# Netflik streaming s**ks



## volfan615 (Sep 15, 2010)

One of the reasons I went ahead with the premiere was to get the Netflix capability. From what I was hearing was that Netflix was streaming a lot of movies now in HD. Well I can't hardly find anything that says "HD available" on it. Netflix needs to get it's act together. The reason I left Netflix last time was over the streaming quality.


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## ct1 (Jun 27, 2003)

I love Netflix streaming through the TiVo -- we watch something most evenings.


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## bsdbytes (Sep 8, 2010)

I think the service looks great, even in SD. There isn't a ton in HD but they are constantly adding titles.


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

http://instantwatcher.com/titles/new


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## tomm1079 (May 10, 2005)

Even in SD netflix streaming looks great. I have a 56 inch TV and it looks wonderful.


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## caddyroger (Mar 15, 2005)

I have a 72 in dlp and I do not have a problem with netflix or streaming with the Premiere


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## drvman02 (Feb 14, 2005)

I have to say that I thought netflix was only OK. I only found a few things in HD worth watching and they didn't play in complete HD most of the time.

It was nice to have a lot of selections, but I really want more HD titles before I try again.

Also no ability to select titles from TiVo is annoying.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

drvman02 said:


> Also no ability to select titles from TiVo is annoying.


You can select titles through the HDUI TiVo Search, as long as the title shows the Netflix icon, that is.


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## ItsRounder (Feb 28, 2010)

orangeboy said:


> You can select titles through the HDUI TiVo Search, as long as the title shows the Netflix icon, that is.


This doesn't work with SD menus though is that correct? All I see in "available from" is Amazon content.


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## robin50 (Feb 15, 2007)

volfan615 said:


> One of the reasons I went ahead with the premiere was to get the Netflix capability. From what I was hearing was that Netflix was streaming a lot of movies now in HD. Well I can't hardly find anything that says "HD available" on it. Netflix needs to get it's act together. The reason I left Netflix last time was over the streaming quality.


I think the quality depends somewhat on your internet connection speed. I tried it with a couple of titles and was not that impressed with the picture quality and the movie would stop and then start again. Then again I am getting only about 1 to 1.5 Mbps down from my wireless provider (tested using Speakeasy.net). I think the quality guage when streaming a Netflix movie was 8 bars out of 10---did you happen to notice how many bars you were getting?


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## kb7oeb (Jan 18, 2005)

Netflix streams HD around 4 or 5 Mbps, to me it looks DVD quality at best. Bluray runs between 20 and 40Mbps, personally I skip Netflix and rent Bluray instead.


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## MICHAELSD (Sep 29, 2010)

Netflix sucks on TiVo for me for a few reasons:

Searching for a show then using the episode guide to find out what's available on Netflix is pretty bad because sometimes the episode guide had an episode listed multiple times or episodes Netflix has don't show up with a Netflix button, and thus can't be played unless they're added to your Instant Quene online.

We should be able to search within the Netflix app and browse Netflix suggestions and movies/episodes available. TiVo search works very poorly for Netflix content.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

ItsRounder said:


> This doesn't work with SD menus though is that correct? All I see in "available from" is Amazon content.


Dunno. I don't use the SD menus on my Premiere.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

MICHAELSD said:


> Netflix sucks on TiVo for me for a few reasons:
> 
> Searching for a show then using the episode guide to find out what's available on Netflix is pretty bad because sometimes the episode guide had an episode listed multiple times or episodes Netflix has don't show up with a Netflix button, and thus can't be played unless they're added to your Instant Quene online.
> 
> We should be able to search with the Netflix app and browse Netflix suggestions and movies/episodes available. TiVo search works very poorly for Netflix content.


Very few Netflix applications in devices allow you to search. Roku is one of them. 
The new update coming in a few weeks for the Xbox 360 has a new Netflix application that will allow you to search. It's coming to the PS3 as well.(it might be there already. I have not turned my PS3 on in a while)
But as of right now it is rare to find Netflix search capability in any Set Top Boxes.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

YOu can search Netflix on new Apple Tv.

I've tried Netflix on the 360, Wii, new ATV and Tivo.

Tivo's implementation was by bar the worst. 

First, all you can see is your instant queue. No other filtering like the other guy's have.

Second, crashed on me 3 times in a row as I tried to scroll down to the end of my instant queue. 

I haven't been back.


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## kilcher (Mar 6, 2002)

We signed up for the free trial of Netflix a few days ago, had never used NF before. I streamed a few minutes of G.I. Joe just to see how it worked and I thought the image quality was sub-par too. 

And am I missing something or is there no way to search for movies and add them to your instant queue? It looks like you have to do that part from the computer or iPhone app.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

kilcher said:


> And am I missing something or is there no way to search for movies...


