PS3 changed twice, I believe, without prearrangement or any update notification.
> 
> Perhaps Netflix also offers a Flash version of the player.


Adobe Air is based on Webkit.



> AIR 3 includes a snapshot of the WebKit branch used in Safari 5.0.3 as well as the latest security fixes. You can review the original source at webkit.org; for the WebKit sources used in AIR go to Adobe Open Source. Thus, in most respects, you can use Safari 5.0.3 as a reference implementation of the behavior you can expect to find in AIR 3.


http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/ajax/articles/air_and_webkit.html


----------



## mikeyts

sbiller said:


> Adobe Air is based on Webkit.
> 
> http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/ajax/articles/air_and_webkit.html


I find an article from October saying that TiVo had adopted Adobe AIR. I suppose that the HTML5 GUI can run on top of that.

EDIT: I found a blog entry which says it, here:


> The TiVo Netflix app is getting a complete overhaul - or, rather, a replacement. The new app is actually written by Netflix and integrated by TiVo, using TiVo's Adobe Air-based SDK. It will provide a completely modern Netflix experience, on par with other devices. TiVo says it will be similar to the Netflix client found on the Insignia Connected TV with TiVo Design, but not exactly the same.


I got an e-mail offer this morning for a refurbed Premiere for $50, a $30 discount on the regular price, and I'm thinking of going for it. I'd then sell my Series3 w/PLS and use the proceeds to upgrade the Premiere to PLS.


----------



## bacevedo

One annoying thing about the new Netflix client is that it defaults to the second item in each list on the home screen. For the instant queue, it even says "2 of NN" in the upper right when it first opens the screen. Why can't it just default to the first one in the list?


----------



## mikeyts

It's a style choice--the focus stays on the same position while thumbs scroll into and out of it, with lower and higher numbered selections to either side, while you keep your eye trained on that spot. What I don't understand is why it's not the center thumb position (default being #3) when there are 5 thumbs across. That's what Roku's player does (it also returns to the last position if you exit the app and re-enter it between boots).

Another way in which I preferred the old "Special" UI--you got a 5x2 grid (with the tops of the row of thumbs below visible) which stayed stable as you navigated around it left or right, scrolling in new rows when you went up or down pass the bottom or top.


----------



## crxssi

mrizzo80 said:


> I wonder if they can/will roll the downloading of the Netflix flash app into the nightly/2am download so that the Netflix app does not have to be downloaded from Tivo's servers every time you open it? Seems like that download takes up at least half of the Netflix app startup time.


Properly designed, it would AT LEAST have a persistent cache and not download ANYTHING unless the app has changed...


----------



## mrizzo80

crxssi said:


> Properly designed, it would AT LEAST have a persistent cache and not download ANYTHING unless the app has changed...


I wonder if DRM figures into the app download at all. Doesn't Tivo run checks on the software on every bootup to make sure the software hasn't been tinkered with? Maybe this continuous re-download helps ensure the integrity of the DRM on Netflix streams? Just guessing here.


----------



## crxssi

mrizzo80 said:


> I wonder if DRM figures into the app download at all. Doesn't Tivo run checks on the software on every bootup to make sure the software hasn't been tinkered with? Maybe this continuous re-download helps ensure the integrity of the DRM on Netflix streams? Just guessing here.


Well, your thought process is certainly sound. DRM does nothing but cause suffering for legit customers, so that is certainly a good fit. But I do think some type of key exchange would be a lot faster/efficient, even if the code it is already cached. Who knows. It is likely we will NEVER know much about the workings of such stuff.


----------



## gweempose

Well, I thought I was one of the lucky ones, but yesterday my Premiere XL crashed while streaming "Limitless". After the machine rebooted, the Netflix app was no longer accessible. I was eventually able to continue streaming the movie by doing a search for "Limitless" and then accessing the app that way.


----------



## sldavis1952

Balzer said:


> I like the new Netflix app. Yes, there are a couple of issues, but it is much better than what we had previously (and better than the Netflix app on my Blu-ray player that I had been using until this TiVo Update). The 1080p is beautiful, and once I get my surround sound system, the 5.1 will be great too. I like the closed captioning too. That isn't available on my Blu-ray player either. People complain about the weird remote control button usage (hit up to go back, etc). It took me about a half hour of usage to get accustomed to it, but now it's second nature.
> 
> Overall, I am happy with it as it is, but would welcome any future tweaks.
> 
> Although I did have an issue watching an episode of 24 the other night. It kept switching from 1080i to 1080p, every 5-10 seconds. Irritating to say the least, so I had to go back to Tivo display settings and disable the 1080p setting. It worked fine in 1080i after that. I probably had some Internet issues going on that night.
> 
> Anyway, just my $0.02.


I had the same problem tonight. It kept switching every 10-15 seconds. I went to settings and changed to 1080i and it is working now.


----------



## mikeyts

sldavis1952 said:


> I had the same problem tonight. It kept switching every 10-15 seconds. I went to settings and changed to 1080i and it is working now.


Which means that its limiting itself to Netflix's 720p24 encodings.


----------



## Balzer

sldavis1952 said:


> I had the same problem tonight. It kept switching every 10-15 seconds. I went to settings and changed to 1080i and it is working now.


I tried it again the next day and it worked fine at 1080p.


----------



## Nargg

My hats are off to Netflix for what they've done overall. I read in this thread about people comparing Netflix on an Xbox360 to any TiVo. Please realize that the Xbox360 is an EXTREMELY powerful device, both in hardware AND in the OS used on it. A TiVo is about 1% of that processing power. The fact Netflix works at all is a good thing.

The programmers need to weight a lot of things. How fast the interface works, how much info can be put on it and still keep the speed and usability acceptable. And we all know it has to look pretty!

Currently I have 5 devices in my TV stand, including the TV that can stream Netflix. That is where, and why I give the credit for what they've done. And, like most here I too have found that the Xbox is the most enjoyable device for surfing through movie listings available for streaming from Netflix (second only to a real PC that is...) Netflix on my Samsung TV, Blu-Ray, DVD and Roku all are sub par to the 360 and PC.

I'm sure improvements could be made, but just keep in mind the task at hand and the hardware they have to work with.


----------



## L David Matheny

Nargg said:


> My hats are off to Netflix for what they've done overall. I read in this thread about people comparing Netflix on an Xbox360 to any TiVo. Please realize that the Xbox360 is an EXTREMELY powerful device, both in hardware AND in the OS used on it. A TiVo is about 1% of that processing power. The fact Netflix works at all is a good thing.
> 
> The programmers need to weight a lot of things. How fast the interface works, how much info can be put on it and still keep the speed and usability acceptable. And we all know it has to look pretty!
> 
> Currently I have 5 devices in my TV stand, including the TV that can stream Netflix. That is where, and why I give the credit for what they've done. And, like most here I too have found that the Xbox is the most enjoyable device for surfing through movie listings available for streaming from Netflix (second only to a real PC that is...) Netflix on my Samsung TV, Blu-Ray, DVD and Roku all are sub par to the 360 and PC.
> 
> I'm sure improvements could be made, but just keep in mind the task at hand and the hardware they have to work with.


But TiVo take note: We expect the Series 5 to have a much more powerful processor (and you should prod Broadcom if necessary) and much more memory. And asynchronous multithreading for the HDUI, of course. This is the 21st Century after all.


----------



## crxssi

Nargg said:


> My hats are off to Netflix for what they've done overall. I read in this thread about people comparing Netflix on an Xbox360 to any TiVo. Please realize that the Xbox360 is an EXTREMELY powerful device, both in hardware AND in the OS used on it.


Compared to what? A brick?

My 2 year old Linux desktop system has perhaps 12 times the processing power, and runs a FAR more advanced OS. Yes, an Xbox is more powerful than a TiVo, but that doesn't mean it is an "EXTREMELY powerful device". Just saying.


----------



## crxssi

L David Matheny said:


> But TiVo take note: We expect the Series 5 to have a much more powerful processor (and you should prod Broadcom if necessary) and much more memory. And asynchronous multithreading for the HDUI, of course. This is the 21st Century after all.


And please store the damn settings, preferences, OS, and everything not video on a damn removable SD card so we can instantly recover from a damn crash or a damn upgrade..... damnit.


----------



## mikeyts

crxssi said:


> Compared to what? A brick?
> 
> My 2 year old Linux desktop system has perhaps 12 times the processing power, and runs a FAR more advanced OS. Yes, an Xbox is more powerful than a TiVo, but that doesn't mean it is an "EXTREMELY powerful device". Just saying.


Well, it is a 7 y/o architecture. What enhances the power of a console platform is that any program running on it can count on having 100% of the processor and other resources available to it.

The only platform that I'm aware of which runs the Netflix GUI on TiVo smoothly is the PS3. You'd hate to think that it'd require all of the processing capacity of the PS3 to run the thing smoothly; hopefully some optimizations of the app and its underlying framework are possible.


----------



## bacevedo

mikeyts said:


> It's a style choice--the focus stays on the same position while thumbs scroll into and out of it, with lower and higher numbered selections to either side, while you keep your eye trained on that spot.


I get that it's a style choice. I don't care where the box is. What I find annoying is that when I start the netflix app for the first time, my first show in the list isn't the one that is in the box by default. It defaults to putting in the box my 2nd show in the list.


----------



## moyekj

Haven't seen this mentioned either, but another plus of the new Netflix related to episodic shows:
Viewing episodic shows it's nice when you finish viewing an episode Netlfix automatically moves bookmark to the next episode in the series. Plus when browsing episodes you can see pct viewed for every one you have watched, so you have a quick snapshot of what has been watched and what hasn't. This is much, much better than the old Netflix application.


----------



## mikeyts

bacevedo said:


> I get that it's a style choice. I don't care where the box is. What I find annoying is that when I start the netflix app for the first time, my first show in the list isn't the one that is in the box by default. It defaults to putting in the box my 2nd show in the list.


It's choosing to make the first thumb on the screen the one for the first title in the list and to put the selection box elsewhere so that you can see previous titles in that list (if only one). If it made the first title in your IQ the one in the selection box, it would have to make the last title in your queue the first title on the screen (which, of course, you might prefer ).

Other UIs with similar style do exactly the same thing. As I mentioned, the Roku UI shows 5 thumbs across with the selection box in the center; if you'd just booted it up, the 3rd title in your IQ is the one selected, with 1 and 2 visible to the left and 4 and 5 on the right.


----------



## bacevedo

mikeyts said:


> It's choosing to make the first thumb on the screen the one for the first title in the list and to put the selection box elsewhere so that you can see previous titles in that list (if only one). If it made the first title in your IQ the one in the selection box, it would have to make the last title in your queue the first title on the screen (which, of course, you might prefer ).
> 
> Other UIs with similar style do exactly the same thing. As I mentioned, the Roku UI shows 5 thumbs across with the selection box in the center; if you'd just booted it up, the 3rd title in your IQ is the one selected, with 1 and 2 visible to the left and 4 and 5 on the right.


I get it, but don't you find that functionality odd? Usually, when I have a list of items, and I first go into that list, I want the first one selected by default. Not the second or the third.


----------



## aaronwt

bacevedo said:


> I get it, but don't you find that functionality odd? Usually, when I have a list of items, and I first go into that list, I want the first one selected by default. Not the second or the third.


Yes it is an odd choice. But at least it is fairly consistent across devices. With either the second or third choice highlighted. I have no idea who thought that made sense though.


----------



## mikeyts

bacevedo said:


> I get it, but don't you find that functionality odd? Usually, when I have a list of items, and I first go into that list, I want the first one selected by default. Not the second or the third.


I suppose it doesn't bother me much. The order of my IQ is relatively arbitrary, just movies at the beginning and TV series at the end. When I add a title I move it to the top and if it's a TV series I go to the list and manually place it at the bottom (otherwise it seems to insert it at a random location--I put the TV series initially at the top just so I can immediately find it).

You can see the first item and get to it with a single tap of an arrow key; not a major inconvenience. No doubt the design was discussed ad nauseum in some human factors engineering meeting .


----------



## aaronwt

mikeyts said:


> I suppose it doesn't bother me much. The order of my IQ is relatively arbitrary, just movies at the beginning and TV series at the end. When I add a title I move it to the top and if it's a TV series I go to the list and manually place it at the bottom (otherwise it seems to insert it at a random location--I put the TV series initially at the top just so I can immediately find it).
> 
> You can see the first item and get to it with a single tap of an arrow key; not a major inconvenience. No doubt the design was discussed ad nauseum in some human factors engineering meeting .


Whenever I add a title to my instant Queue it always goes to the end of the list unless I select the option to move it to the top of the list. Otherwise I don't recall any titles showing up anywhere but at the end of the list. Since the list wraps around as long as my new titles are at the end or the beginning of the queue they will all be together. It would be annoying if they showed up in the middle.


----------



## mikeyts

aaronwt said:


> Whenever I add a title to my instant Queue it always goes to the end of the list unless I select the option to move it to the top of the list. Otherwise I don't recall any titles showing up anywhere but at the end of the list. Since the list wraps around as long as my new titles are at the end or the beginning of the queue they will all be together. It would be annoying if they showed up in the middle.


Yeah, it is annoying. I just tried it and not only did it not put the title at the end (though it was _near_ the end this time) it moved 3 movie titles from elsewhere in the list to the bottom. For whatever reason, for me it's wonky; it's move it to the top or hunt for it.


----------



## crxssi

aaronwt said:


> Yes it is an odd choice. But at least it is fairly consistent across devices.


This is getting to be like a broken record. I assert, again, that being consistent across devices is meaningless to most Netflix users because they are going to primarily use one box. Consistency across the box, itself, is far more useful and important.


----------



## Drewster

crxssi said:


> This is getting to be like a broken record. I assert, again, that being consistent across devices is meaningless to most Netflix users because they are going to primarily use one box. Consistency across the box, itself, is far more useful and important.


For one, I agree.

-Andrew


----------



## mikeyts

I disagree. I think that many people have multiple devices in their homes which run Netflix--"smart TVs" and various types of set top boxes including TiVo. Those people will likely run Netflix on different devices at different locations in their homes. Having Netflix present the same UI on every platform is a very good thing in those situations. If you know how to use Netflix on the TiVo in the living room, you know how to use it on the BD player in your bedroom and the app running on the television in your family room and the player running on the PS3 in your kid's room.

And it's your assertion, crxssi, that's sounding like a "broken record" to me; you have an opinion, we've heard it and some of us disagree. Netflix has a product and they want it to present a familiar face as much as possible. By creating an application and a portable software environment in which to run it, they've been spreading that product to new hardware platforms faster and more easily than ever.


----------



## Drewster

The problem with NetFlix' approach is that we've seen it before. 

Attempting to have the same UI, the same look and feel, across all endpoints results in a "platform" which is crippled by that constraint. Such applications never look "right" on any endpoint, always have limited functionality, and often perform poorly.

But hey, that's their choice. I just think it's a louse one. In my opinion this choice has a high opportunity cost in that they forgo the opportunity for a truly outstanding experience. Effectively they force everyone to have a crappy experience instead of letting anyone have a great one.


----------



## mikeyts

When you say "we've seen that before" to what specifically are you referring?

They risk that some people might not like the common Netflix UI experience, who might prefer something customized to be extremely like the rest of the hardware platform's native UI, but they deliver what should be a experience with a reliable level of utility and functionality by taking all of that out of the hands of random hardware developer's firmware teams (who, I'm sure, appreciate being saved the expense of developing something custom). The common Netflix UI offers much improved capability over the original TiVo UI. With it, Netflix knows they've given the customer an ability to browse some subset of their library (including custom genres as chosen by the user at their website) and to search all of it, with an incremental search-term interface. They've also given them title sub-menus by to which to navigate television series by selected seasons.

There are platforms which continue to have their own custom UI, like Roku and Xbox (apparently written by Netflix for the first time), but Roku's interface isn't that far different from Netflix's standard, and Microsoft largely gets what Microsoft wants, given 37 million units deployed in the US (67 million worldwide and Netflix streaming video is now available in Latin America, Canada and the UK). Besides being Metro-esque, the Xbox Netflix UI is adapted to Kinect vocal and gestural control, something present in most if not all the other myriad available Xbox streaming apps. I'm sure that they'd have produced a custom UI for the PS3 if Sony'd wanted one, but there are no third party PS3 apps which ape the XMB (thank goodness ). Sony used to have a really horrible Netflix GUI on their BD players and streamers, but now have the common one no doubt the easiest way to get access to 5.1 sound, closed captions/subtitles and 1080p video (Sony's BD players and streamers continue to have a really horrible custom Amazon player).


----------



## crxssi

mikeyts said:


> I disagree. I think that many people have multiple devices in their homes which run Netflix--"smart TVs" and various types of set top boxes including TiVo. Those people will likely run Netflix on different devices at different locations in their homes.


