What's causing video glitches at Apple, Netflix?

The Netflix Player by Roku

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Some Apple TV owners have complained for several weeks that it takes much longer now to download and playback high-definition movies.

"I started downloading an hour back and it says it will take two hours," wrote someone with the user name Reachg. "It's already 25 percent downloaded but it's not letting me play. In the past I was able to play the movie in 10 minutes max...seems something is happening."

The complaints at Apple's forums first appeared on November 14. That was the day after Roku, maker of the Netflix Player, notified customers it had received complaints from some device owners about a marked drop-off in quality of their streaming video. The Netflix Player and Apple TV are set-top boxes that enable owners to watch Web video on TV sets.

What we have here are two set-top boxes that almost simultaneously experience dramatically reduced streaming quality in the case of the Netflix Player, and longer download times in the case of Apple TV. Coincidence?

It's possible but it's worth digging a little to see whether the two cases are connected. A Roku executive told me on Monday that the problems with the company's box occurred at about the same time Netflix was making changes to its content distribution network (CDN).

Steve Swasey, Netflix spokesman declined to comment, citing the company's policy of not discussing vendors. (Apple also declined to comment.) But sources close to Netflix said the Web's top movie-rental service uses multiple CDN companies, including Akamai and Limelight Networks.

Akamai also delivers much of Apple's video content for iTunes. Jeff Young, an Akamai spokesman, said the company's isn't to blame, at least for Netflix's problems. He acknowledged that Akamai performs some services for Netflix, but they don't include anything having to do with the company's streaming video service. Netflix's streaming service is now offered on multiple devices, including Microsoft's Xbox 360.

Young said Akamai executives had not been informed about any problems at Apple TV and were looking into the problem.

I was told by an industry source that it's easy to blame Akamai and CDNs for these kind of problems, but often the glitches are the result of a company's own servers or other back-end infrastructure. The one thing that's crystal clear is none of the companies are providing customers with much information and are very tight-lipped about what they know.

On Roku's message board, several Netflix customers ask why the company hasn't notified them that there's a problem.

[goodspeed8701]

MAC cant play games... Now they are having trouble playing neflix video. get a pc

[gsmiller88]

Why don't you go be stupid somewhere else.

[ajhoughton]

Because he's a PC and he can't spell Mac. :-D

[friday04]

Are you referring to the "Move Add Change" aka MAC found in most businesses? Because I know you're not referring to the Macintosh operating system. That's a Mac, as in short for Macintosh.

My name is short for Christopher and it's not commonly spelled CHRIS.

But for some reason you Windows drones don't understand and continue to call it MAC.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Exactly !

[kelmon]

I'm sorry but did you read the article? Can you point out the place where a Macintosh was even involved? My copy of the article only talks about Apple TV and Netflix Roku devices. Does your PC change the content of what you are reading?

[lsd1960]

Likely it is Comcast slowing down the connection as they are doing more and more.

[kingskippus]

I have AT&T DSL service and I've experienced the same thing. I don't think it's a uniquely Comcastic thing this time.

[sting7k]

I have comcast cable internet and netflix streaming looks great via my Xbox 360 since I started doing it. All these special set top boxes are just junk.

[drhamad]

From what I've read lately (and I could be wrong) Comcast has stopped doing that, instead just implementing their 250GB cap.

[Hep Cat]

I have to second the Comcast theory. They are getting extremely aggressive about customer bandwidth usage. We never got the 6Mbps we were promised and the throttling has gotten so interminable that we're switching to UVerse as soon as ATT finishes laying the fiber in our neighborhood.

[gsmiller88]

Glad I didn't get that Apple TV on Black Friday now!

[ittesi259]

You were considering it? Its been so riddled with issues I don't wanna try it.

[drhamad]

What issues are those, ittesi259? I've had one since they first came out, and my father has one... I don't know what issues there have been? Now, it may not do everything some people want, but that's not an ISSUE, that's simply what it's designed to do (or not do).

[lsd1960]

I am patiently waiting for UVerse as well. I am tired of Comcast slowing me down.

[anomalator]

I can vouch for the ATT service. I'm running an LG BD300 Blu Ray player with built in Netflix over a 6 Meg ATT line and so far the Netflix streaming service has been great. Really impressed with the quality and ease of use. I download tons of stuff and so far I've never had a problem with ATT throttling down my service. If you're on Comcast do yourself a favor and dump 'em. You'd probably be better off with just about any DSL or cable provider other then Comcast. They're Craptastic!

[myles taylor]

When two seemingly unrelated things like this seem to be having a similar problem, find out what they have in common: the ISP. I'd blame bandwidth problems. Just a hunch though; I could be wrong.

