Roku Netflix Player suffers mystery glitch
Roku's November 13 note to customers asking them for help determining the cause of a dramatic decline in video quality.
(Credit: Roku)The Netflix Player by Roku, which enables owners to watch streaming Web video on their TV sets, has received plenty of applause from pundits and owners since debuting last May. But the box now faces its first major challenge.
Customers from around the country have been "experiencing inexplicable loss of video-streaming quality," for at least three weeks according to Roku's engineers, who have posted comments at the company's Web forums. Device owners have posted complaints to the same forums about receiving less than half of the video quality they've had in the past. One user told CNET that the video stream is now "unwatchable."
Tim Twerdahl, vice president of consumer products at Roku, told CNET News on Monday that the company is still unsure about what exactly triggered the problem, but he said indications are it originated at Netflix. Twerdahl added that the problem likely affects Netflix's other boxes as well as Roku's player.
"All we know is Roku didn't make any changes," Twerdahl said. "This is not a box problem. We know from some reports that this seems to be correlated with a change in Netflix's content distribution network (CDN), and Netflix is trying to figure out what the issue is."
Steve Swasey, Netflix's spokesman, would not confirm whether the issue originated with the company's CDN. He also wouldn't identify which CDN Netflix works with (some of the best-known CDNs include Akamai, Limelight Networks, and Level 3) or whether the malfunction affected any of the other devices that offers Netflix's streaming service. "Netflix is looking into the matter," Swasey said.
For the past year, Netflix has offered streaming video over the Web. This year, the company announced it would roll out the streaming service, called Watch Now, to a handful of boxes that enable people to watch streaming video on their TVs. Among them were LG Electronics, TiVo and Microsoft's Xbox.
When I asked Twerdahl why most of the complaints have come from owners of Roku's device, he said the other boxes were launched much more recently and don't yet have the same number of customers. That may be true, but I couldn't find any complaints from Xbox owners.
Terry Moore, an Indianapolis resident, said his video quality ranged between three and four dots since buying Roku's player in June but now comes in at one or two dots. The dots are the indicator lights that inform Moore of the speed of his Internet connection. Four is best.
Moore told CNET News that he noticed the dramatic drop off in video quality.
"At one dot, the picture quality is unwatchable," Moore said. "(The image) looks like water on the screen it's so blurry."
On November 13, Roku staff asked owners to supply background information to determine where the problem might be. A review of the people who posted responses shows numerous different ISPs and locations. According to the posts by Roku's engineers, there aren't any patterns there.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
There's probably a flakey router or server somewhere in one of the CDN's network or hookup to the internet. If NF is serious about knocking out this problem they give us some insight in where we get our video from so we can run some tracerts and ping sweeps. Of course if NF was *really* serious about this the software would collect this type of information as part of the handshake and ask the user if the information can be sent to NF.
Love the service though. I've had NF since early 2002 and I'm still a fan. The streaming feature is terrific.
Anyhow, i've been using it with xbox and love it so far! had a few problems with netflix server being unresponsive on two occasions, but it didn't last long....
It's about time that the United States government stood firm to these companies, rapped them on the hand and said "NO BANDWIDTH CAPS!"
This doesn't appear to be an ISP problem. The loss of video quality is affecting numerous people from numerous different ISPs. Unless there is a mass conspiracy going on, the problem is mostly likely something else.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=104445276136252010198.00045c53d408cc8601093
1. Netflix is overloaded - (slows down on PC playback also)
2. All the ISP's are using Caps and/or packets from Netflix
My initial reaction was, well this is a new aspect to their service so it'll have some glitches. Three weeks later and no improvement, I was guessing that this was just the state of things with set-top-box streaming. But now that I hear that Roku users experienced a drop in service at the same time the expansion occurred makes me think that either Netflix's distribution network isn't working properly, or ISPs put the brakes on set-top streaming or are rerouting it through extended networks that destroy the integrity of the stream.
I'd be willing to bet that few Xbox users are complaining because they had similar expectations and disappointments as I did, hoping that the issue would be resolved after the initial launch period. But if someone wants an Xbox complaint, I've got it right here.
Right with you - I have TWC in DFW, TX and experienced a great HD signal from Netflix over the Thanksgiving holiday on my 7mbps connection. Every day thereafter the service has gotten significantly worse (last night it would not even allow me to watch anything with out constant hitches). Only several hours out of the day (when no one is home) are acceptable quality. Hopefully Netflix will hear the roar from their customers complaints soon.
Interestingly enough, however, if I choose a non HD stream (like Casablanca or Red Dawn), I don't seem to have any stutters on Xbox 360 at any point.
I am on a fiber optic network and realistically get about 21Mps downloads and 20Mps Uploads (It's advertised as 25Mps). I'd say I have enough bandwidth to stream a movie. I don't have any problems streaming on my laptop (which doesn't stream in HD). Funny thing: I can go to another site and stream HD ABC streams all day long on my laptop with no problems.
I am wondering if it's a combination of Xbox Live service and the Netflix streams. At least the Netflix service is sorta free...for subscribers... heh
--Click Home 5 times
--Click rewind arrow 3 times
--Click forward arrow 2 times
You can then select which speed you want the machine to load...Your results will vary with your connection, but most people with strong wireless signal and broadband should be able to at least get the 3 dot quality.
Note: you will need to redo this setting every time the device is rebooted.
Good luck.
Thanks for the tip. I'm going to check this out.
Why don't they just download the movie when the quality goes down, and then you can have full HD, full frame rate and everything once it's done! Wild idea... huh?
On my PS3, when downloading from the playstation store, it downloads by default, but asks if you want to watch it now while it's downloading. This isn't available (last time I checked) with HD. HD only downloads, which is fine with me. Then I don't have to worry while watching it. It's just good!
If you're an Xbox 360 Live customer, you're paying a fee for the Live service in addition to paying for the Netflix DVD subcription, which happens to let you stream for free.
My experience with my 360 was "average" at first. Five minutes into a movie it would freeze and go back to the buffer screen saying it's reducing quality to better serve my slower connection. Lately this has not happened. Not for about a week or so. I only get 1.25mbps so I get 2 out of 4 bars yeah DSL sucks! but for $7 more a month I'm upgrading to 7mbps but with Qwest I doubt it's much better. It looks decent but don't expect ANYTHING NEAR Blu Ray quality because seriously the compression brings the quality down to about DVD quality which isn't that bad either. I still think it's been a good addition to the 360's arsenal of media capabilities. and I've only had "Server not responding" notes once or twice and it was late at night possibly when they were down doing repairs or something.
After some user recommendation, i downloaded the player for mytvpal and I can stream up to 1080p no problem. I suspect it is probably poorly designed system on netflix part that cannot properly distribute the load.
--Click Home 5 times
--Click rewind arrow 3 times
--Click forward arrow 2 times
A new screen will appear and you can then select which speed you want the machine to load...Your results will vary with your connection, but most people with strong wireless signal and broadband should be able to at least get the 3 dot quality.
Note: you will need to redo this setting every time the device is rebooted.
Good luck.
- by December 4, 2008 7:05 AM PST
- Well 2 days after I posted this comment I watched a HD movie on netflix via xbox and the strength of my internet connection was back to a full 4 bars and the video quality was great. This was at 10am on a weekday morning. I'll try again in the evening and see what happens. Still love this Netflix xbox streaming.
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