Using totally different remotes that have no analog to the TiVo's. And of the people I know with Netflix, every single one of the uses it almost exclusively with a single device, with the exception of also on Android or Apple tablets, which use very different on-screen controls, anyway.



> And it's your assertion, crxssi, that's sounding like a "broken record" to me; you have an opinion, we've heard it and some of us disagree.


Fair enough. But my "broken record" comment was targeted at: every time someone has a valid complaint about the control inconsistency, the same people immediately say "cross-platform consistency", as if that is somehow going to solve the problem for the poster or make them feel better about how they don't like it.


----------



## mikeyts

crxssi said:


> And of the people I know with Netflix, every single one of the uses it almost exclusively with a single device


And I have the opposite experience--most of the people _I_ know with Netflix and TiVo have family households with multiple televisions and Netflix running on multiple different platforms and they rarely chose to use the old brain-dead and featureless original TiVo Netflix player if they could help it.


> Fair enough. But my "broken record" comment was targeted at: every time someone has a valid complaint about the control inconsistency, the same people immediately say "cross-platform consistency", as if that is somehow going to solve the problem for the poster or make them feel better about how they don't like it.


I haven't heard anyone put forth that explanation as a "solution" to anyone's distaste for the Netflix common UI--it's just an explanation, and many of the people who complain ask why the TiVo Netflix UI is like it is. On 98% of hardware platforms Netflix is going to look and work the same as this. Most if not all of those platforms have UP, DOWN, RIGHT, LEFT, SELECT, PLAY, STOP, PAUSE, FF and REW buttons on their remotes, which is what the common UI uses (unless you choose to control a player on a game console with a pad; I control the players on my Xbox and PS3 with a Harmony One--and a Harmony PS3 BT adapter--though I can turn my Xbox on to watch any of its many available streamers and control them with Kinect).


----------



## chrispitude

Drewster said:


> The problem with NetFlix' approach is that we've seen it before.
> 
> Attempting to have the same UI, the same look and feel, across all endpoints results in a "platform" which is crippled by that constraint. Such applications never look "right" on any endpoint, always have limited functionality, and often perform poorly.
> 
> But hey, that's their choice. I just think it's a louse one. In my opinion this choice has a high opportunity cost in that they forgo the opportunity for a truly outstanding experience. Effectively they force everyone to have a crappy experience instead of letting anyone have a great one.


Exactly - it's consistent for _them_, as a vendor of their service. It's not consistent for _us_, the owner of an end device used to (and expecting) a certain experience.


----------



## Jackamus

I have to say the new Netflix app is not all that great. The streaming stops for no reason. The previous app worked well. I have a Roku and Netflix works with no issue on that device. All my devices are hardwired, so it's not a network issue. I just hope TiVo and Netflix can get together and get the app smoothed out.


----------



## aaronwt

Jackamus said:


> I have to say the new Netflix app is not all that great. The streaming stops for no reason. The previous app worked well. I have a Roku and Netflix works with no issue on that device. All my devices are hardwired, so it's not a network issue. I just hope TiVo and Netflix can get together and get the app smoothed out.


The streaming part works fine here. A title starts streaming at 720P, in 20 seconds or so it switches to 1080P and stays there until the end of the title. I have watched many hours of Netflix now with the New Netflix app on TiVos and so far the streaming has been rock solid.

Even the several hours I've streamed on a Premiere from my GFs slow DSL 1.25Mb/s connection has been rock solid.(of course it's not HD, but even with the slow connection there isn't even a hiccup.)

I am using Google DNS on the router at home and on my GFs router as well.

Even with the old TiVo Netflix app streaming was rock solid just like it is now.


----------



## moyekj

I've watched probably 15 titles with new Netflix application and haven't had any glitches. Once it settles in on a resolution it stays that way throughout for me. Got used to the unorthodox remote buttons after using it quite a bit so that doesn't bother me too much anymore, so all in all a huge improvement over the previous version.


----------



## lujan

aaronwt said:


> The streaming part works fine here. A title starts streaming at 720P, in 20 seconds or so it switches to 1080P and stays there until the end of the title. I have watched many hours of Netflix now with the New Netflix app on TiVos and so far the streaming has been rock solid.
> 
> Even the several hours I've streamed on a Premiere from my GFs slow DSL 1.25Mb/s connection has been rock solid.(of course it's not HD, but even with the slow connection there isn't even a hiccup.)
> 
> I am using Google DNS on the router at home and on my GFs router as well.
> 
> Even with the old TiVo Netflix app streaming was rock solid just like it is now.


So what is different about your hardware than mine where mine will just go to a blue screen as if there is no video source? It only works correctly when I uncheck 1080p in the video settings screen.


----------



## morac

lujan said:


> So what is different about your hardware than mine where mine will just go to a blue screen as if there is no video source? It only works correctly when I uncheck 1080p in the video settings screen.


Does your TV support 1080/24p?


----------



## lujan

morac said:


> Does your TV support 1080/24p?


Yes, I'm using 1080/24p through the Blu-ray and HD DVD players.


----------



## aavi722

Why are companies always obsessed with messing with things that work for the most part and inevitably always make everything worse?

Starting with having to re-log into my Netflix account again. When I turned the TV off, I was using Netflix. Now, when I turn it back on again, you don't know who I am?

I hate everything about it. Before, I could quickly page through my titles of my instant streams downloaded and select the one I want. Now, I have to look at little thumbnails and crawl along one at a time using the right arrow to try to find what I want. Half the time I can never even find what is highlighted without searching around the screen. Then I have to try to read small print ten feet away from my television to figure out what I have highlighted.

Before I could use the left arrow and immediately exit what was playing. Now, I have to fast forward all the way to the end of the movie to get the options of going back to my list or removing the title from queue which I could do instantly before.

I hate it. This is like taking the tires off your car and hiring somebody to make you square ones. 

The more these companies "improve" things, the worse they get. Stop fixing things that aren't broke!


----------



## MC Hammer

aavi722 said:


> Half the time I can never even find what is highlighted without searching around the screen. Then I have to try to read small print ten feet away from my television to figure out what I have highlighted.


Sounds like you need to upgrade your setup.


----------



## mikeyts

aavi722 said:


> Before I could use the left arrow and immediately exit what was playing. Now, I have to fast forward all the way to the end of the movie to get the options of going back to my list or removing the title from queue which I could do instantly before.


Huh? The UP and STOP buttons on your remote don't work? (Also, though slower than the 8 titles at a time you can page through the old TiVo UI, you should be able to move 3 at a time with the FF and REW buttons; not trying to invalidate your criticism, just FYI ).


----------



## aavi722

MC Hammer said:


> Sounds like you need to upgrade your setup.


My 50 inch plasma suits me just fine and has a beautiful picture. A faint color box highlighting selections, which this new "upgrade" now forces us to use, does not stand out at all.

Even if it did, I still don't like having to troll for my selections and almost need binoculars to see title information. And up is back?

Right. I wonder if their design engineers are wearing their shoes on the right feet.


----------



## compnurd

Couple of things. Just re signed up with netflix after reading alot about the new update

First Quality is freaking awesome... really cant beat 1080p/24

Second controls are really not that bad and 3rd i was watching a movie in under 30 seconds from launching the app. Nice work here


----------



## Dr Strangelove

Is anyone experiencing a problem where the movie plays full screen for a few seconds then the screen goes blank and now I am looking at 1/4 screen on the upper left corner? is this a resolution problem?


----------



## moyekj

Dr Strangelove said:


> Is anyone experiencing a problem where the movie plays full screen for a few seconds then the screen goes blank and now I am looking at 1/4 screen on the upper left corner? is this a resolution problem?


 Sounds like your display can't handle 1080p/24. Disable 1080p as a valid output on your TiVo to see if that fixes it.


----------



## basscadet

crxssi said:


> This is getting to be like a broken record. I assert, again, that being consistent across devices is meaningless to most Netflix users because they are going to primarily use one box. Consistency across the box, itself, is far more useful and important.


I use three separate boxes for Netflix (four if you count my PC). I have my TiVo, my PS3 and my Panny TV that all serve up Netflix, and I do use them all. If I have my PS3 running to play a Blu-Ray movie and my wife decides she just wants to check Netflix afterwards, then we usually just stay on the PS3. If we want to fire up Netflix from a dead stop, we use the TV itself - the interface is a bit faster than it is on TiVo and I know I have my picture settings set up right for it (I don't know where I can find test patterns to run through TiVo). But if we're watching TV already and we decide to just check Netflix, we usually use TiVo because it's easiest. (We're also planning to get a Roku box for our second bedroom, which has no cable box.)

It's nice now that the interface is (mostly) consistent across all devices, because our usage pattern is pretty much device-independent, depending more on whatever's most convenient. There are still a few annoying differences, though - I'm actually here because I'm trying to find out how I can get stream info on TiVo, which both my TV and PS3 will show me if I just hit the info button. TiVo's Netflix does nothing when I hit the info button. I actually don't want the full TiVo-style info, I want what I have with Netflix on my other devices, which just shows time elapsed/remaining and which stream I'm being served.

Based on the fact that TiVo's Netflix implementation is now so close to the others, it seems to me that any further changes you see will be to bring all versions more in line with each other rather than with TiVo's interface. You may not like it, but I think it's probably reality and it does reflect how at least a segment of their customers do use the service. Whether it's the majority, I don't know, but I'm sure they must have some research on that.


----------



## L David Matheny

basscadet said:


> Based on the fact that TiVo's Netflix implementation is now so close to the others, it seems to me that any further changes you see will be to bring all versions more in line with each other rather than with TiVo's interface. You may not like it, but I think it's probably reality and it does reflect how at least a segment of their customers do use the service. Whether it's the majority, I don't know, but I'm sure they must have some research on that.


If TiVo could devise some way to make the Netflix menus behave more like they belong on a TiVo, they could then allow us to choose which behavior we want. That would be ideal, of course.


----------



## b_scott

bacevedo said:


> One annoying thing about the new Netflix client is that it defaults to the second item in each list on the home screen. For the instant queue, it even says "2 of NN" in the upper right when it first opens the screen. Why can't it just default to the first one in the list?


yeah i've never understood that about this version of the NF client.


----------



## mikeyts

basscadet said:


> ...I'm actually here because I'm trying to find out how I can get stream info on TiVo, which both my TV and PS3 will show me if I just hit the info button.


I'm assuming that you're talking about an information overlay that you can bring up in the upper lefthand corner like this:


Spoiler












It's actually rare--of the 7 devices I own with embedded Netflix players (TiVo, PS3, Xbox, Roku 2 XS, Panasonic DMP-BDT220, -BDT110 and Sony BDP-S390), only the Sony ones (PS3, BDP-S390) have that feature. It's a cool feature that I really like--it tells you exactly what video encoding you're currently receiving (Low/SD, Medium/SD, High/SD, Medium/HD, High/HD or X-High/HD), which soundtrack you're playing and what subtitles/captions are being displayed, as well as that timestamp. You say that your Panasonic television has it (the 2011 and 2012 Panasonic BD players do not, AFAICT)? Does it look like the shot above?

Both the PS3 and Sony BD player can also turn subs/captions on and off with a SUBTITLE remote button, which I don't think any of the others which support subs can (Xbox, Roku 2, BDT220).


----------



## aaronwt

lujan said:


> So what is different about your hardware than mine where mine will just go to a blue screen as if there is no video source? It only works correctly when I uncheck 1080p in the video settings screen.


I don't know. For 1080P24 output from the TiVo Netflix app I've used it on a Samsung LED DLP, a Samsung LCD, and a Toshiba DLP set. None of them have had any issues with the 1080P24 video.

Have you gone through the normal troubleshooting, like changing the HDMI cable? Even though it might work fine with one device it could still have an issue with another device. Over the years I've had a few cables like that, mostly from Monoprice. It's not the norm bit it happens occasionally.


----------



## MadPiper

I HATE that they changed Netflix to an App! I want the old Netflix experience back, where it was just like a folder on my Tivo, and my Tivo controls worked just like they are supposed to. What were they thinking?


----------



## CharlesH

basscadet said:


> You may not like it, but I think it's probably reality and it does reflect how at least a segment of their customers do use the service. Whether it's the majority, I don't know, but I'm sure they must have some research on that.


I guess it is just reality that Apple has the clout to dictate that apps on their platforms will conform to their UI conventions, but TiVo does not have that clout. Whether or not it makes the majority of Netflix users happy, it sure makes the implementation easier. It is still not clear to me where users are supposed to find out the various gestures (such as button-up = exit current stream) if you don't already know them from the Netflix app on other platforms.


----------



## crxssi

CharlesH said:


> Whether or not it makes the majority of Netflix users happy, it sure makes the implementation easier.


I am not sure I would totally agree with that. In the case of key bindings, it is no more effort to bind exit to the left arrow than it is to bind it to the up arrow. Where keys are double used (like play/pause) it might be more tricky.



> It is still not clear to me where users are supposed to find out the various gestures (such as button-up = exit current stream) if you don't already know them from the Netflix app on other platforms.


True that


----------



## mikeyts

crxssi said:


> I am not sure I would totally agree with that. In the case of key bindings, it is no more effort to bind exit to the left arrow than it is to bind it to the up arrow. Where keys are double used (like play/pause) it might be more tricky.


The problem is that, in the Netflix common UI, LEFT is not BACK and is bound to another function (a sort of one-at-a-time scroll through frames clip navigation using LEFT and RIGHT).


CharlesH said:


> It is still not clear to me where users are supposed to find out the various gestures (such as button-up = exit current stream) if you don't already know them from the Netflix app on other platforms.


That doesn't just go for this app or this platform; there should be some formal instructions for how to use any app, but there never seems to be. What would be the harm in having some kind of help function in the app with a page or two of instructions? It's not that hard to intuit basic operation--I start the app and find myself presented with a grid of cover thumbs, so I'm gonna guess that I can navigate that grid with UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT and choose one of them with the OK/SEL/whatever's-in-the-center-of-the-directions key and maybe start it immediately playing with the PLAY buttom. As it happens, FF and REW will move right and left through the thumbs faster, but how should I know that? While playing one of the titles, I'm gonna guess that the STOP remote button will get me out of it (weirdly, STOP doesn't work in the old TiVo Netflix app, though it certainly _does_ work when playing a TiVo recording ). UP also works to get out of playback, but how I am supposed to know that?


----------



## stealingrockstar

I have this issue also. I happens frequently enough to effect my viewing experience. We should have the ability to set the highest quality so it can stop this from happening.


----------



## sammydee

Just got the update. Had to fight for an hour to get logged back in to Netflix. Between the new app not recalling the id/password and the Netflix site being down, this was pointlessly annoying.

The fact that the buttons are utterly in-TiVo like is a serious problem. My wife knows how to use TiVo (having had one since '99), but has no knowledge of or interest in how Nerflix works on an Xbox or anything else. The fact that most buttons don't work and the rest aren't documented is a major issue.

Navigating the instant queue is pretty and horrible. Slow and squinty. I'd rather see the text names of items. 

I'm sure someone in Los Gatos is patting themselves on the back. They shouldn't be. And the folks in Alviso should be quite sad. If my wife has to learn new UI, her allegiance to TiVo will fade. Why TiVo thought enabling this dilution of their brand is amazing to me.


----------



## jrtroo

Trust me, after a few days its not too bad to pick up the new navigation while in the UI (I'm not saying I like it). The hard part is adjusting while watching content. Its easy to forget its Netflix vs another source, and then you end up pausing unexpectedly or worse, clearing yourself right out of the app.


----------



## astrohip

Forgive me for jumping into the middle of this thread, it seems like the best place for a couple of Netflix questions. I have never used NF before, don't even have an account yet.

[I have an Elite, and I have the latest update]

1) Can I use NF with the SDUI? I prefer SDUI over the HDUI, and am hoping I can use NF in either UI.

(and this is really the reason I've never used NF)
2) I heard that (finally) captions are now available in the NF app on TiVo. Can anyone confirm this? Are most NF shows captioned?

Thanks!


----------



## moyekj

astrohip said:


> Forgive me for jumping into the middle of this thread, it seems like the best place for a couple of Netflix questions. I have never used NF before, don't even have an account yet.
> 
> [I have an Elite, and I have the latest update]
> 
> 1) Can I use NF with the SDUI? I prefer SDUI over the HDUI, and am hoping I can use NF in either UI.
> 
> (and this is really the reason I've never used NF)
> 2) I heard that (finally) captions are now available in the NF app on TiVo. Can anyone confirm this? Are most NF shows captioned?
> 
> Thanks!


1) Yes. You can launch new Netflix using SDUI from TiVo Central->Video On Demand->Netflix
2) Yes, with this updated Netflix captions are now available. You can't toggle them on/off dynamically while watching but you can turn them on before starting to watch on a per show basis. I use it all the time and it works great.


----------



## astrohip

moyekj said:


> 1) Yes. You can launch new Netflix using SDUI from TiVo Central->Video On Demand->Netflix
> 2) Yes, with this updated Netflix captions are now available. You can't toggle them on/off dynamically while watching but you can turn them on before starting to watch on a per show basis. I use it all the time and it works great.