[sandonet]

Myles Taylor,

If you check the link to the forum for Roku's Netflix Players, which I linked to in the story, you'll see that there is a lot of different ISPs. This does not appear to be an ISP problem. Someone broke down the reports and the different ISPs here. http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pEGI_SjsUVMUcc8s0w2sfeg. I don't see a pattern with ISPs. Let me know if you do.

[inachu]

I think it depends on the back bone data carrier which could host any ISP. I bet someone could be sniffing data slowing everyone down.

[myles taylor]

I didn't see that right away. It could be a national bandwidth problem though, with online content exploding and maybe there are just some general bandwidth problems. I don't really know though.

[xmitman]

I view Netflix on my Mac and the image quality has also degraded with no box to blame. This may just be a Netflix problem.

I am personally grateful that Greg and CNET are staying on top of this. To me, as a Netflix, Roku consumer, I am offended Netflix doesn't communicate and admit they know there is a problem. Then they should be communicating they are working to correct the problem. It's irresponsible crap that they're not owning up. I hope some attorney jumps in on this. Do I smell "class action"? They need to get honest with their customers. I for one feel totally disrespected by Netflix.

[ittesi259]

Admitting the problem leads to consumers expecting a 20 minute fix followed by the class action lawsuits saying :"You knew there was a problem and took too long to *** it"

This is what is wrong with this country, you are yelling about lawsuits over stupid stuff. I fail to see how you are irreparably harmed here. You're inconvienienced, get over it or dump the service.

[mgmchan]

Could be that the high bandwidth cost is killing Netflix (Apple also? I don't have that) and they degrade video quality to save $. Can easily save 50% there!

[AppleSuxLeo]

Whadaya expect , it`s Apple. It`s your problem. Apple is immune to problems ;)

[ittesi259]

This doesn't appear to be an Apple problem considering the issue appears on 2 different set top boxes made by different manufacturers....but then you bash Apple so much you probably didn't even read that part.

[myles taylor]

Have you ever said anything objective?

[Dalkorian]

Myles, look at his "name". Does it LOOK like he's ever said anything objective??
;-)

[zenwaves]

This causes me to imagine the 'horror' that would unfold, were terrorists to somehow take down our (America's) broadband infrastructure ...

[timber2005]

Internet 101
The internet was created out of a government research project (DARPANET) to create a network unable to be destroyed with a nuclear attack.

The internet is redunant. If our infrastructure was "attacked", espically in the US, our data can be rerouted millions and millions of diffrent ways. We could even route the longest way around the world to get the data to where it's needed, or into space to a sattellite and back to ground.
They might OVERWHELM us (in terms of damage) and cause the data to get where its going very very slowly... but fear not, there is no way to take down the entire American broadband infrastructure.

[rapier1]

This is partly true and partly untrue. Yes, damage to portions of the infrastructure could be routed around - but this is generally a manual process. The response time for a wide spread attack would be measured in days and in a serious enough attack home users would likely see serious performance degredation if not widespread long term outages as a result of the immediate fixes for critical services. You can't just reroute hundreds of GB of data through a single undersea cable or conjure up new waves as needed if you don't have the necessary equipment at the right place. It also depends on the nature of the attack. A hit against the core infrastructure (root DNS, physical attack at major exchange points and the like) would cause real serious damage that would take some time to work out.

[jihiggs]

I am reminded of a story not too long ago where a man was able to disconnect most of cleveland from the internet using nothing more than a shotgun into some fiber lines. make no mistake, the internet is fragile, take out a major backbone, sure it will re route, but in no time the throughput will drop to unusable levels.

[testusernamekat]

okay

[ronjay]

I have an AppleTV, with software fully up-to-date. I'm on Charter (10MB) in Southern California. Maybe once every two weeks I rent an HD movie via my AppleTV as I did this past week. I've noticed that it's been taking longer than a couple of months ago to be able to start the movie (though, by longer, I mean about a literal minute longer than normal). Once the movie is available to play, and I've started watching, I've experienced NO hiccups. I check my speed regularly and I'm never lower than 8MB download.

I still greatly enjoy my AppleTV despite these minor inconveniences.

To the naysayers who incorrectly call it a MAC or a Mac; it's an Apple product. A Mac is a model of Apple product just as the iPod is an Apple product. Said another way, A Mac is to Apple as a Camry is to Toyota.

[Waldo21--2008]

I've had this same problem and have identified a great workaround from the forum mentioned above. You need to go into the debug mode and manually set your connection speed/image quality. From the main movie selection screen:

--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.

Any coincidence that the service started having issues along the same time XBox 360 users had access? I bet their servers can't handle the load...

[Malli22]

I've been having problems watching Netflix on my XBOX. It worked great for a few days but then refused to load. It finally started "working" again last night but the picture quality was horrible and it had to rebuff several times. Super annoying!

I haven't tried my Apple TV in a while. It has to share the HDMI port on my TV with my Blu-Ray player. Guess which one wins out?

[DaveMcLain]

What about Hulu has it been working ok?