You can use the TiVo Search in the HDUI to find Netflix content.



kilcher said:


> ...and add them to your instant queue? It looks like you have to do that part from the computer or iPhone app.


Unfortunately, anything found through TiVo Search cannot be added to the Instant Queue. It is a hassle if you find a TV series that you'd like to watch - Going to the episode guide portion of the TiVo Search for each episode you want to watch seems to be a few steps too many...


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## ct1 (Jun 27, 2003)

I don't like the fact that you can't remove individual episodes from a TV series. We sometimes forget where we left off and have to poke through the descriptions to figure it out.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I'm sure they will update the netflix application at some point. although the question is when. Most of the other major Netflix players will be upgrading their application soon. Personally I like the TiVo implementation of netflix. Of course you can't add anything or delete anything in your queue, but just to sit down and watch something I prefer to use the TiVo over my 360, PS3, and of course the Wii.

I still might go to the dark side and buy an Apple TV(I've never owned any Apple hardware) once they get them in stock at Bestbuy, since it won't cost me anything with my reward zone dollars.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

I have been watching Netflix more and more on my PS3. It's a much better experience.


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## teewow (Oct 7, 2010)

I have a Roku HD box ... the Netflix experience is much better than on my PS3.

Having said that, recently Roku changed the firmware and the Disc Cover images loading speeds have become slower.


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## JSY (Nov 6, 2002)

I don't think the TiVo implementation of Netflix is that bad. I have it on my XBox, PS3, Wii, WD TV Live and on my Sony TV and the TiVo implementation is the only one that I can do ad hoc searches on Netflix. Since TiVo is my set-top box, I like how it tells me all the sources that have what I am looking for. As far as performance wise, I think Xbox leads there - for me it seems to be very stable and it's nice for XBox to suggest things to you. But the other sources just show me my instant streaming list.


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## bsdbytes (Sep 8, 2010)

One area TiVo's implementation I think does better is with overall speed. My Xbox takes longer to load the app and the queue up the movie.


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## belunos (Sep 19, 2002)

I still prefer my xbox for netflix viewing. They really really need to get on that netflix app design on the tivo. It doesn't even show me what I've already watched (like episodes of shows).

But one thing to avoid like the plague is stars play. I swear it all looks vcr tapes


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> I'm sure they will update the netflix application at some point. although the question is when. Most of the other major Netflix players will be upgrading their application soon. Personally I like the TiVo implementation of netflix. Of course you can't add anything or delete anything to your queue, but just to sit down and watch something I prefer to use the TiVo over my 360, PS3, and of course the Wii.


FYP to reflect that you CAN delete shows from your instant queue (at least you can on the S3 platform...).


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## MushroomStamp (Oct 2, 2010)

I 100&#37; agree. I signed up and canceled shortly after. There just isn't enough HD content. Their "adding new HD titles all the time" is bull. They add OLD movies in HD, rarely are current ones added and they have a big delay after their retail release. NO THANKS.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

http://www.netflix.com/WiHD?dev=STB

There's around 60 pages of HD.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

JSY said:


> I don't think the TiVo implementation of Netflix is that bad. I have it on my XBox, PS3, Wii, WD TV Live and on my Sony TV and the TiVo implementation is the only one that I can do ad hoc searches on Netflix. Since TiVo is my set-top box, I like how it tells me all the sources that have what I am looking for. As far as performance wise, I think Xbox leads there - for me it seems to be very stable and it's nice for XBox to suggest things to you. But the other sources just show me my instant streaming list.


Xbox will be updating on 11/4 and will include searching on NF, FYI


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

b_scott said:


> http://www.netflix.com/WiHD?dev=STB
> 
> There's around 60 pages of HD.


I've been to this page several times but I don't like it because they don't allow filtering. I don't want TV series, or concerts, etc. I just want movies and those 60 pages or so are filled with useless stuff.


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## HockeyFan (Oct 9, 2010)

I've had the premeire for about 4 days now.
I tried the new ps3 update today, 1080p, 5.1. I tried comparing it to the premiere.

From the one movie I sampled the audio was definitely better, maybe &#37;40. The 1080p was hard to compare. I flipped back and forth and used pause. It looked somewhat better, maybe.

It crashed on me 7 times requiring reboots before selecting the movie. Also I miss the more advanced search available on tivo and the netflix website.

I haven't given up on the netflix ps3 but believe I will be sticking to using the tivo in the end run.