Thanks! I watch 100% captions, so toggling is not an issue.

I guess it's time to join the streaming era...


----------



## TerpBE

Is there any way to remove the progress bar when Netflix is paused? I tried showing my son something yesterday, hit "clear" out of habit to remove the progress, and ended up exiting Netflix.


----------



## Jeff_DML

With the new netflix client, I started a kid video for my son and video just froze. I waited for a few minutes but eventually pulled the plug. Sadly I was hoping this would allow me not to power up my PS3 to watch netflix but I guess not. 

Couple of other complaints:
1. Video quality is terrible when videos start and for a long time. I understand that is trying to figure out your bandwidth but my PS3 is not as bad and seems quicker to ramp up.
2. PS3 has a nice kidzone option


anyone know what internet speed you need for 1080p24? I only get 720p with my 6Mpbs DSL connection.

TIA
Jeff


----------



## gteague

i only went into netflix once (since the update) to make sure it works and several more times when i inadvertently knocked myself out of the app, but ii didn't see an option to turn captions on and i'd like them on permanently. i'm at the 'search' screen with my instant queue and recently watched items, how do i get to the captions option from here?


----------



## moyekj

gteague said:


> i only went into netflix once (since the update) to make sure it works and several more times when i inadvertently knocked myself out of the app, but ii didn't see an option to turn captions on and i'd like them on permanently. i'm at the 'search' screen with my instant queue and recently watched items, how do i get to the captions option from here?


 You have to select a particular show and then enable it for that show. There is no global (every show) option. For episodic shows if you enable it for 1st show and then within same Netflix session you continue to watch next episode then it remembers you have CC on. As soon as you exit Netflix then you will have to re-enable CC for a show again.


----------



## gteague

thanks!


----------



## razor237

hey , is there any place to find a list for the remote commands for navigation when using the new netflix app ..... I was having trouble exiting out of a show to get back into the show list without exiting the entire app 

thanks


----------



## mikeyts

razor237 said:


> hey , is there any place to find a list for the remote commands for navigation when using the new netflix app ..... I was having trouble exiting out of a show to get back into the show list without exiting the entire app
> 
> thanks


Nope, there isn't (AFAICT) and as I was saying up above there should be a page or two of instructions accessible from the app.

Either STOP or UP will stop playback and return to where you were in the UI when you started it.


----------



## astrohip

razor237 said:


> hey , is there any place to find a list for the remote commands for navigation when using the new netflix app ..... I was having trouble exiting out of a show to get back into the show list without exiting the entire app
> 
> thanks


Seriously, there's no command list? I just started my 30 day trial yesterday, and I'm as confused as... (fill in cliche). How the heck are we supposed to know how to navigate?

Ok, simple one: I am watching a stream, and I want to return to the NF main screen, but not all the way back to the TiVo interface. What button does that?

Simple one II: I am watching a stream, say Ep1 of a series, and I want to get back to that series page to pick another episode, but not have to go back to the NF main page (or even worse, the TiVo screens). How?

So far, I have figured out how to stop a stream by exiting to live TV. 

As an aside, I am finding the quality iffy. It doesn't seem as sharp as regular HD TV. Some are very noticeable (LOST looked like 360 crap), others not so bad, but still not 1080 sharp. Is this the norm? (I have a Comcast pipe, lots of bandwidth)

Thx!


----------



## jrtroo

Of course, the answer is UP. How could you not know that?  

But, after exiting the content with UP, you would go LEFT. Self-intuitive.

Note, these are the same complaints from way back in this thread, but I know you would have to search through them to figure this out. The lack of a command map was also noted, and was likely part of the feedback provided to Netflix from Tivo.

My favorite is that CLEAR exits you from the app. That still messes me up after watching many netflix programs. Certainly makes it hard to want to guess at further commands by random pecking.


----------



## astrohip

jrtroo said:


> Of course, the answer is UP. How could you not know that?
> 
> But, after exiting the content with UP, you would go LEFT. Self-intuitive.


Thanks. It's a start!


----------



## mikeyts

jrtroo said:


> My favorite is that CLEAR exits you from the app. That still messes me up after watching many netflix programs. Certainly makes it hard to want to guess at further commands by random pecking.


Now that _is_ strange (I don't have a Premiere yet--one's on its way--so I haven't used this app yet). Given that LEFT is in use for title grid navigation, I'm not sure exactly what else I would have used. Do the TiVo and Live TV buttons works from that context?

I think that LEFT is perfectly intuitive for getting back to the title grid from a specific title's menu, inasmuch as it's located to the left of that menu.

I haven't used the actual TiVo peanut remote in years. I'd been thinking to myself that it's strange that Netflix didn't use the ">>|" and "|<<" chapter skip keys common on BD/DVD remotes, but I see that the TiVo's remote doesn't have those.

I've also been thinking, why is it that no one, wanting to stop a stream, thinks to press STOP? I now see that, although there is a discrete STOP TiVo remote function that I've been using forever, it's not on the TiVo remote .


----------



## lujan

I hope this has not been asked before but here it goes:

Does anyone know how to display the progress bar while watching a Netflix streaming move without pausing the movie like it does on the TiVo while watching a broadcast show (pressing the "Play" button will display the progress bar for a few seconds but pressing "Play" during a Netflix movie actually pauses the movie)?


----------



## aaronwt

lujan said:


> I hope this has not been asked before but here it goes:
> 
> Does anyone know how to display the progress bar while watching a Netflix streaming move without pausing the movie like it does on the TiVo while watching a broadcast show (pressing the "Play" button will display the progress bar for a few seconds but pressing "Play" during a Netflix movie actually pauses the movie)?


It seems like by design you can't. It is the same with other devices that have a similar netflix app.


----------



## jrtroo

lujan said:


> I hope this has not been asked before


Yes, this was asked way at the top of the thread. By me!

This is my second biggest pet peeve on the new Netflix (this is nitpicky, overall I'm in the camp that it should use basic Tivo keypresses, at least where it *should* be easy).

In order:

Clear exits the app
No way to show progress without pause
Up to exit show
No "info" available
No roadmap provided anywhere


----------



## crxssi

astrohip said:


> Seriously, there's no command list? I just started my 30 day trial yesterday, and I'm as confused as... (fill in cliche). How the heck are we supposed to know how to navigate?


According to many people, you are just supposed to know because now the interface is like all other Netflix capable devices you have used


----------



## lujan

jrtroo said:


> ...
> No way to show progress without pause
> ...


That sucks


----------



## morac

mikeyts said:


> Now that is strange (I don't have a Premiere yet--one's on its way--so I haven't used this app yet). Given that LEFT is in use for title grid navigation, I'm not sure exactly what else I would have used. Do the TiVo and Live TV buttons works from that context?


Netflix could have used one of the letter buttons like Hulu Plus does. In fact they do use the letter "c" button as an exit button in addition to the clear button. Why they decided to use both buttons is the mystery.

The TiVo and Live Tv buttons exit the app as they usually so with all TiVo apps.


----------



## astrohip

I've only played around for a day so far, but based on what I've seen, I will cancel before my 30 days is up. The UI is so inept as to detract from the overall experience. Part of what I love about the TiVo is the UI that's wrapped around my TV watching. It is so good it actually enhances the viewing experience.

With Netflix it's the exact opposite. It is so poor it detracts from the experience.

I have plenty to watch without it, so I don't need it. But had it been a superior experience, I would have kept it just as an ancillary viewing source.


----------



## mikeyts

morac said:


> Netflix could have used one of the letter buttons like Hulu Plus does. In fact they do use the letter "c" button as an exit button in addition to the clear button. Why they decided to use both buttons is the mystery.
> 
> The TiVo and Live Tv buttons exit the app as they usually so with all TiVo apps.


Ah! Those letter buttons are a new addition to the Premiere's remote that aren't on the old remote for the Series3. I suppose I'll be adding a page of touch-screen buttons for them to my Harmony "Play TiVo" activity.

Since there's no common "exit the app" function in the other incarnations of this common Netflix UI, they were free to map whatever they wanted for that. On a BD player you'd typically just go back to the main menu or to the network app menu. You know, like hitting the TiVo button or Live TV.


----------



## jakerome

After a month with the new Netflix, overall I give it a giant thumbs down.

On the plus side:
Discovery is better

On the downside:
The controls are terrible
The controls are unintuitive
I'm not sure there are any control beyond play/ff/rev/pause
There's no obvious tutorial how to use the controls (if they exist)
The playback is atrocious when it jumps between high & low bitrate-- complete black screen, no audio for a few seconds, then back. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

Really, it sucks. Yay, there is a decent discovery. Big effing whoop. If Netflix can't write a decent app, then TiVo should do so itself. Damn, they finally upgrade the YouTube & Netflix apps and they each introduce one new feature (higher quality on YouTube, discovery on Netflix) and everything else is a giant step back.


----------



## dboff01

As a user of streaming Netflix for over 3 years on multiple Roku players, I consider the new Tivo version a major upgrade from its previous version. 

Given the lack of searching, queue management, category suggestions, 5.1 surround sound, useful info on the selection screen (HD, 5.1, etc.) I found the old Tivo Netflix app basically useless compared to the Roku and never used it.

Since the upgrade, the interface is much more closely aligned with the Roku interface (and I've had no problems navigating because of it). As such, I do occasionally stay in the Tivo rather than switching to Roku to watch Netflix content. 

The last major Tivo bugaboo that is so annoying as to still keep me mostly using the Roku is the resolution jumping/HDMI handshake between 1080/60 and 1080/24. The experience is jarring and sometimes continues through an entire viewing depending on internet bandwidth. I realize I can leave it on 1080/60 but the picture quality is quite good when 1080/24.

Question:

In the new Tivo app, is there a way to scroll right and left by more than 1 movie? The Roku allows a jump by a full screen of movies (4-5) using the FF and REW buttons to more quickly navigate the queue.


----------



## mikeyts

dboff01 said:


> In the new Tivo app, is there a way to scroll right and left by more than 1 movie? The Roku allows a jump by a full screen of movies (4-5) using the FF and REW buttons to more quickly navigate the queue.


FF and REW don't work? They work in the 3 instances of this GUI that I have on other devices (Panasonic and Sony BD players and the PS3).


----------



## dboff01

mikeyts said:


> FF and REW don't work? They work in the 3 instances of this GUI that I have on other devices (Panasonic and Sony BD players and the PS3).


FF and REW have no effect in the Tivo Netflix app when navigating movies/shows. This makes moving through my queue (generally over 150 entries) painfully slow when 1 movie at a time. Another reason the Roku interface is superior.


----------



## mikeyts

I would call that a bug, except there's no recorded specification of the the UI's controls . (On the BD players and PS3, FF and REW move forward and back by 3; on the Roku it's 5).


----------



## aaronwt

dboff01 said:


> As a user of streaming Netflix for over 3 years on multiple Roku players, I consider the new Tivo version a major upgrade from its previous version.
> 
> Given the lack of searching, queue management, category suggestions, 5.1 surround sound, useful info on the selection screen (HD, 5.1, etc.) I found the old Tivo Netflix app basically useless compared to the Roku and never used it.
> 
> Since the upgrade, the interface is much more closely aligned with the Roku interface (and I've had no problems navigating because of it). As such, I do occasionally stay in the Tivo rather than switching to Roku to watch Netflix content.
> 
> The last major Tivo bugaboo that is so annoying as to still keep me mostly using the Roku is the resolution jumping/HDMI handshake between 1080/60 and 1080/24. The experience is jarring and sometimes continues through an entire viewing depending on internet bandwidth. I realize I can leave it on 1080/60 but the picture quality is quite good when 1080/24.
> 
> Question:
> 
> In the new Tivo app, is there a way to scroll right and left by more than 1 movie? The Roku allows a jump by a full screen of movies (4-5) using the FF and REW buttons to more quickly navigate the queue.


There is no 1080P60 output from a TiVo. The highest resolution the TiVo Premiere can output is 1080P24, and that is only pass through, it can't scale to that resolution. The highest resolution it can scale to is 1080i.


----------



## crxssi

aaronwt said:


> There is no 1080P60 output from a TiVo. The highest resolution the TiVo Premiere can output is 1080P24, and that is only pass through, it can't scale to that resolution. The highest resolution it can scale to is 1080i.


Technically, "1080" is the resolution, "p", "i" are progressive or interlaced, and numbers after are the framerate. 1080p60 is the same resolution as 1080p30 which is the same as 1080p24.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate


----------



## aaronwt

crxssi said:


> Technically, "1080" is the resolution, "p", "i" are progressive or interlaced, and numbers after are the framerate. 1080p60 is the same resolution as 1080p30 which is the same as 1080p24.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate


Still the person I responded too mentioned a 1080P60 output. The resolution might be the same but the framerate isn't and some devices handle the framerate and conversions better than other devices. My external scaler/video processor does a better job converting the framerate from 1080P24 to 1080P60 than the TV and other devices do. And does an even better job deinterlacing 1080i to 1080P60 than the TVs and other devices do.


----------



## moyekj

Post was 1080/60 which could be 1080i/60


----------



## aaronwt

Maybe but it is not usually listed that way.


----------



## b_scott

was just watching the pilot of Sliders. The video froze midway through and the sound kept going for a bit. Then it stopped, went black, rebooted.


----------



## Steve Richards

Totally corrupts video after playing a while. Sometimes it comes back other times required a restart. Same title on Panny BD player works fine. Unusable as it is.


----------



## brettsp

Man the new Netflix app is really disappointing. The picture turns black every 3minutes or so for about 5 seconds, and the Fast forward and rewind buttons do not work. Didn't they even test this before it was released?


----------



## rainwater

brettsp said:


> Man the new Netflix app is really disappointing. The picture turns black every 3minutes or so for about 5 seconds


This is normal if your picture is switching to 1080p or back to 720p. Disable 1080p in your display settings and you will not have this issue.


----------



## brettsp

Wow thanks, I'll try it and see if it works


----------



## Drewster

Just now, while streaming "The American President", the NetFlix app stalled and TiVo rebooted. Awesome.


----------



## proudx

rainwater said:


> This is normal if your picture is switching to 1080p or back to 720p. Disable 1080p in your display settings and you will not have this issue.


1080p is disabled for me, I have 1080I and 720p selected and it does it this way too.

The app should start out with a lot more buffer at the highest resolution available and work its way down as needed.


----------



## lujan

proudx said:


> 1080p is disabled for me, I have 1080I and 720p selected and it does it this way too.
> 
> The app should start out with a lot more buffer at the highest resolution available and work its way down as needed.


Yes, that's exactly the way Vudu works. It will start with the HDX version (assuming that's the version you purchased or rented) and then go down to HD if the bandwidth isn't fast enough and then down to SD if the bandwidth is even slower. The Netflix app should work the same way.


----------



## beeman65

jrtroo said:


> Y
> This is my second biggest pet peeve on the new Netflix (this is nitpicky, overall I'm in the camp that it should use basic Tivo keypresses, at least where it *should* be easy).
> 
> In order:
> 
> Clear exits the app
> No way to show progress without pause
> Up to exit show
> No "info" available
> No roadmap provided anywhere


These are pretty much my biggest gripes also. I don't like the text size and browsing by thumbnails. I wish you could toggle a different font size or switch to a vertical viewing of titles/text only view.

I understand they probably wanted the app on the Tivo to match their app on other devices, but for people who had been using Netflix on Tivo for years and got used to the navigation, to suddenly have missing features or keys doing different things without any documentation is pretty jarring and frustrating.


----------



## mikeyts

lujan said:


> Yes, that's exactly the way Vudu works. It will start with the HDX version (assuming that's the version you purchased or rented) and then go down to HD if the bandwidth isn't fast enough and then down to SD if the bandwidth is even slower. The Netflix app should work the same way.


The Netflix app starts with a low quality, low bit rate stream which it can buffer and start playing quickly. It then gradually ramps up to the highest quality the available bandwidth will support (often very quickly if available bandwidth on your connection to Netflix's servers is high). Doing the reverse will only benefit those who get a connection with enough bandwidth to sustain 1080p (6-7 Mbps), who, at this point, are probably a very minor portion of Netflix's streaming market; everyone else will suffer a really crappy stream start experience. If you only have bandwidth on your connection sufficient for Medium SD, you spend probably well over a minute waiting for a 1080p picture to show up, after which it would very quickly drop to a sustainable PQ level.

I'm certain that VUDU doesn't start at 3 bar HDX if your bandwidth isn't high enough--I've asked for HDX and seen it start at 1 or 2 bars. It does test bandwidth at start-up and given that, it seems probably that if your bandwidth is low enough it will refuse to start any HDX encoding.

For every piece of 1080p-capable hardware other than TiVo this is not a problem, since every BD player ever made can convert 1080p24 that BDs are usually encoded at to 1080i30 or 1080p60. It's strange that TiVo proudly advertised the Premiere to be 1080p capable when this is what you get.


----------



## lujan

mikeyts said:


> ...
> 
> I'm certain that VUDU doesn't start at 3 bar HDX if your bandwidth isn't high enough--I've asked for HDX and seen it start at 1 or 2 bars. It does test bandwidth at start-up and given that, it seems probably that if your bandwidth is low enough it will refuse to start any HDX encoding.
> 
> ...


This is probably true but I was explaining how Vudu works for me and I know I don't have the fastest connection speed compared to what others have said on these forums.


----------



## rainwater

It doesn't really matter how Netflix starts the video. Even Netflix plays content at 1080p on Roku and 720p on Xbox for the entire stream. The reason is those devices upconvert whatever Netflix sends them to that quality. So no matter how good or poor the video Netflix sends, you never see any switching because the format that is outputted never changes. Since TiVo can only display 1080p using pass-thru this isn't possible. TiVo could definitely stick to 720p or 1080i for non 1080p content though since it can convert to those resolutions. IMHO they should not be switching between 1080i and 720p (they should just stick with one). But I don't see anyway to fix the 1080p issue.


----------



## mikeyts

I hate calling this "pass-through". It gets VC-1 from Netflix and it has to decode it into a raster for display. The only thing that it's "passing through" is the frame rate. What bugs me about this is that its difficult to believe that the Broadcom chipset that they're using in Premiere would be incapable of converting the frame rate into i30 or p60; it has to convert common 720p60 (ABC, Fox, ESPN, etc) into 1080i30. It converts 720p24 from Netflix into 1080i30.


----------



## chrispitude

jakerome said:


> Damn, they finally upgrade the YouTube & Netflix apps and they each introduce one new feature (higher quality on YouTube, discovery on Netflix) and everything else is a giant step back.


Agreed. TiVo is taking not-insignificant steps backward in the functionality of the device.


----------



## haplo888

Being able to see video covers and search for shows without having to get on my computer is Great! The new app has great potential. This said, they need to carry over some functionality from the old Netflix app into the new. I have the old Netflix app on my Tivo HD:

1. The Old Netflix App displayed show data when *Info *was pressed. So the functionality exists and should be easy to bring over.

2. The Old Netflix App *navigated between screens* with the top dial. We need a way to return to the previous Netflix screen, not two ways to FF/Rewind.

3. The Old Netflix App had the ability to play in *Slow Motion*. If we can't advance frame by frame we at least need to bring over Slow Motion from the Old App.

4. The Old Netflix App allowed us to submit ratings to Netlix via our *Thumbs Up/Down* system. Submitting ratings is crucial to Netflix learning what we like and also needs to be brought over from the Old App.

5. In the Old Netflix App * Skip Back and Skip Forward* also worked.

Thanks for the chance to provide our feedback.

Haplo


----------



## rainwater

haplo888 said:


> 4. The Old Netflix App allowed us to submit ratings to Netlix via our *Thumbs Up/Down* system. Submitting ratings is crucial to Netflix learning what we like and also needs to be brought over from the Old App.


You can still rate content in the new app. You just go to Rate this title from the program information.


----------



## dave13077

I was using the Netflix app last night and I couldn't get it to pause. When I hit pause it would pause for a couple of seconds and then start playing again. I tried several times without success. Am I doing something wrong or can you not pause anymore?


----------



## haplo888

rainwater said:


> You can still rate content in the new app. You just go to Rate this title from the program information.


It was better in the Old Netflix App when you could submit ratings by just hitting Thumbs Up/Down with the show selected.

Netflix likes us to submit lots of ratings. Making it easy like in the Old Netflix App will facilitate this.


----------



## rainwater

haplo888 said:


> It was better in the Old Netflix App when you could submit ratings by just hitting Thumbs Up/Down with the show selected.
> 
> Netflix likes us to submit lots of ratings. Making it easy like in the Old Netflix App will facilitate this.


I don't see how it is hard now. It takes about 3 seconds to rate a show.


----------



## rainwater

dave13077 said:


> I was using the Netflix app last night and I couldn't get it to pause. When I hit pause it would pause for a couple of seconds and then start playing again. I tried several times without success. Am I doing something wrong or can you not pause anymore?


You have to wait for the pause to take affect. If you hit pause twice because you didn't think it was working, it will play again. There is just a huge delay in hitting pause/play and it actually happening.


----------



## aaronwt

rainwater said:


> I don't see how it is hard now. It takes about 3 seconds to rate a show.


Yes it doesn't take long. Of course the old way with Thumbs up/down was better and quicker. But the new app is inline with the app on most other devices which is obviously what Netflix wants.

I always rate any titles I watch. That way the recommendations that Netflix makes are more likely to match my tastes.
If for some reason I don't rate it on after watching a title, I will periodically got to my disc rental and streaming history on a PC to rate them. So far I've rated over two thousand titles over the last 13+ years. But I'm not really sure when netflix started their ratinsg system.

My only real complaint with their ratings system is that you can't rate by half stars.


----------



## Desktop Icon

b_scott said:


> was just watching the pilot of Sliders. The video froze midway through and the sound kept going for a bit. Then it stopped, went black, rebooted.


I was having the same problem, minus the rebooting. Every few minutes the video would go black for about two seconds while the audio continued.

My Tivo has been on wireless and the coverage to that room has never been great, but it has been sufficient so far. I started to wonder if the new Netflix app was making great demands of the net connection, so I finally undertook a project that I hoped I would never have to do: stringing cat-5 to the Tivo.

It might be too early to deem this a total success, but I can report that while on wireless every single program I streamed on the new NF app experienced the video drop-outs, the one program I've watched on the new hardwired setup performed flawlessly.


----------



## dave13077

rainwater said:


> You have to wait for the pause to take affect. If you hit pause twice because you didn't think it was working, it will play again. There is just a huge delay in hitting pause/play and it actually happening.


The problem was it would pause but after a few seconds it would start playing again. I only pressed the pause button once. Did it several times.


----------



## alleybj

I've seen that a number of folks have the problem that I do-- frequent switching up and down between 720p 1080p24, with brief blackouts in between. I get that I can switch 1080p24 off on the Tivo to stop this, but the picture really is better and I'd rather not. Does anyone have any idea why it's doing this? I understand why it switches up the first time, but why does it keep switching back and forth? Thanks


----------



## compnurd

alleybj said:


> I've seen that a number of folks have the problem that I do-- frequent switching up and down between 720p 1080p24, with brief blackouts in between. I get that I can switch 1080p24 off on the Tivo to stop this, but the picture really is better and I'd rather not. Does anyone have any idea why it's doing this? I understand why it switches up the first time, but why does it keep switching back and forth? Thanks


Most likely bandwidth.. The App is having issues getting enough speed to maintain the PQ


----------



## aaronwt

I've not had any issues with speed from my FiOS connection. The titles stay at 1080P24.

But even at my GFs house and her slow 1.2 Mb/s DSL connection. The Netflix streaming is rock solid. Once it starts playing and reaches the max resolution for the bandwidth it keeps on playing. I am using Google DNS at both locations. When I initially switched to the google DNS, it did make a noticeable difference in the speed that streaming titles start from all streaming apps I've used at both locations.


----------



## crxssi

haplo888 said:


> It was better in the Old Netflix App when you could submit ratings by just hitting Thumbs Up/Down with the show selected.
> 
> Netflix likes us to submit lots of ratings. Making it easy like in the Old Netflix App will facilitate this.


Yes, but it is apparently too much to expect the Netflix app running on TiVo to act like a Netflix app on TiVo. Arrrrrrrg


----------



## comma splice

jakerome said:


> After a month with the new Netflix, overall I give it a giant thumbs down.
> 
> On the plus side:
> Discovery is better
> 
> On the downside:
> ...
> The playback is atrocious when it jumps between high & low bitrate-- complete black screen, no audio for a few seconds, then back. Wash, rinse, repeat.


Yep, this happens to me too. Even on my FiOS 30/30 connection. :down:


----------



## aaronwt

comma said:


> Yep, this happens to me too. Even on my FiOS 30/30 connection. :down:


Then maybe there is some issue where the servers are located for you since I don't see any issues from my FiOS 43/35 connection. And I would think my GF would also be using the same netflix servers since she is in the DC area as well.


----------



## Desktop Icon

Desktop Icon said:


> It might be too early to deem this a total success, but I can report that while on wireless every single program I streamed on the new NF app experienced the video drop-outs, the one program I've watched on the new hardwired setup performed flawlessly.


Yep, I spoke too soon. The problem is still there.


----------



## rhettf

aaronwt said:


> Then maybe there is some issue where the servers are located for you since I don't see any issues from my FiOS 43/35 connection. And I would think my GF would also be using the same netflix servers since she is in the DC area as well.


It also happened to me and I have a 100 meg business connection from comcast.

When I had my business tech guy (This guy can translate IP's to binary and binary to IP in his head, makes me not feel like a geek) look at my network he found sometimes there is a DNS issue (a good tell about ur DNS quality is how fast a stream starts). Because I run my own DNS server he did something so I always connect to the same node.

Before a show might take 5-10 seconds to start and now its 3-5.

Before that the easiest fix for me was simply stoping the stream completely (hitting stop not pause) and then starting it again.


----------



## mikeyts

rhettf said:


> Before that the easiest fix for me was simply stoping the stream completely (hitting stop not pause) and then starting it again.


Although I know that the function exists because I use it, the TiVo remotes do not appear to have a STOP button. Am I not seeing something? (In this thread I kept mentioning that STOP should work as well as UP to get back to where you started playing a title and was surprised that no one else was saying it, then I dragged my peanut remote out and looked at it. I notice that STOP is a no-op in the old Netflix app though it works when playing a TiVo recording).

It's been years and years since I used a TiVo "peanut" remote and my various universal remotes through those years have always had the function mapped to their STOP buttons for TiVo.


----------



## theanswriz42

I just received my tivo yesterday and was trying to use the Netflix app on there. It's definitely not as good as any of the other devices I have (PS3, Toshiba TV, Roku, and Google TV) due to the resolution switching issue. I got sick of it after a 1 hour long TV episode and switched back to my PS3 where I had absolutely no issues.


----------



## Innerloop

New Netflix app is terrible, no way to sugar-coat it. A huge step backwards in every way (performance, stability, streaming quality, etc.). And near as I can tell, I can no longer go directly to a show using the iPad interface. 

Personally if there was a toggle to go back to the old one, I would in a heartbeat. The iPad Tivo app already has solved the discovery problem in a much better way, and while I would miss the captions, at least the thing would stream reliably and not take ages to move through the menus.

Big thumbs down. Next time, Tivo, do the programming work youselves, don't trust Netflix to deliver something up to Tivo standards. 

Please revert or give the option to revert to the one that worked.


----------



## mikeyts

Innerloop said:


> The iPad Tivo app already has solved the discovery problem in a much better way...


Perhaps, for whatever subset of TiVo users use iPads. So if I want a complete Netflix experience on TiVo I should invest in a $500 tablet accessory? I cannot _believe_ that anyone used this ultra-lame non-argument. "Why'd you mess things up, TiVo? Things were already great for those of us with iPads!"


----------



## morac

Personally I think if TiVo could fix the resolution switch issue (maybe have the app remember if the last video had enough bandwidth to stream at 1080p and start off with that if it did) and add the ability to bring up the playback status (playbar and info) like the Hulu Plus app, it would be pretty near perfect. As is, I would always switch to my PS3 to do Netflix. Now I'll use the TiVo.


----------



## rainwater

morac said:


> Personally I think if TiVo could fix the resolution switch issue (maybe have the app remember if the last video had enough bandwidth to stream at 1080p and start off with that if it did)


I doubt that will ever happen. Netflix's adaptive bitrate streaming is standardized across all platforms now. It constantly adjusts to streaming conditions on the fly. The only "fix" I can see happening is TiVo could keep from switching between 1080i and 720p by converting to either format it starts with. I don't see a way for them to fix the 1080p switching.


----------



## Drewster

morac said:


> As is, I would always switch to my PS3 to do Netflix. Now I'll use the TiVo.


Similar with us. I used to have a Roku plugged in. We always used it for NetFlix because the TiVo was so lousy at it. Now we use the TiVo and the Roku is in a box.


----------



## aaronwt

Drewster said:


> Similar with us. I used to have a Roku plugged in. We always used it for NetFlix because the TiVo was so lousy at it. Now we use the TiVo and the Roku is in a box.


I still use my Roku2 for the DD+ 5.1 titles. For the stereo titles I use the TiVo.


----------



## morac

aaronwt said:


> I still use my Roku2 for the DD+ 5.1 titles. For the stereo titles I use the TiVo.


The new Netflix on TiVo does 5.1 audio.


----------



## lujan

I was watching a movie on the new Netflix app this morning and doing some rewinding and the app kept going to the black screen so many times; I couldn't stand it. I went to the Netflix app on my LG blu-ray player to watch the rest of the movie.


----------



## HockeyFan

alleybj said:


> I've seen that a number of folks have the problem that I do-- frequent switching up and down between 720p 1080p24, with brief blackouts in between. I get that I can switch 1080p24 off on the Tivo to stop this, but the picture really is better and I'd rather not. Does anyone have any idea why it's doing this? I understand why it switches up the first time, but why does it keep switching back and forth? Thanks


There's a good article over here explaining the hardware limitiations of the tivo.
http://www.techofthehub.com/2012/05/tivo-netflix-player-hands-on-review.html

Personally I think Tivo's netflix app is a great success. Not seeing the flicker after 30 seconds is disappointing, knowing the video was only encoded 1080p/30fps is a letdown.


----------



## mikeyts

HockeyFan said:


> Personally I think Tivo's netflix app is a great success. Not seeing the flicker after 30 seconds is disappointing, knowing the video was only encoded 1080p/30fps is a letdown.


Very few titles have 720p encodings but not a 1080p one. If you know that the title has HD encodings, it's more probable that conditions on your connection to Netflix's servers are such that you aren't getting enough bandwidth/response from the servers to get to the 1080p24 encoding.

I don't think that there are any HD p30 titles. There _are_ some HD p25 titles (generally British TV)--I wonder what TiVo does with those? Somebody try an episode of the recent Doctor Who series (from the latest seasons--the first seasons were SD only).


----------



## morac

mikeyts said:


> I don't think that there are any HD p30 titles. There are some HD p25 titles (generally British TV)--I wonder what TiVo does with those? Somebody try an episode of the recent Doctor Who series (from the latest seasons--the first seasons were SD only).


I tried Doctor Who season 6 and it displayed at 1080i (I only have 1080i and 1080p) selected.

I did notice something odd with the audio. It's supposed to be Dolby Digital Plus, but the first time I tried playing it was only Dolby Digital. When I stopped and started again, it was then Dolby Digital Plus. I'm not sure what the difference is exactly other than what my audio receiver reports. I know DDP can do 7.1 audio, but I don't Netflix has any titles encoded with that.


----------



## mikeyts

morac said:


> I tried Doctor Who season 6 and it displayed at 1080i (I only have 1080i and 1080p) selected.
> 
> I did notice something odd with the audio. It's supposed to be Dolby Digital Plus, but the first time I tried playing it was only Dolby Digital. When I stopped and started again, it was then Dolby Digital Plus. I'm not sure what the difference is exactly other than what my audio receiver reports. I know DDP can do 7.1 audio, but I don't Netflix has any titles encoded with that.


On my other players it gets up to 1080p (I can tell on my Sony BD player and the PS3's player which have stream status overlays you can call up); they can handle the conversion but I don't think that TiVo can (if it can't convert p24 to p30 or i30 then it's hard to believe that it could convert p25 to i30 or p24).


----------



## morac

mikeyts said:


> On my other players it gets up to 1080p (I can tell on my Sony BD player and the PS3's player which have stream status overlays you can call up); they can handle the conversion but I don't think that TiVo can (if it can't convert p24 to p30 or i30 then it's hard to believe that it could convert p25 to i30 or p24).


Doesn't the PS3 display all programs at 1080p?


----------



## mikeyts

morac said:


> Doesn't the PS3 display all programs at 1080p?


As does my PS3, Xbox, Roku and BD player--everything except my TiVo S3 (until I get my Premiere). They all convert anything they're displaying to 1080p. The PS3 and the Sony BD player can tell me which Netflix encoding they're playing in a little status overlay in the upper lefthand corner, like this:



Spoiler












It describes the currently played encoding as Low/SD, Medium/SD, High/SD, Medium/HD, High/HD or X-High/HD (updated in realtime so you can see it switch); X-High/HD indicates 1080p.

There's a TiVo backdoor code to get it to describe the video its playing, isn't there? SPS-Replay-S? Does that work on the Premiere when you're playing Netflix? If so, what does it say when you're playing Doctor Who? EDIT: That code doesn't seem to work on my S3 anymore--is it still there?