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## simon7 (Mar 26, 2008)

Wow! I just tried Netflix on my PS3 and it absolutely smokes the Premiere. Put aside the video and sound quality -- which is very good -- the PS3 interface is smoking fast, feature rich, and just works. This is what the Premiere _should _have been. Why can my four-year-old PS3 pull info and images from the internet in real time without so much as a a noticeable hesitation, but my brand new Premiere sputters and chokes on the same content. Honestly, I was more or less okay with the Premiere Netflix, but now that I've tried it on PS3, I'll be hard pressed to use it on the Premiere again. In fact, it shows me how much snappier the entire Premiere user inface _could _be if it were implemented right.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

agreed Simon. PS3 will be my go-to for Netflix until Tivo updates the interface, which is unfortunate since the Premiere now has nice Netflix search integration.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

HockeyFan said:


> I've had the premeire for about 4 days now.
> I tried the new ps3 update today, 1080p, 5.1. I tried comparing it to the premiere.
> 
> From the one movie I sampled the audio was definitely better, maybe %40. The 1080p was hard to compare. I flipped back and forth and used pause. It looked somewhat better, maybe.
> ...


How do you know the PS3 was playing a 1080P stream? With the new update the PS3 scales up all Netflix content to what you have the PS3 set to output. Which is typically 1080P.

I tried out the Netflix implementation yesterday for an hour. There are many things to like about it, but the TiVo is still better when watching content because of how you are easily able to go forward and backward when watching. I'll be glad when TiVo updates their Netflix application.(I did think the PS3 Netflix application was a little slow when compared to the 360 or TiVo, but that could have also been from alot of people using their PS3 for Netflix last night. I was able to access Netflix content much faster last night with the TiVo and 360 than with the PS3)
I still like watching Netflix streaming from the TiVo the best. Plus with TiVo you can output in the native resolution of the content, which you can't do with the PS3.

The quality I got from the TiVo outputting that native resolution then going through my external DVDO DUO scaler was easily better than what the PS3 was scaling. I tried out around eight titles, all with the same results. A superior picture when using the TiVo and my DUO than with what the PS3 had.


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## 241705 (Mar 9, 2010)

I watch Netflix on my Tivo a lot, and will continue to in my family room. But, I have to say the PS3 will be my choice for watching Netflix in my theater room - the new app on PS3 is really good and includes the ability to search and add titles into the Instant Queue.


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## teewow (Oct 7, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> but the TiVo is still better when watching content because of how you are easily able to go forward and backward when watching


Please explain. BTW, I currently watch NFLX on my Roku. I do own the TivoPre and a PS3 but have never tried it on either.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

teewow said:


> Please explain. BTW, I currently watch NFLX on my Roku. I do own the TivoPre and a PS3 but have never tried it on either.


Out of all the devices I've used, the TiVo is still king when wanting to advance/rewind while watching something.

And I was doing alot of it last night when comparing the Netflix streaming on the PS3 and the TiVo.

I ended up watching an entire title too. Paranormal Entity. But I had to watch it from the TiVo since it looked much better having my DUO scale it than the PS3.(at least the PS3 better have been scaling it. Otherwise if it was actually 1080P, it certainly was better from the TiVo at 720P and having my DUO scale it to 1080P60)


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## teewow (Oct 7, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> Out of all the devices I've used, the TiVo is still king when wanting to advance/rewind while watching something.


does the PS3 not allow you to advance or rewind Netflix movies ? The Roku does .. and when it does it shows still frames above the time line to give you a clue about where a scene is.

The one thing I don't like though is that when you rewind it has to refill the buffer .. since the Roku does not have any storage space.

I hope the Tivo (due to having a hard drive) buffers the past few minutes to make rewinds almost instantaneous ?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

teewow said:


> does the PS3 not allow you to advance or rewind Netflix movies ? The Roku does .. and when it does it shows still frames above the time line to give you a clue about where a scene is.
> 
> The one thing I don't like though is that when you rewind it has to refill the buffer .. since the Roku does not have any storage space.
> 
> I hope the Tivo (due to having a hard drive) buffers the past few minutes to make rewinds almost instantaneous ?


All Netflix applications have to re-buffer. It's only streaming and uses a finite amount of space for the buffer. This is standard. You can rew/FF with all Netflix devices. I like the TiVo implmentation better since it is similar to when using TiVo to watch programs that it recorded.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Netflix on my Premiere literally won't run without crashing. Last night tried to scroll down my instant queue and crash. Slowly scrolled on movie at a time - crash. Tried Again. Crash. Crash. Crash.

Finally it crashed the last time and at least gave me an out of memory error message.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

How long is your instant queue? I heard that people had some problems with very long queues. I've never had any issues with mine but I also only have around 75 titles in my instant queue.