----------



## moyekj

mikeyts said:


> There's a TiVo backdoor code to get it to describe the video its playing, isn't there? SPS-Replay-S? Does that work on the Premiere when you're playing Netflix? If so, what does it say when you're playing Doctor Who? EDIT: That code doesn't seem to work on my S3 anymore--is it still there?


 Those backdoors aren't relevant for TiVo HME applications.


----------



## mikeyts

moyekj said:


> Those backdoors aren't relevant for TiVo HME applications.


As I recall, it used to work for Amazon and Blockbuster (I think), but those were downloads and not streaming, probably played with the same code as playing a television recording. So basically there's no way to determine the format of the source stream, since the player doesn't include that.


----------



## aaronwt

morac said:


> The new Netflix on TiVo does 5.1 audio.


Yes it does, but the 5.1 is in DD+ which you need HDMI 1.3 or higher. My Algolith Flea only has HDMI 1.2 and it does an excellent job of cleaning up broadcast content and streaming content. So I prefer to use it if I can. So 
I use it for the stereo content and my Roku2 for the 5.1 content.


----------



## mikeyts

TiVo Premiere can't render Netflix's 5.1 channel DD+ into multichannel LPCM or basic DD? Specs for the Broadcom chip that they use says that it can decode it.


----------



## morac

aaronwt said:


> Yes it does, but the 5.1 is in DD+ which you need HDMI 1.3 or higher. My Algolith Flea only has HDMI 1.2 and it does an excellent job of cleaning up broadcast content and streaming content. So I prefer to use it if I can. So
> I use it for the stereo content and my Roku2 for the 5.1 content.


I'm pretty sure the TiVo software can downgrade the DD+ to DD. my receiver sometimes reports the 5.1 as regular DD, though usually its DD+.


----------



## morac

mikeyts said:


> TiVo Premiere can't render Netflix's 5.1 channel DD+ into multichannel LPCM or basic DD? Specs for the Broadcom chip that they use says that it can decode it.


It can decode to DD since that's what it sends out over optical out. I'm not sure how the HDMI handshaking works so I don't know what will be sent out to a receiver that doesn't support DD+.


----------



## aaronwt

morac said:


> It can decode to DD since that's what it sends out over optical out. I'm not sure how the HDMI handshaking works so I don't know what will be sent out to a receiver that doesn't support DD+.


If it's working properly it will send out a DD+ signal consistently and the receiver will have no audio. My secondary setup does this 100% of the time from the Elite in that room. There is something weird going on with my main setup with the DD+. Sometimes a DD signal comes out and sometimes a DD+ signal comes out which is not supposed to happen since DD+ doesn't have a core DD signal like DTS does it. Other devices I have do not exhibit this behavior. The only other time I ran into this was years ago when I had a DVDO VP50pro scaler. And I would see DD from DD+ sources for some reason. Other devices I have that send out DD+ will always send out DD+ when set that way.

This is another reason I don't use the TiVo for DD+ titles because it should be sending DD+ 100% of the time for those titles but with my Algolith Flea with HDMi 1.2 in the mix it can't send it through. But sometimes it sends DD even though it should be in DD+. Plus even when taking teh Algolith Flea out of the mix and sending straight to my DVDO DUo scaler, when I FF/REW the DD+ would sometimes have issues and dropout. Issues that don't happen when I use my Roku2 for Netflix with DD+ titles.


----------



## stlbluesfan74

"Tried" to watch Drive on Netflix last night. The screen kept flicking between 1080 modes. It became unwatchable. I even disabled 1080p output on the Tivo box. It didn't do anything thing. I have 40 Mbps download speed so that wasn't a problem.

So I switched over to the PS3 and watched it. It was rock solid.


----------



## aaronwt

stlbluesfan74 said:


> "Tried" to watch Drive on Netflix last night. The screen kept flicking between 1080 modes. It became unwatchable. I even disabled 1080p output on the Tivo box. It didn't do anything thing. I have 40 Mbps download speed so that wasn't a problem.
> 
> So I switched over to the PS3 and watched it. It was rock solid.


You need to have it set for one resolution output. If you still have 720P and 1080i selected it will still switch between resolutions if there are bandwidth issues. For me it's still streaming fine from my Premieres. It hits 1080P and stays there.


----------



## mikeyts

DD+ is designed to be converted to basic DD via a computationally simple process. I'd expect a chip with DD+ decoding to have a function to do it. If TiVo can convert to basic DD for output over S/PDIF then it should be able to do the same for output over HDMI to devices which don't support DD+.


----------



## furiousp

Since the Netflix upgrade (Premiere XL) the Netflix video quality which was once rock-solid, has degenerated into a sub-vhs picture. Streaming quality on my other Tivo(Series3 HD) running the old software is as good as ever.

I've been through a few calls & troubleshooting w/Tivo, trying many of the fixes recommended in this forum...no change in quality. Since standard troubleshooting
has failed they've escalated my case to level 2 support.
Anyone on this forum have any experience/insight to this problem?
-furiousp


----------



## moyekj

TiVo should offer a choice of which Netflix application you want to use since as pointed out the S3 series use the old one still.


----------



## furiousp

I did pose the question(to Tivo) if I could revert to the old Netflix app & they indicated that t wasn't possible.


----------



## lujan

aaronwt said:


> You need to have it set for one resolution output. If you still have 720P and 1080i selected it will still switch between resolutions if there are bandwidth issues. For me it's still streaming fine from my Premieres. It hits 1080P and stays there.


I don't know how you were able to set it to only one resolution? When I went back to the "Video" settings screen and selected only "1080p24", the box went through testing all of the formats again and after the testing, all of them were selected all over again. If I tried to select 1080p24, and then "Continue", it didn't let me keep going.


----------



## mikeyts

lujan said:


> I don't know how you were able to set it to only one resolution? When I went back to the "Video" settings screen and selected only "1080p24", the box went through testing all of the formats again and after the testing, all of them were selected all over again. If I tried to select 1080p24, and then "Continue", it didn't let me keep going.


For it to accept 1080p24 as the only resolution it would have to be capable of converting other formats to that (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, etc).


----------



## aaronwt

lujan said:


> I don't know how you were able to set it to only one resolution? When I went back to the "Video" settings screen and selected only "1080p24", the box went through testing all of the formats again and after the testing, all of them were selected all over again. If I tried to select 1080p24, and then "Continue", it didn't let me keep going.


The TiVo cannot scale to 1080P24. You would have to set it for 1080i or 720P when choosing one resolution for HD output. 1080P24 is only pass through so it also needs a lower resolution selected that it can scale content to when selecting 1080P24.


----------



## b_scott

went to Netflix tonight - couldn't connect error, clicked OK, box rebooted. I thought they FIXED that issue?


----------



## aaronwt

b_scott said:


> went to Netflix tonight - couldn't connect error, clicked OK, box rebooted. I thought they FIXED that issue?


I had my first issue with the new Netflix application last night. I selected play on a streaming title and it sat on the loading screen for a while and the title never started playing. I waited about a minute. Usually a title starts playing in a few seconds. I backed out of Netflix and then started the app again. This time the title started playing properly. I then watched two episodes with no issues. No idea what caused the issue.


----------



## stlbluesfan74

aaronwt said:


> You need to have it set for one resolution output. If you still have 720P and 1080i selected it will still switch between resolutions if there are bandwidth issues. For me it's still streaming fine from my Premieres. It hits 1080P and stays there.


Mybe I'm confused here but the only resoultion I had selected is 1080i. It definitely was not a bandwith issue. It was switching from 1080 60 and 1080 24.

Maybe there is a setting on my TV?


----------



## compnurd

stlbluesfan74 said:


> Mybe I'm confused here but the only resoultion I had selected is 1080i. It definitely was not a bandwith issue. It was switching from 1080 60 and 1080 24.
> 
> Maybe there is a setting on my TV?


If it was switching to 1080P24 then you have that selected in your video options

It is either 720P, 1080I60 or 1080P24


----------



## Jeff_DML

Spent almot all weekend comparing the TiVo netflix client with my PS3 version

starting out with my 6Mbps U-verse connection, resolution was bouncing in out 720p to a occasional 1080p24. PS3 was from low-sd to high-hd. Decided to upgrade to the next level, 12Mbps. TiVo started out working decently at 1080p24 then started bouncing between 720p and 1080p24. Made it terribly unwatchable, sometimes it would switch from 720p to 1080p24 then change it mind midway and switch back to 720p. Removed 1080p24 from my output selection so it then started thrashing between 720p and 1080i. Dont want to leave my TiVo in fixed resolution so gave up and went to my PS3. Left the PS3 info on while I watch 2 different hour long shows, stayed in X-HD or whatever the highest level is called the whole time, no thrashing. So to me it seems like there is a issue with the TiVo client, my guess is not enough free RAM to buffer high quality video properly so bounces between resolutions. People with higher speed /more reliable internet connections get around this issue.


----------



## rainwater

Jeff_DML said:


> So to me it seems like there is a issue with the TiVo client, my guess is not enough free RAM to buffer high quality video properly so bounces between resolutions.


I don't think this is the issue as the same issue occurs on Roku and Google TV. It isn't a "bug" but it is just that the Netflix adaptive bitrate system updates almost instantly to network conditions to keep from buffering. It isn't an issue on other hardware because they stick to a single resolution (like 1080p) so you don't see the switching.


----------



## stlbluesfan74

Jeff_DML said:


> People with higher speed /more reliable internet connections get around this issue.


Well, I'm getting speeds of 40Mpbs and that wasn't high enough for me to get around the issue.

Again, worked perfectly fine on PS3. Like you, I was getting the "XTRA HD" or whatever it's called.


----------



## rainwater

stlbluesfan74 said:


> Well, I'm getting speeds of 40Mpbs and that wasn't high enough for me to get around the issue.
> 
> Again, worked perfectly fine on PS3. Like you, I was getting the "XTRA HD" or whatever it's called.


How would you know if you had the issue on the PS3? The bitrate change to the highest 1080p version so subtle, it is very hard to notice on the PS3. Since the PS3 upconverts everything to 1080p, it isn't going to be seen by 99% of people since there is no resolution change. AFAIK, the PS3 version and the TiVo version are now using the same streams and the adaptive bitrate changes should now be the same. The problem is that the TiVo version changes resolutions mid-stream which is unacceptable.


----------



## aaronwt

It's very obvious on the PS3 and the Roku2 when it drops down from the 1080P stream. There is less detail on the screen when it happens. But of course that is not as bad as having an Hdmi resync like when the TiVo changes resolutions when streaming .


----------



## Jeff_DML

rainwater said:


> I don't think this is the issue as the same issue occurs on Roku and Google TV. It isn't a "bug" but it is just that the Netflix adaptive bitrate system updates almost instantly to network conditions to keep from buffering. It isn't an issue on other hardware because they stick to a single resolution (like 1080p) so you don't see the switching.


how do we know ... as we mentioned above, pressing info on PS3 tells us what the quality is, mine was locked on "XTRA HD". Before I upgraded to 12Mbps from 6 I would see the quality bouncing around on my PS3 like it always seems to do on my TiVo.


----------



## mikeyts

stlbluesfan74 said:


> Well, I'm getting speeds of 40Mpbs and that wasn't high enough for me to get around the issue.
> 
> Again, worked perfectly fine on PS3. Like you, I was getting the "XTRA HD" or whatever it's called.


It's "X-High/HD".

The rated speed of your Internet service is irrelevant (unless it's lower than the maximum rate you'll get from Netflix). You're not guaranteed any particular speed to an arbitrary point on the net and the responsiveness of the servers also comes into play. If the server is so loaded that it can't find time to shovel you content fast enough at the currently selected encoding bit rate/quality level, the amount of content in the player's buffer will start dropping and the player will ask for a lower bit rate/lower PQ encoding and start buffering that before it runs out. If conditions are such that it's easily keeping the buffer full, the player will switch to a higher bit rate/higher PQ encoding (unless it's already playing the best available for the title).

BTW, I'm fairly sure that there are no 1080i encodings. Titles with HD encodings usually have two 720p24 ones, at 2350- and 3600 Kbps and one 1080p24 one, at 4800 Kbps. (Add 192 Kbps for stereo and 384 Kbps for 5.1 channel DD+ sound). Some older television has p30 encodings and some British stuff has p25 encodings.


----------



## stlbluesfan74

rainwater said:


> How would you know if you had the issue on the PS3? The bitrate change to the highest 1080p version so subtle, it is very hard to notice on the PS3. Since the PS3 upconverts everything to 1080p, it isn't going to be seen by 99% of people since there is no resolution change. AFAIK, the PS3 version and the TiVo version are now using the same streams and the adaptive bitrate changes should now be the same. The problem is that the TiVo version changes resolutions mid-stream which is unacceptable.


I would know because on the PS3 you can hit the select button and that brings up a box that tells you what resolution you are looking at. Agreed the changes are subtle but you can see the resolutions changing when you first start a movie by looking at the information in the box.

Edit: Sorry Jeff, missed your post earlier.


----------



## mikeyts

stlbluesfan74 said:


> I would know because on the PS3 you can hit the select button and that brings up a box that tells you what resolution you are looking at. Agreed the changes are subtle but you can see the resolutions changing when you first start a movie by looking at the information in the box.


I posted a picture of this stream status overlay in this post above. My Sony BDP-S390 BD player's Netflix player also has that overlay.


----------



## rainwater

Jeff_DML said:


> how do we know ... as we mentioned above, pressing info on PS3 tells us what the quality is, mine was locked on "XTRA HD". Before I upgraded to 12Mbps from 6 I would see the quality bouncing around on my PS3 like it always seems to do on my TiVo.


Yes, it is easy to know when it gets to the highest quality 1080p stream. Even on the PS3, I've seen it drop to the lower HD version (which seems to be 720p on the TiVo) for 10 seconds or less. Again, you wouldn't even know this is happening unless you were really focusing on the picture quality because it is very subtle. My point is it is using the same adaptive bitrate streaming and even on the Roku, I see it drop down to the second level HD stream for a few seconds before it jumps back. And I use my Roku, PS3, Xbox, TiVo all hard wired to my router on a 30Mbps connection. The issue is not the Netflix app but the limitation in the way TiVo has forced Netflix to implement it.


----------



## aaronwt

But it's not subtle. It's very obvious when the background gets a little blurry and loses detail when it drops down from 1080P to 720P(and it looks hideous if it drops down to a 480P stream). It's annoying but not as annoying as it would be for the screen to blank out for a second or two when the HDMI connection resyncs.


----------



## mikeyts

aaronwt said:


> ...when the HDMI connection resyncs.


Are you certain that this has to do with HDMI? Long ago in the pre-HDMI days, when I had a CRT RPTV, any switch in resolution format over component caused a visual glitch; in that case it took the television a few seconds to adapt. The same thing happens to my LCD panel today over HDMI, which is why I use fix resolution for everything. I know that guys with fancy outboard video processors like for their equipment to send native format video to be processed in those. I've never known whether those do some kind of visual skip when a switch occurs or not.


----------



## aaronwt

mikeyts said:


> Are you certain that this has to do with HDMI? Long ago in the pre-HDMI days, when I had a CRT RPTV, any switch in resolution format over component caused a visual glitch; in that case it took the television a few seconds to adapt. The same thing happens to my LCD panel today over HDMI, which is why I use fix resolution for everything. I know that guys with fancy outboard video processors like for their equipment to send native format video to be processed in those. I've never known whether those do some kind of visual skip when a switch occurs or not.


I think it used to be a split second with analog HD and my scalers/video processors. But that was many years ago. I got my first HDMi devices in 2004 and in 2007 finally replaced my last analog TV so I've been using HDMI for everything since then. So my memory might be fuzzy on it.


----------



## morac

aaronwt said:


> I think it used to be a split second with analog HD and my scalers/video processors. But that was many years ago. I got my first HDMi devices in 2004 and in 2007 finally replaced my last analog TV so I've been using HDMI for everything since then. So my memory might be fuzzy on it.


Switching resolutions takes a few seconds. A good example is switching resolutions on your computer and seeing the monitor re-sync. So even over component you'll have this problem, though I don't believe 1080p/24 works over component.


----------



## aaronwt

morac said:


> Switching resolutions takes a few seconds. A good example is switching resolutions on your computer and seeing the monitor re-sync. So even over component you'll have this problem, though I don't believe 1080p/24 works over component.


If I change resolutions on on my PCs, My monitors take a split second to change, not a few seconds(it's very quick). I f I change resolutions from a BD player or media player, it takes one to two seconds to change.


----------



## aaronwt

I guess I've been calling it the wrong thing. I think it's not so much an HDMI issue as it is an HDCP issue that causes the delay.


----------



## mikeyts

aaronwt said:


> I guess I've been calling it the wrong thing. I think it's not so much an HDMI issue as it is an HDCP issue that causes the delay.


Neither makes any sense to me. HDCP is a security protocol and I don't see where the video format of the data being protected would matter at all to it; the payload is just so many bits so far as it would be concerned. HDMI is mindful of the format of the payload, but I don't think that it would need to adapt to a change in resolution format. I blame it entirely on the televisions, which have to stop scaling one format to display resolution and start scaling another. I could be wrong .


----------



## aaronwt

I'm basing this on when I tried switching resolutions on my PC monitors this morning with different devices. From the PCs they did it in a split second, but from devices with HDCP it took up to a couple of seconds. My monitors can definitely change resolutions in a split second so something else is causing the delay when the resolution is changed from a consumer electronics device.


----------



## achalupa

My PC monitor takes 2-3 seconds to switch resolutions. Reminded of this every time Windows wants administrative access to install something (UAC). At least that's what I've always attributed it too...


----------



## mikeyts

Again, the HDCP protocol shouldn't give a damn what's in the payload or have any awareness of it whatsoever on a functional level (it might have some packet fields describing it, but that'd be more of an HDMI thing). 

It would change timing--adjusting to that is something which might reasonably cause an HDMI-level hiccup.

EDIT: I have a lot of different devices connected to this 5 y/o Mits 1080p LCD panel. No matter what I make the format change on (by adjusting settings) this PC, the PS3, Xbox or Roku 2, it takes 3 seconds to go from 1080p to 720p or vice-versa (the PC is connected via an HDMI-to-DVI-D cable to a DVI-I PC-specific connection on the television; DVI-I is hybrid DVI-D and DVI-A and I had a secondary VGA output of my old PC connected to it before I replaced it with this one, which has an HDMI out).


----------



## aaronwt

mikeyts said:


> Again, the HDCP protocol shouldn't give a damn what's in the payload or have any awareness of it whatsoever on a functional level (it might have some packet fields describing it, but that'd be more of an HDMI thing).
> 
> It would change timing--adjusting to that is something which might reasonably cause an HDMI-level hiccup.
> 
> EDIT: I have a lot of different devices connected to this 5 y/o Mits 1080p LCD panel. No matter what I make the format change on (by adjusting settings) this PC, the PS3, Xbox or Roku 2, it takes 3 seconds to go from 1080p to 720p or vice-versa (the PC is connected via an HDMI-to-DVI-D cable to a DVI-I PC-specific connection on the television; DVI-I is hybrid DVI-D and DVI-A and I had a secondary VGA output of my old PC connected to it before I replaced it with this one, which has an HDMI out).


I was just going by the HDMi inputs of my PC monitors. My main HD set has always taken a couple of seconds when changing resolutions. But I have never used anything but one HDMI input on the TV. All my devices go through my scaler which then always feeds 1080P to the TV.


----------



## mikeyts

aaronwt said:


> I was just going by the HDMi inputs of my PC monitors. My main HD set has always taken a couple of seconds when changing resolutions. But I have never used anything but one HDMI input on the TV. All my devices go through my scaler which then always feeds 1080P to the TV.


So the scaler takes a couple of seconds to make the switch.

All of my devices other than this PC are routed through my AVR into the same HDMI input on the television. The television can't accept a p24 input but it seems as though the AVR can convert.


----------



## aaronwt

mikeyts said:


> So the scaler takes a couple of seconds to make the switch.
> 
> All of my devices other than this PC are routed through my AVR into the same HDMI input on the television. The television can't accept a p24 input but it seems as though the AVR can convert.


I have bypassed the scaler and gone straight to my receiver when messing around with it's capabilities. But it makes no difference in the time when there is a change.

I guess to really test it I need to hook my laptop or netbook to one of the other HDMi inputs of the TV and change the resolution. And then connect a BD or media player as well to see what it does.


----------



## Drewster

I had a reboot last night while watching a documentary. No warning or stuttering, just POOF reboot.


----------



## mikeyts

aaronwt said:


> I have bypassed the scaler and gone straight to my receiver when messing around with it's capabilities. But it makes no difference in the time when there is a change.


Changing the resolution will change the pixel clock frequency. My suspicion is that the delay occurs at the first HDMI sink in the chain has to deal with that, whether it's your scaler or your AVR or your television. It has to resync to the data and start scaling at the new resolution. I've recently seen that my AVR will take p24 from my BD player (a Panasonic DMP-BDT220, which can be set to output native p24 from the VOD players when that's the video's native frame rate, which will be the great majority of titles). That the pause should be whole seconds seems intuitively unreasonable but I don't know the issues involved.


----------



## billbillw

I just got a Premiere a couple weeks ago. I'm also not happy with the Netflix app. Issues with it having dropouts are annoying. It is definitely related to the resolution change. Why can't they just have a fixed resolution? At first I was excited because it LOOKS just like the Netflix app that is on my LG Bluray player (which is awesome), but it doesn't function the same. I've never had dropouts, or other issues with the LG. I also don't see anything when its fast forwarding or rewinding. Stop button doesn't work (Harmony) either. Seems like the only way to exit out of the app is to hit the Live TV button. Hopefully they work out some of the issues because it could be great, like the LG app.


----------



## mikeyts

billbillw said:


> I just got a Premiere a couple weeks ago. I'm also not happy with the Netflix app. Issues with it having dropouts are annoying. It is definitely related to the resolution change. Why can't they just have a fixed resolution? At first I was excited because it LOOKS just like the Netflix app that is on my LG Bluray player (which is awesome), but it doesn't function the same. I've never had dropouts, or other issues with the LG. I also don't see anything when its fast forwarding or rewinding. Stop button doesn't work (Harmony) either. Seems like the only way to exit out of the app is to hit the Live TV button. Hopefully they work out some of the issues because it could be great, like the LG app.


To get rid of the resolution problem, you only need to set your TiVo to 1080i or 720p only. The dropouts are because conditions on your connection to Netflix's server are such that the player can't sustain 1080p24; unfortunately to get rid of them you have to forego the 1080p encodings, since the TiVo can't convert other resolutions/frame rates into 1080p24 or change the frame rate of 1080p24 for output.


----------



## furiousp

mikeyts said:


> To get rid of the resolution problem, you only need to set your TiVo to 1080i or 720p only. The dropouts are because conditions on your connection to Netflix's server are such that the player can't sustain 1080p24; unfortunately to get rid of them you have to forego the 1080p encodings, since the TiVo can't convert other resolutions/frame rates into 1080p24 or change the frame rate of 1080p24 for output.


Walked through the process w/ the Tivo tech. No change in resolution-still degraded.


----------



## mikeyts

furiousp said:


> Walked through the process w/ the Tivo tech. No change in resolution-still degraded.


In what way degraded? Not the couple-of-seconds long change to 1080p24?


----------



## furiousp

It's an overall degradation of the signal, looks blocky & compressed.


----------



## mikeyts

furiousp said:


> It's an overall degradation of the signal, looks blocky & compressed.


Which would suggest that you're never getting the higher bit rate encodings, suggesting poor conditions on your connection to Netflix (independent of the rated speed of your network service); insufficient bandwidth on the connection or unresponsive servers. I assume that if you play Netflix on your LG BD player at the same time (not simultaneously, but just before or immediately after running it on the TiVo) you get good PQ?


----------



## thx181

Sorry to interrupt here, but I'm going to have to.

Two words....

*Stop Button*

The "Yellow" button does this in Hulu AND returns me to the main Hulu menu.


----------



## rainwater

thx181 said:


> Sorry to interrupt here, but I'm going to have to.
> 
> Two words....
> 
> *Stop Button*
> 
> The "Yellow" button does this in Hulu AND returns me to the main Hulu menu.


Up stops and returns the the Netflix main screen.


----------



## billbillw

mikeyts said:


> To get rid of the resolution problem, you only need to set your TiVo to 1080i or 720p only. The dropouts are because conditions on your connection to Netflix's server are such that the player can't sustain 1080p24; unfortunately to get rid of them you have to forego the 1080p encodings, since the TiVo can't convert other resolutions/frame rates into 1080p24 or change the frame rate of 1080p24 for output.


I don't have 1080p/24 enabled. I like to keep both 720p and 1080i as resolutions so that I am not down-scaling my 1080i channels, nor am I re-interlacing the 720p channels. It should be able to do that...my S3 can handle it just fine and still do Netflix without dropouts.


----------



## Jeff_DML

billbillw said:


> I don't have 1080p/24 enabled. I like to keep both 720p and 1080i as resolutions so that I am not down-scaling my 1080i channels, nor am I re-interlacing the 720p channels. It should be able to do that...my S3 can handle it just fine and still do Netflix without dropouts.


yeah I have the same requirement and issues so I gave up on the TiVo netflix client and just use my PS3 one


----------



## aaronwt

billbillw said:


> I don't have 1080p/24 enabled. I like to keep both 720p and 1080i as resolutions so that I am not down-scaling my 1080i channels, nor am I re-interlacing the 720p channels. It should be able to do that...my S3 can handle it just fine and still do Netflix without dropouts.


The S3 boxes have 720P encodes for their max. With the S4 even if you set it for 720P and 1080i, it will start at the lower resolutions and scale it to 720P. then it will switch to 1080i output at some point. The only way to avoid this is to select one resolution output.

No idea what it's using when it outputs 1080i(maybe mikeyts knows). But when I checked it out this is what it did. While if I have 720P, 1080i and 1080P24 checked, it will output 720P initially and then switch to 1080P24.


----------



## furiousp

mikeyts said:


> Which would suggest that you're never getting the higher bit rate encodings, suggesting poor conditions on your connection to Netflix (independent of the rated speed of your network service); insufficient bandwidth on the connection or unresponsive servers. I assume that if you play Netflix on your LG BD player at the same time (not simultaneously, but just before or immediately after running it on the TiVo) you get good PQ?


I stream Netflix through another Series 3 HD with the same network conditions, but has excellent quality.

The streaming quality on the Premier XL was excellent before the Netflix app
update.


----------



## mikeyts

aaronwt said:


> No idea what it's using when it outputs 1080i(maybe mikeyts knows). But when I checked it out this is what it did. While if I have 720P, 1080i and 1080P24 checked, it will output 720P initially and then switch to 1080P24.


I feel fairly certain that if you have 720p, 1080i and 1080p checked, it should only output 720p and 1080p. If you have 1080i checked by itself it will only output the 720p encoding, scaled to 1080i--it can't scale 1080p24 to 1080i, so it won't ever buffer 1080p.

If you have 720p and 1080i checked, how will it output 480p?



furiousp said:


> I stream Netflix through another Series 3 HD with the same network conditions, but has excellent quality.
> 
> The streaming quality on the Premier XL was excellent before the Netflix app
> update.


The old app used a completely different set of encodings and if conditions on your connection to Netflix's server changed it would pause and rebuffer a lower bit rate without the the ability to return to higher quality.

I'm sorry that the new app isn't working well for you, but obviously that isn't the case for everyone. The people it does work for gain the 1080p encodings and the ability to browse a subset of titles and to search all of them from within the application. It's new--there will bugs for some people and hopefully it will improve over time.


----------



## aaronwt

mikeyts said:


> I feel fairly certain that if you have 720p, 1080i and 1080p checked, it should only output 720p and 1080p. If you have 1080i checked by itself it will only output the 720p encoding, scaled to 1080i--it can't scale 1080p24 to 1080i, so it won't ever buffer 1080p.
> 
> If you have 720p and 1080i checked, how will it output 480p?
> 
> ..............


480P is scaled to 720P.
And when 720P, 1080i, and 1080P is checked it goes from 720P to 1080P24.

But when it has only 720P and 1080i checked it goes from 720P to 1080i. That is what is confusing. I have no idea why it goes to 1080i or what encoding it's using for 1080i since it only has 1080P24 pass through. All my boxes behave the same way if only 720P and 1080i is checked. I guess it could still be using the 720P encode and swicthing to scaling the 720P content to 1080i?

Or is can scale the 1080P24 to 1080i just not up 1080P60. That might be what it's doing. Since, if I remember right, even with Amazon 1080P24 downloads, it's still able to output that 1080P24 content to 1080i and lower resolutions.

That would really be the only thing that explains it going from 720P to 1080i when streaming. It's interlacing the 1080P24 content to 1080i.


----------



## Jeff_DML

my netflix video frooze again and I had to pull the plug on the TiVo. Tried 666 clear to no avail, remote IR led would occasionally respond.


----------



## mikeyts

aaronwt said:


> 480P is scaled to 720P.
> And when 720P, 1080i, and 1080P is checked it goes from 720P to 1080P24.
> 
> But when it has only 720P and 1080i checked it goes from 720P to 1080i. That is what is confusing. I have no idea why it goes to 1080i or what encoding it's using for 1080i since it only has 1080P24 pass through. All my boxes behave the same way if only 720P and 1080i is checked. I guess it could still be using the 720P encode and swicthing to scaling the 720P content to 1080i?
> 
> Or is can scale the 1080P24 to 1080i just not up 1080P60. That might be what it's doing. Since, if I remember right, even with Amazon 1080P24 downloads, it's still able to output that 1080P24 content to 1080i and lower resolutions.
> 
> That would really be the only thing that explains it going from 720P to 1080i when streaming. It's interlacing the 1080P24 content to 1080i.


A friend of mine at TiVo has been trying to order a "Friends and Family" package for me. (He ran into a bug in their order system which affects a very small subset of employees wherein it sends the company address in Alviso to his bank as his billing address, which the bank rejects; he's trying to find a way around the problem and as a last resort he'll get a co-worker to order it). In any case, when I get it I'll run some bandwidth consumption measurements using the realtime monitor in my router's open source firmware.


----------



## furiousp

I'm sorry that the new app isn't working well for you, but obviously that isn't the case for everyone. The people it does work for gain the 1080p encodings and the ability to browse a subset of titles and to search all of them from within the application. It's new--there will bugs for some people and hopefully it will improve over time.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, Mike.
That's pretty much what Netflix has told me.
I've graduated to Level 2 tech support...told to check-in "time to time.

Another way of saying that they will improve their app, eventually.


----------



## Adore1069

morac said:


> Press up.


Thanks so much!!! I've been trying to figure this out since the update. Although I have no complaints about the upgrade, nothing's perfect, the functions of the remote would have been helpful.


----------



## TVCricket

I've gotten used to the controls, but still prefer a universal function on the Tivo.


----------



## mikeyts

mikeyts said:


> A friend of mine at TiVo has been trying to order a "Friends and Family" package for me...when I get it I'll run some bandwidth consumption measurements using the realtime monitor in my router's open source firmware.


Got that Premiere yesterday and have spent a little time playing with the Netflix app. It has a minor quirk or two but it's pretty much as expected. The controls are fairly responsive and streams start in 6 or 7 seconds for me, among the fastest of the Netflix streaming devices I have (the BD players are _much_ slower). It would be very nice if at some point they added 3-thumb forward/reverse with the FF/REW buttons as is present in the 3 other versions of this common UI that I have (PS3, Sony and Panasonic BD players). The STOP remote code works just fine as an alternative to UP for stopping playback as it does on those other devices (programmed into my Harmony One, though no such button seems to be present on TiVo's remotes); someone posted stuff to make me think that it didn't. The funny thing is that STOP does not work in the old TiVo app on the Series3, though it works just fine for stopping recording playback.

I performed that bandwidth consumption measurement and found, to my delight, that you _do_ get the 1080p24 encoding with only 1080i enabled, proving that TiVo _can_ convert Netflix's 1080p24 into 1080i, something that every BD player ever made can do that I was shocked to think that TiVo Premiere could not do. The operation that TiVo _is_ incapable of is converting arbitrary formats (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i) into 1080p24 (or any p24 format)--_that_ inability is completely reasonable (and I don't care since my 5 y/o Mits LCD panel cannot accept a p24 input anyway ).

So, if you enable only 1080i as an output resolution (I've always used 1080i Fixed on the Series3) the player will smoothly ramp up through an HD Netflix title's encodings into the 1080p24 one without any pauses for your equipment to adjust, since the output resolution doesn't change. The box converts Netflix's 480p24, 720p24 _and_ 1080p24 encodings into 1080i, just as all my other 1080p-capable Netflix players do (one of them, the Panasonic BD player, can output p24 all of the time in the VOD apps if you ask it to). If you absolutely have to have 1080 at p24, that's your choice, but you'll have to suffer the visual break for the output resolution change.

BTW, my bandwidth consumption test reveals the average bit rate of minutes 5 thru 14 of _Ong Bak 2_, something I've measured on several devices and streaming services, including Netflix, VUDU, Zune and Amazon. That average as measured for Netflix on TiVo was in line with 1080p on other devices: 6.388 Mpbs raw, unadjusted for buffer length; it's 6.282 Mbps for the PS3, on which I measured 4.776 Mbps at 720p (adjusted for buffer length they come out to the expected 5.2- and 3.8 Mbps on the PS3). I'll repeat my measurements today and post some graphs here.


----------



## Drewster

Cool analysis. How are you measuring the traffic utilization?


----------



## morac

mikeyts said:


> )It would be very nice if at some point they added 3-thumb forward/reverse with the FF/REW buttons as is present in the 3 other versions of this common UI that I have (PS3, Sony and Panasonic BD players).