I just wish Netflix didn't have a six device limit. It is becoming annoying having to constantly remove and add devices everytime I want to watch Netflix on a PC, TiVo, Game system or Bd player.
I've already had to remove and add devices at least six times this week.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> How long is your instant queue? I heard that people had some problems with very long queues. I've never had any issues with mine but I also only have around 75 titles in my instant queue.
> 
> I just wish Netflix didn't have a six device limit. It is becoming annoying having to constantly remove and add devices everytime I want to watch Netflix on a PC, TiVo, Game system or Bd player.
> I've already had to remove and add devices at least six times this week.


yup. I guess 6 devices was a movie industry stipulation or something.


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## JoeBlome (Oct 26, 2010)

I don't have issues with netflix playback. I just wish you could search their database in addition to the instant queue


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

b_scott said:


> yup. I guess 6 devices was a movie industry stipulation or something.


I would guess that 6 devices will be expanded. We are a family of three and we have at least a dozen devices that could stream Netflix. We don't use all of them but as more and more devices are introduced the limit will need to be raised.


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## WebHobbit (Jan 9, 2005)

Netflix doesn't have enough 5.1 sound for me. Doesn't make good sense either what does have 5.1 and what doesn't. The new Star Trek movie over Netflix wasn't HD and did NOT have 5.1. WTF??????????

But yet Lost has HD and 5.1 sound.

??????????????


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## ItsRounder (Feb 28, 2010)

How often does your streaming start normally? It seems like I quite often have to hit the instant replay button or fast forward or rewind buttons to get the movie to start. Otherwise it just sits there and no matter how long I leave it, the streaming never begins.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

WebHobbit said:


> Netflix doesn't have enough 5.1 sound for me. Doesn't make good sense either what does have 5.1 and what doesn't. The new Star Trek movie over Netflix wasn't HD and did NOT have 5.1. WTF??????????
> 
> But yet Lost has HD and 5.1 sound.
> 
> ??????????????


Tivo doesn't have 5.1 for Netflix. Nothing but the PS3 does, and only on some titles.


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## MICHAELSD (Sep 29, 2010)

Part of Netflix's deals with some studios includes streaming select movies in just SD, presumably so viewers rent or buy the Blu-Ray disc instead to watch it in HD. I could see it costing Netflix more to get all of the Instant Watch movies in HD because customers won't have as much incentive to rent or purchase a movie.


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## meklund (Dec 10, 2002)

+1 for Roku.


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## ItsRounder (Feb 28, 2010)

Why do I so often have to hit the 8 second replay in order to get Netflix streaming to start properly? I select my movie and then all too often it shows me the quality and then a blank screen. No matter how long I leave it, the movie never starts. This is getting old. TiVo, please fix your Netflix streaming. I also don't know why they can't show me if I've watched something previously via streaming. When going through a 25 episode TV series, it's not uncommon to forget where I last left off.


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## yuki-nagato (Nov 2, 2010)

ItsRounder said:


> I also don't know why they can't show me if I've watched something previously via streaming. When going through a 25 episode TV series, it's not uncommon to forget where I last left off.


Because it's a *stream* not a *download* like amazon/blockbuster etc.

the data goes into a temp directory on the drive and once it's done the behavior is the same as your internet browser, temp gets dumped.

also there's probably copyright restrictions on it as well.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

ItsRounder said:


> I also don't know why they can't show me if I've watched something previously via streaming. When going through a 25 episode TV series, it's not uncommon to forget where I last left off.


This is one of my gripes as well.
When you add a series to your queue, it's all or nothing. You're not able to delete individual episodes.


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## ItsRounder (Feb 28, 2010)

yuki-nagato said:


> Because it's a *stream* not a *download* like amazon/blockbuster etc.
> 
> the data goes into a temp directory on the drive and once it's done the behavior is the same as your internet browser, temp gets dumped.
> 
> also there's probably copyright restrictions on it as well.


Then why is it that when I log in to the Netflix website it will show me exactly how much of each episode I've watched? It's not because it's not possible, TiVo just doesn't offer this functionality.


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

yuki-nagato said:


> Because it's a *stream* not a *download* like amazon/blockbuster etc.
> 
> the data goes into a temp directory on the drive and once it's done the behavior is the same as your internet browser, temp gets dumped.
> 
> also there's probably copyright restrictions on it as well.


With my LG BluRay player, the episodes of a series that are watched have a progress bar through them, and I think they're grayed out or something too.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

yuki-nagato said:


> Because it's a *stream* not a *download* like amazon/blockbuster etc.
> 
> the data goes into a temp directory on the drive and once it's done the behavior is the same as your internet browser, temp gets dumped.
> 
> also there's probably copyright restrictions on it as well.


Umm.. this works on the Wii just fine. It remembers where you left off. The Netflix server, after all, knows what it has previously served to you. It's quite easy to tell what you've watched and what you haven't.


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