What do you mean by "3-thumb". It already does 3 different speeds of FF/Rew.


----------



## mikeyts

morac said:


> What do you mean by "3-thumb". It already does 3 different speeds of FF/Rew.


I meant for navigating the lists of Netflix titles. On the other devices with this UI, if you press FF it leaps forward by 3 titles (thumbnail cover images) and if you press REW it goes back 3, allowing you to scroll through the lists 3 times as fast (the Roku 2 also shows 5 thumbs across, but the center one is selected and when you hit FF and REW it moves by 5 forward or back).

As promised, I took some more bandwidth consumption data. Under the spoiler are the 10-minute graphs as acquired from Tomato firmware that I run in my router. If you blow your browser up full-screen they should be two side-by-side sets of graphs, the top being 1080p w/5.1 sound, the bottom being 720p w/5.1 sound, TiVo Premiere next to PS3 (I should probably take the PS3 data again, since I think that it's probably minutes 4-thru-13, given where the trough at 4 minutes on the TiVo graphs falls on the PS3 graphs). Read the stats from the TX lines (as transmitted by the router to the player). These curves aren't particularly interesting to compare except in that they confirm that the same streaming algorithm is being used by the players; some devices use markedly different buffering strategies when playing the same set of encodes.

Unique among all of the devices that I've tested, TiVo Premiere's Netflix player would appear to continue to the 1080p24 encodings even when output is constrained to 720p, scaling it down. I suppose that has to do with it commonly having to downscale 1080i television to 720p if you're watching on a 720p monitor. Bit of a waste of network bandwidth.



Spoiler


----------



## aaronwt

It's good to know that it's actually using the 1080P24 encodes. I thought it might be doing the 1080P24 encodes since it had been doing the same thing with Amazon 1080P24 content when 1080i was selected. Now if they could have an option to force only a 1080P24 encodes from Netflix.


----------



## mikeyts

aaronwt said:


> Now if they could have an option to force only a 1080P24 encodes from Netflix.


I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that that won't happen. If you have enough bandwidth the player will ramp up to the 1080p24 encodings and stay there; if you set your TiVo to 1080i fixed (only 1080i selected) it should do it smoothly with no visual pauses and if available bandwidth on your connection fluctuates it'll drop to one of the 720p24 encodings and come back to 1080 with no visual blips other than a softening and sharpening of the picture. That's the way it's designed to operate, with your device's output set to a fixed resolution/framerate to which it can scale anything sent to it. Get used to it--adaptive bit rate is where all commercial streaming would appear to be headed, with an effort to standardize the protocols nearing completion (I think).


----------



## DJQuad

The text is literally 1/6th the size of other menus. I never thought an app would force me to move my TV closer.


----------



## mikeyts

DJQuad said:


> The text is literally 1/6th the size of other menus. I never thought an app would force me to move my TV closer.


I don't understand this complaint but maybe it's because I sit pretty close to my 46" panel (no more than 7-8 feet, sometimes closer). How far away were you sitting from what size television?


----------



## aaronwt

Yes I've not had an issue with text size. Even from my GFs 32" LCD it's easily readable at over 12 feet away. Although I think the text might be a little larger from the Roku2 Netflix app.

Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


----------



## mikeyts

aaronwt said:


> Although I think the text might be a little larger from the Roku2 Netflix app.


No doubt about that--maybe 3 or 4 times the size. The question is whether the font is too small to read, not whether the fonts used in other versions of the player UI are bigger.

I was just playing around with the old TiVo player as running on my S3. Navigating and finding stuff was terrible. I arrange my queue with movies at the front and television series on the other end. If I start out with the cursor on the first entry in the queue (always a movie), I can go left into the TV shows because the lists are circular. The only list on the TiVo, your IQ, is not presented as circular, so you cannot go up from the top into the bottom. Though I could flip through 8 at a time, I had to scan and read the titles--the cover thumbs are much easier to recognize at a glance, particularly for TV series. There's no "recently watched" list (or any list other than the IQ, of course), which really speeds up locating something that you had to stop watching and want to get back to. (Strangely, the PS3's app doesn't have a recently watched list either, the only one, I think, of all the Netflix players in devices I own).

I stopped using the old TiVo Netflix app a long time ago because I had Netflix player UIs on other devices that were more powerful and that I liked a lot better. I forgot how primitive and tedious it was.


----------



## mikeyts

Hah! The CLEAR button exiting the app just bit me . I have my Harmony programmed to output PAUSE+CLEAR for the PAUSE button, to get rid of pause ads (and the scrub bar but you can't have everything). I suppose that you can use PLAY to pause and resume, so it's not crucial, but it could be annoying if I forget. They probably should have just used one of the color buttons and left CLEAR alone.


----------



## aaronwt

mikeyts said:


> Hah! The CLEAR button exiting the app just bit me . I have my Harmony programmed to output PAUSE+CLEAR for the PAUSE button, to get rid of pause ads (and the scrub bar but you can't have everything). I suppose that you can use PLAY to pause and resume, so it's not crucial, but it could be annoying if I forget. They probably should have just used one of the color buttons and left CLEAR alone.


One of the colored buttons does take you out of the Netflix app, I think it's the red "C" button.

I guess there are too many ways to exit out of the Netflix app.


----------



## tomsavell

I agree with everyone that says the remote button mappings should be consistent with TiVo functions, not with other devices that Netflix happens to run on. This remains one of the biggest problems I have with the Netflix app. Netflix is misguided to believe that it is in the best interest of their users to make the app work differently than everything else on the device.

My BIGGEST problem with the new Netflix app is the response time of the Fast-Forward, Rewind, Play, and Pause buttons:
1) The response time for fast forward/rewind can be as BAD as 10 Seconds!!!! That is, press Rewind, and 10 seconds later it stops playback and starts rewinding. It's usually as "good" as 0.75 seconds (that's not good). The old app was almost as good as regular TiVo (essentially instantaneous). Anything beyond about 0.1 seconds feels like the thing isn't responding. As it sits, it often seems like it missed the button press, so I press it again, only to have it rewind at 2x (or 3x) speed when it finally takes effect.
2) The response time of the FF/REW/PLAY/PAUSE buttons is inconsistent. For a good user experience, it should _always_ take the same amount of time to respond. Besides the practically unusable delay of up to 10 seconds, even if it were variable from 0.1 sec to 1.0 sec, the variability makes it a problem. It would be better to be always 0.4 sec than to vary from 0.1 sec to 1.0 sec. Human cognition can generally compensate (up to a point) for a fixed delay. It's frustrating to deal with a variable delay.
3) I don't know why, but the "film-strip" view for FF/REW is not as nice as the old Netflix app that simply displayed one picture at a time. Perhaps it is the size of the picture? An obviously better one would be to actually FF/REW the show like a regular TiVo recording, but I understand the server-side issues with doing it like that.


----------



## mikeyts

tomsavell said:


> I agree with everyone that says the remote button mappings should be consistent with TiVo functions, not with other devices that Netflix happens to run on. This remains one of the biggest problems I have with the Netflix app. Netflix is misguided to believe that it is in the best interest of their users to make the app work differently than everything else on the device.


Every streaming service is doing that and they're going to keep doing--get used to it. The allure for the device manufacturers is that they don't have to spend money developing customs versions of those apps (for which no one pays them additional money). The allure for Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, etc, is that they have control of their presentation and won't have situations like TiVo which kept a primitive app with none of their advanced features for years, falsely representing them to TiVo users (some of whom cried out constantly for a new improved version in other threads of this forum).

My new Premiere came with 6 months free Hulu Plus. (I'd had Hulu Plus before but decided that it wasn't work my $8/month--the non-skip-able ads perturb me for one thing. I will however use it for free ). As I registered all of my devices to my account (TiVo, Netflix, PS3, Roku 2, Panasonic BD player and Xbox) it struck me that its interface is absolutely identical on all of those devices save the Xbox, where it's been "Metro-ized" and adapted to vocal and gestural control through Kinect. VUDU is also identical on every device sav the Xbox. Amazon is the only major streaming service which still has different players on every device that I have which features it.


----------



## kubitron

mikeyts said:


> To get rid of the resolution problem, you only need to set your TiVo to 1080i or 720p only. The dropouts are because conditions on your connection to Netflix's server are such that the player can't sustain 1080p24; unfortunately to get rid of them you have to forego the 1080p encodings, since the TiVo can't convert other resolutions/frame rates into 1080p24 or change the frame rate of 1080p24 for output.


As many others have pointed out, forcing the Tivo to do scaling to 1080i when one has a high-end video scaler is very unfortunate. Makes potential use of this Netflix app a "downgrade" for all the other apps on the Tivo. Certainly folks at Tivo must realize this?

Just wanted to add another voice: If I select both 720p and 1080i, seem to have continuous switching between the two resolutions on some occasions (perhaps with network congestion?). Not all the time, mind you, but enough to make the app unusable. My desired mode for Tivo settings is to make it "pass-through" to my scaler (i.e. select all formats -- including 480i and 480p). To use Netflix, I have to select only 1080i. Very unfortunate.

Concrete suggestion: If we are forced to use the Tivo to scale for Netflix, then we should have a separate set of video resolutions just for Netflix (so that I can have a global "pass-through" configuration for everything else).


----------



## kubitron

mikeyts said:


> I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that that won't happen. If you have enough bandwidth the player will ramp up to the 1080p24 encodings and stay there; if you set your TiVo to 1080i fixed (only 1080i selected) it should do it smoothly with no visual pauses and if available bandwidth on your connection fluctuates it'll drop to one of the 720p24 encodings and come back to 1080 with no visual blips other than a softening and sharpening of the picture. That's the way it's designed to operate, with your device's output set to a fixed resolution/framerate to which it can scale anything sent to it. Get used to it--adaptive bit rate is where all commercial streaming would appear to be headed, with an effort to standardize the protocols nearing completion (I think).


This real issue here is that "adaptive bitrate" and "change resolution over HDMI" are two completely different things. HDMI (and associated HDCP) was never intended to support constantly changing resolutions. It appears that the new Netflix app is essentially unusable unless you fix the output resolution of the Tivo. However, the Tivo is not the last item in my system before the TV. There is a high-end video scalar -- meaning that I do not want to set the Tivo to a fixed resolution.

What I don't understand is this -- if changing resolutions over HDMI is so obvious to so many people (i.e. causing dropouts), why do it at all? The only solution I've heard people state here is to prevent changes over HDMI by fixing the output resolution of the Tivo. Instead, the Netflix app should have an option to chose one resolution and stick with it -- thereby allowing the Tivo to operate in pass-through mode like it was clearly designed to do for all the "more stable" sources.


----------



## Jeff_DML

kubitron said:


> This real issue here is that "adaptive bitrate" and "change resolution over HDMI" are two completely different things. HDMI (and associated HDCP) was never intended to support constantly changing resolutions. It appears that the new Netflix app is essentially unusable unless you fix the output resolution of the Tivo. However, the Tivo is not the last item in my system before the TV. There is a high-end video scalar -- meaning that I do not want to set the Tivo to a fixed resolution.
> 
> What I don't understand is this -- if changing resolutions over HDMI is so obvious to so many people (i.e. causing dropouts), why do it at all? The only solution I've heard people state here is to prevent changes over HDMI by fixing the output resolution of the Tivo. Instead, the Netflix app should have an option to chose one resolution and stick with it -- thereby allowing the Tivo to operate in pass-through mode like it was clearly designed to do for all the "more stable" sources.


I think TiVo is kind of stuck in offering passthrough if they want to provide 1080p streams since their HW cannot support scaling at 1080p. PS3 and probably most other modern clients can scale to 1080p60 so they just fix the output resolution to it.

I am like you , I have all formats selected and get the jumping between formats so it makes my netflix app unusable. I do not want to give up my normal native outputs for TV watching so no fixed for me so I am back to just using my PS3 netflix client.


----------



## mikeyts

kubitron said:


> As many others have pointed out, forcing the Tivo to do scaling to 1080i when one has a high-end video scaler is very unfortunate. Makes potential use of this Netflix app a "downgrade" for all the other apps on the Tivo. Certainly folks at Tivo must realize this?


I sympathize, but what percentage of TiVo users do you believe have fancy outboard scalers? What percentage of all Netflix users would you guess that they represent.


> Concrete suggestion: If we are forced to use the Tivo to scale for Netflix, then we should have a separate set of video resolutions just for Netflix (so that I can have a global "pass-through" configuration for everything else).


That is a pretty good idea and something that TiVo could do without Netflix's involvement. They could have a "Netflix Resolutions" setting (or "ABR Streaming Resolutions", in case others start using that tech).


----------



## kubitron

Jeff_DML said:


> I think TiVo is kind of stuck in offering passthrough if they want to provide 1080p streams since their HW cannot support scaling at 1080p. PS3 and probably most other modern clients can scale to 1080p60 so they just fix the output resolution to it.


Well, the Netflix app could scale to the highest selected output format that the Tivo can scale to. If the user happens to have 1080p selected as well (which means that 1080i is selected, from what I can tell), then the Netflix app could scale to 1080i or use 1080p if the network supports it. From what I can tell, this provides all of the configuration that the user might want *and* fixes the blatant switching. Either:


They _do not_ have 1080p selected: The Netflix app always scales to the highest selected resolution on the Tivo video configuration page. No switching, stable behavior.
They _do_ have 1080p (and 1080i) selected: In this case, the Netflix app starts by scaling to 1080i and optionally switches over to 1080p when available.

The above behavior gets everything that anyone would want for the Netflix app, while at the same time allowing someone like me to select all the available formats for pass-through... (And, doesn't switch all over the place).

Thoughts?


----------



## mikeyts

kubitron said:


> What I don't understand is this -- if changing resolutions over HDMI is so obvious to so many people (i.e. causing dropouts), why do it at all? The only solution I've heard people state here is to prevent changes over HDMI by fixing the output resolution of the Tivo. Instead, the Netflix app should have an option to chose one resolution and stick with it -- thereby allowing the Tivo to operate in pass-through mode like it was clearly designed to do for all the "more stable" sources.


Fixing the resolution output by Netflix would cause Netflix to have to stop and rebuffer if conditions on your connection to Netflix or on the servers to which you are connected became such that the player couldn't keep up with the currently selected video encoding. Adaptive Bit Rate technology was created to stop that from happening: if available bandwidth on the connection and/or responsiveness of the servers flags, instead of stopping to rebuffer (totally sucking viewers out of immersion in what they're watching) it just starts buffering a lower bit rate, lower PQ encoding before it runs out of the other and starts playing that; if and when things improve it transparently goes back to better encodings. It does pretty much require that scaling be done inside the player device.

Again, what percentage of Netflix users, period, use expensive external scalers? (IMHO its probably no substantial portion of 1%). How much effort should be put forward by either Netflix or TiVo to accommodate them?


----------



## mikeyts

kubitron said:


> Well, the Netflix app could scale to the highest selected output format that the Tivo can scale to. If the user happens to have 1080p selected as well (which means that 1080i is selected, from what I can tell), then the Netflix app could scale to 1080i or use 1080p if the network supports it. From what I can tell, this provides all of the configuration that the user might want *and* fixes the blatant switching. Either:
> 
> 
> They _do not_ have 1080p selected: The Netflix app always scales to the highest selected resolution on the Tivo video configuration page. No switching, stable behavior.
> They _do_ have 1080p (and 1080i) selected: In this case, the Netflix app starts by scaling to 1080i and optionally switches over to 1080p when available.
> 
> The above behavior gets everything that anyone would want for the Netflix app, while at the same time allowing someone like me to select all the available formats for pass-through... (And, doesn't switch all over the place).
> 
> Thoughts?


I like it. That way if an external scaler user has all of the resolutions selected it will automatically scale Netflix output to 1080i; if he doesn't mind the drop outs caused by the switch to 1080p, he can select that too, in which case 1080i will not be used if you get to the 1080p encoding.


----------



## kubitron

mikeyts said:


> Fixing the resolution output by Netflix would cause Netflix to have to stop and rebuffer if conditions on your connection to Netflix or on the servers to which you are connected became such that the player couldn't keep up with the currently selected video encoding. Adaptive Bit Rate technology was created to stop that from happening: if available bandwidth on the connection and/or responsiveness of the servers flags, instead of stopping to rebuffer (totally sucking viewers out of immersion in what they're watching) it just starts buffering a lower bit rate, lower PQ encoding before it runs out of the other and starts playing that; if and when things improve it transparently goes back to better encodings. It does pretty much require that scaling be done inside the player device.
> 
> Again, what percentage of Netflix users, period, use expensive external scalers? (IMHO its probably no substantial portion of 1%). How much effort should be put forward by either Netflix or TiVo to accommodate them?


You missed my point. The only solution at the moment, is to force all applications on Tivo to output a fixed resolution. Again, "adaptive bit rate technology" and "fixed output format" are clearly not incompatible given that the only way to make the Netflix app work well is to fix (or mostly fix if you want 1080p) the output format. "adaptive bit rate technology" is about what is coming over the network. "fixed output format" is about what is output to HDMI. Different things.

My suggestion here was to have separate settings to choose the fixed output format that the Netflix app produces -- so that in general the Tivo box doesn't have to always force that output.

Incidentally, the current behavior of the Netflix app is clearly a bug, since no one would want the HDMI output format flopping around. It doesn't play nice with either TVs or Scalers. Thus only by restricting the output formats from the Netflix app do you get stable behavior.

As for the number of people that want format pass-through, you have to ask why Tivo has the option to select lots of output formats. It is because some people (with or without scalars) prefer the incoming format to be passed on to the next stage. Such an option has been around since the Series 3 at least.

Note that my subsequent post (#352) has a reasonable compromise, I believe. It is predicated on the fact that the Netflix app (when running, which means in conjunction with the Tivo scaler) simply cannot be allowed to have too much flexibility in choosing its output format.


----------



## mikeyts

kubitron said:


> "adaptive bit rate technology" is about what is coming over the network. "fixed output format" is about what is output to HDMI. Different things.


I don't understand what you're trying to say. What's coming over the network is video encoded at a particular bit rate (and resolution), as controlled by Adaptive Bit-rate Streaming (commonly ABS). True, ABS doesn't give a damn about how you output that video, just about choosing the highest quality encoding that current conditions on your local servers and your connection to them will support.


> My suggestion here was to have separate settings to choose the fixed output format that the Netflix app produces -- so that in general the Tivo box doesn't have to always force that output.


And I agreed that that was a good idea.


> Incidentally, the current behavior of the Netflix app is clearly a bug, since no one would want the HDMI output format flopping around.


If you haven't chosen a fixed format, then it's just doing what you asked. For all it knows you have some super technology that can handle those resolution transitions. By definition, a "bug" is behavior which is not part of the spec. The possibility that you can adjust the device so as to produce poor performance is not a bug. In a typical AV setup there are dozens of adjustments which you can make to various pieces of connected equipment which will create poor performance. My guess is that 99% or more of all users of TiVo are using a single fixed resolution, since that's what Guided Setup will choose, unless you override it. How much should they worry about the (most probably IMO) extremely minor subset of users who choose to override it? 


> As for the number of people that want format pass-through, you have to ask why Tivo has the option to select lots of output formats. It is because some people (with or without scalars) prefer the incoming format to be passed on to the next stage. Such an option has been around since the Series 3 at least.


I'm sure that lots of rarely used options are in there. As I said, unless you choose to override it, TiVo will choose a single output resolution.


> Note that my subsequent post (#352) has a reasonable compromise, I believe. It is predicated on the fact that the Netflix app (when running, which means in conjunction with the Tivo scaler) simply cannot be allowed to have too much flexibility in choosing its output format.


And I liked that solution as well.


----------



## morac

mikeyts said:


> If you haven't chosen a fixed format, then it's just doing what you asked.


The TiVo software defaults to selecting all supported resolutions (except 1080p) during the initial set up, so it's basically "broken" by default. Joe User probably never bothers to mess with the video output settings. He'll just notice Netflix has "problems" on the TiVo.


----------



## Jeff_DML

morac said:


> The TiVo software defaults to selecting all supported resolutions (except 1080p) during the initial set up, so it's basically "broken" by default. Joe User probably never bothers to mess with the video output settings. He'll just notice Netflix has "problems" on the TiVo.


If you have hdmi connected it defaults to the preferred format stated by the devices EDID


----------



## mikeyts

morac said:


> The TiVo software defaults to selecting all supported resolutions (except 1080p) during the initial set up, so it's basically "broken" by default. Joe User probably never bothers to mess with the video output settings. He'll just notice Netflix has "problems" on the TiVo.


I just set up my Premiere a couple of days ago and it doesn't do that. My television will accept all of the output formats it supports, except 1080p24--none of them are marked "not supported" and I tried "Test Formats" and they all worked (1080p24 must be being converted to p60 by my AVR). In Guided Setup it used "Auto Detect" and said, "Your DVR has been automatically set up to output 1080i, which is the preferred video format for your TV". I believe that it then said something like, "Do you want to accept this (recommended) or change"? I have to think that Joe Average will take the recommended action and accept it.

If you go to Settings->Video->Change Settings->Auto Detect do you get something differrent?


----------



## lujan

All I know is I haven't had all the black screens as before (when all resolutions are selected). Now I only have 1080i and 1080p24 checked and it seemed to clear most of the previous problems I had watching Netflix streaming movies.


----------



## mrsean

mrsean said:


> Does anyone know how to reset the Netflix app? Everytime I start it, I see the "Are you a member?" screen in gray and then it immediately asks me for my credit card info as in for a new signup. I am already a Netflix subscriber.
> 
> So far, I've tried all of the arrow keys and clear. I've also removed Netflix and re-added it but that did nothing.
> 
> *Update:* I found out that I improperly entered my username the first time. So how can get back to the "Are You A Member?" screen.


After almost a month and a half TiVo/Netflix finally reset my connection to the servers and I was finally able to sign in today and watch a movie. So if anybody had a similar problem accessing Netflix, try it again now.


----------



## mikeyts

I've used this as my default Netflix player for the past week and aside from a few weird flickering moments in the UI, it's been solid. One complaint is that that, in other implementations of this UI, the FF and REW keys move forward and back through a list 3 titles at a time. My biggest complaint is its use of CLEAR as an app exit key--I define the PAUSE button for TiVo as PAUSE+CLEAR and I've been bitten by that a few times. The PAUSE and PLAY and SELECT buttons do almost exactly the same thing if used during a playing title, so I could train myself to not use PAUSE if I were going to use this app regularly. (I won't--it's not better than my old standard, the Roku 2 XS. If they ever add a good streaming Amazon player and VUDU player, I might--I cannot find all three in full-featured implementations in a single device).

EDIT: One suggestion for this interface on all platforms is that, when I select a television series, I'd like to see a description for the episode that it will play or resume by default instead of a overall description of the series. Show me that description as I scroll over the series while browsing a list that it's in, but once I hit SELECT switch to an episode description. Also I'd suggest that, while a title plays, DOWN could bring up an overlay giving the title and a description. In the Roku 2 interface, DOWN brings up an overlay at the top of the picture giving the title, episode title if there is one, duration, release year and the MPAA or TV rating; all that plus the description would be nice.


----------



## mxcl

I develop apps for a living, been doing it for 12 years. When you write software you adapt your UI to the platform you are on. I do not write Windows software with Mac UI paradigms, I do not write Android apps with an iPhone UI.

Netflix are being absolutely ridiculous forcing the same UI on all platforms. Fitting in on the device in question eases the learning curve for the new and upcoming service they are providing. Over the years ahead more and more people will try Netflix on a device they already own and know how to use. Netflix apparently want their software to feel foreign to these users.

Albeit foreign in a consistent way 

Case in point: I have struggled to use Netflix on TiVo, trying to use it like I use TiVo in general. I had to read this thread to figure out how to stop playback. I couldn't care less that I now (apparently) know how to stop playback of Netflix on the PS3 or whatever. Retarded.


----------



## aaronwt

But this is the norm now.

Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


----------



## alleybj

compnurd said:


> Most likely bandwidth.. The App is having issues getting enough speed to maintain the PQ


So, I switched my internet from 6m to 12m and my hookup from using a wireless connector to direct modem hookup, all of this with a new internet providor... and I still get the very frequent switching back and forth in and out of 1080p24; any further thoughts as to why this is happening repeatedly, rather than just once? thanks


----------



## compnurd

alleybj said:


> So, I switched my internet from 6m to 12m and my hookup from using a wireless connector to direct modem hookup, all of this with a new internet providor... and I still get the very frequent switching back and forth in and out of 1080p24; any further thoughts as to why this is happening repeatedly, rather than just once? thanks


Try changing your DNS Servers in your Router to the Google ones

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Although netflix is just getting back online after the storms so you may want to wait a couple of days for everything to right it self out


----------



## mikeyts

mxcl said:


> Netflix are being absolutely ridiculous forcing the same UI on all platforms.


Netflix isn't doing anything. Netflix is telling platforms that they can have a ready-made Netflix player UI for the cost of preparing a standard platform layer based on Webkit and HTML5 (TiVo uses an Adobe product with Webkit compliance). I believe that any platform can choose to use Netflix's API to do their own thing. Currently, the only platform choosing to do that is Microsoft, whose Xbox Netflix player has their Metro look-and-feel and can be controlled with voice and gestures via Kinect. I don't think that Netflix cares if the users of various platforms have platform-specific players and if the platform's developers don't care, they give their users the Netflix common UI at minimal cost to themselves. Netflix is making out just fine either way.


aaronwt said:


> But this is the norm now.


Exactly. As I stated in a previous post, the Hulu Plus UI is absolutely identical on 4 of 5 platforms I have that it runs on (TiVo, PS3, Roku 2, Panasonic BD player); it's only different on Xbox. VUDU is identical on every platform I have it for (Sony, Panasonic BD players and the PS3) except Xbox. Of the big 4 streaming services, only Amazon is different on every platform, and I suspect that's because Amazon's not offering a pre-packaged portable UI like the others.


----------



## alleybj

compnurd said:


> Try changing your DNS Servers in your Router to the Google ones
> 
> 8.8.8.8
> 8.8.4.4
> 
> Although netflix is just getting back online after the storms so you may want to wait a couple of days for everything to right it self out


Thanks, I'll see what that does in the long run. So far, it may have helped a bit, but I'm still seeing it switch in and out of 1080p24 numerous times per film.


----------



## mikeyts

I just discovered another deficiency of TiVo's Netflix player versus others with the same GUI (previously we found that FF and REW don't move forward and back by 3 thumbs/titles). This is a biggy: searches in my 2012 BD players and the PS3 are of titles _and_ people (actors, directors, etc) so you look up movies available starring John Travolta or directed by John Landis. Sadly, TiVo can only search titles. (On the devices with the same GUI which can search for people, when you select the SEARCH button, it describes in in the box to the side with "Search for a Movie, TV Show or Person"; TiVo's player describes the button as "Search for a movie or TV show".

It's also something the PS3 and those BD players have over Roku 2, my go to Netflix player. The PS3 is too loud and power hungry and the BD players are too slow--this search thing doesn't make up for those faults .


----------



## aaronwt

Hmm. I've having issues with the Netflix app this morning. It starts to launch and then a message pops up that says it can't connect to Netflix. Then the TiVo reboots. I tried it a second time with the same results. It just rebooted again. I guess I'll try another box and see if the same thing happens.

EDIT: Well that is weird. It came right up on another box.


----------



## berkshires

I enjoy the netflix experience on my TiVoHD. Is it possible to get the same interface using the Premiere?

I have a queue about 90. How does one scroll through the queue quickly using the Premiere interface? (ie. TiVoHD uses chan up/down and skip to end)

Thanks.


----------



## lujan

lujan said:


> All I know is I haven't had all the black screens as before (when all resolutions are selected). Now I only have 1080i and 1080p24 checked and it seemed to clear most of the previous problems I had watching Netflix streaming movies.


I spoke too soon. I'm still getting the black screen and then blue screen on certain HD movies. It's totally random where sometimes it works and other times it won't work. It is only this sporadic on HD movies as it works all the times when viewing SD material.


----------



## stlbluesfan74

mikeyts said:


> It's also something the PS3 and those BD players have over Roku 2, my go to Netflix player. The PS3 is too loud and power hungry and the BD players are too slow--this search thing doesn't make up for those faults .


Yep, same here. I stopped using my PS3 for the same reasons. I finally broke down and bought a standalone Sony bluray player. Netflix app works great with it. Just like on PS. Now my PS3 is for games only. I don't have any issues with speed.


----------



## mikeyts

berkshires said:


> I enjoy the netflix experience on my TiVoHD. Is it possible to get the same interface using the Premiere?


No--sorry if you don't like the new UI. Take solace in that you get 1080p video (from HD titles) and 5.1 sound (for titles which have it) from the player on the Premiere. You can also browse a subset of the library, search it and add titles to and delete titles from your Instant Queue. None of this is possible on the TiVo HD.


----------



## berkshires

mikeyts said:


> No--sorry if you don't like the new UI. Take solace in that you get 1080p video (from HD titles) and 5.1 sound (for titles which have it) from the player on the Premiere. You can also browse a subset of the library, search it and add titles to and delete titles from your Instant Queue. None of this is possible on the TiVo HD.


The one big problem I have right now is I don't know how I can scroll through 90 titles reasonably quickly...say to title 40 or 50 in the list...Can go forward and back one at a time so beginning and end of queue are fairly accessible.

Is there user documentation on the Netflix app that would show all the buttons, features etc? I especially haven't learned the non-TiVo-standard remote buttons it uses/doesn't use.


----------



## mikeyts

berkshires said:


> Is there user documentation on the Netflix app that would show all the buttons, features etc? I especially haven't learned the non-TiVo-standard remote buttons it uses/doesn't use.


There's not really a document, but there is some help in a FAQ on TiVo's site here.

Some basics: hit the UP arrow to stop playback and the C or CLEAR buttons to exit the app. Note that the title lists are circular (unlike the old app); you can scroll to the end by going LEFT off the first item and to the beginning by going RIGHT from the last item. (I arrange my IQ with movies on the front and television shows on the back).

This interface is a common one created by Netflix and is present on many different devices. Sadly, TiVo's version is missing some features. In most versions of this UI, while browsing a list of titles (like your IQ) the FF and REW keys would scroll forward or back through the list by 3 title thumbs--doesn't work on TiVo. As I stated above, some of the players have a search for names of people (actors, directors) as well as keyword-in-title; the TiVo version can only search for keyword-in-title. Finally, some versions have a "Just for Kids" alternate UI, restricted to kid-friendly content, presented in a more colorful and somewhat simplified fashion (I don't have kids so not something I care about). Hopefully, some or all of these features will be added in a future version of this GUI.


----------



## alleybj

compnurd said:


> Try changing your DNS Servers in your Router to the Google ones
> 
> 8.8.8.8
> 8.8.4.4
> 
> Although netflix is just getting back online after the storms so you may want to wait a couple of days for everything to right it self out


Well, that seemed to do nothing. Netflix is still bouncing in and out of 1080p24hz every 20 seconds or so. To reiterate, I have two internet providers (Comcast and ATT, 6 meg and 12 meg). I have two Tivo premieres, one for each internet provider. Each has a wired attachment. The only commonality is that each is outputting to a (different) Sharp tv. Any thoughts? thanks


----------



## Vadoctor

i dont understand this at all, i am used to the old tivo netflix app with a folder under my shows. now i have to go to video on demand, it is asking me for my email address and password which is very difficult to enter using the remote, then taking me to a web browser like screen . i exited the program, re entered it and it is asking for my email and password again. am i really suppose to type in my email and password each time or am i missing something. customer service at tivo is useless about this, i have contacted them 3 times and got 3 different responses


----------



## mikeyts

Vadoctor said:


> am i really suppose to type in my email and password each time or am i missing something. customer service at tivo is useless about this, i have contacted them 3 times and got 3 different responses


That's some kind of bug. On any device you should only have to log into your Netflix account once to register the device and not again unless you go to your Netflix account in a web browser and unregister all devices (it used to be that you could unregister a single device but that was too easy ).

Netflix (and Hulu Plus and YouTube) are all present at the bottom of the My Shows menu, though they don't appear as folders. All you have to do is hit TiVo-TiVo-SkipForward-UP (where SkipForward is "->|") to get to Netflix.

(I've suggest that, since the "TiVo-<digit>" mappings only go up to "TiVo-5", they should map TiVo-6-thru-9 to some apps, Netflix being one of them, or give us a setting to map them custom. Perhaps remapping TiVo-0 should be an option).


----------



## morac

mikeyts said:


> Netflix (and Hulu Plus and YouTube) are all present at the bottom of the My Shows menu, though they don't appear as folders. All you have to do is hit TiVo-TiVo-SkipForward-UP (where SkipForward is "->|") to get to Netflix.


That's only in the HD menus. They aren't in the SD menus, which it sounds like Vadoctor is using.

You can unregister individual devices from Netflix, but you have to do it on the device. For TiVo it's from the System Info menus.


----------



## bbwizard95

Lowering of American standards here. TiVo allows Netflix to reduce its much better GUI to the substandard minimum button type instead of embracing improvement of their standard for other devices. 
I have a Roku which has to use this syandard due to button shortage and hated the difference then. Worse now because the buttons on TiVo no longer make any sense, and there are so many great functions gone.

Oh well we will all be "even" soon with no need for that pesky old American attitude for developing better things.


----------



## mikeyts

bbwizard95 said:


> Oh well we will all be "even" soon with no need for that pesky old American attitude for developing better things.


¿Qué?


----------

