What’s Going on with Netflix Streaming Performance?
I noticed about 3 weeks ago my streaming video performance from Netflix has become unbearably slow. I’m on a 7 mbps Qwest DSL line in Tucson, AZ and my previous experience with Netflix “Watch Instantly” service had generally been excellent, almost never showing the buffering screen for a movie on either my PC or Xbox 360 and playing at the highest quality.
On the Xbox 360 for the last few weeks I can get playback to start quickly but everything I’ve tried to watch will stop 10 seconds into the playback and “adjust the quality” for about 5 mins, before resuming playback in the absolutely lowest quality setting — the quality approximately looks like a 320×200 resolution image is being upscaled on my 65″ TV — it’s so muddy every scene almost looks like it’s shot with a fuzzy “Dream” filter or something.
The odd part is that if I stop the playback on the Xbox 360, go to my computer and try and play the same media, I get presented with a “Your connection is not fast enough to start playback immediately…” notice and usually a wait time of 1hr or more. The overall slow down combined with the huge discrepency between the two experiences (Netflix-enabled device and my PC) made me decide to start Googling and see if I could figure out what was going on — I smelled shenanigans…
Detecting if Netflix is Throttling Streaming Video
I immediately ran into this post from another person who has a Qwest DSL line and piss-poor performance from Netflix and their streaming service. The original poster mentions:
I have been on the phone with netflix tech support only to be told they are aware there is a problem and their engineering department in California is looking into it. The problem is some people like myself who have high speed dsl (avg 1.5 mbs) find out their download speed from netflix is about 60% slower for some reason.
This post was from February 12, a month ago; so whatever the Netflix “engineers” have been doing, isn’t working. One of the most interesting bits of information is the tip the poster gives on accessing the secret diagnostic menu on the Netflix streaming player by holding the SHIFT key and Right-clicking to bring it up.
From there you can select:
- Status window
- Media info MessageBox
- Show log info
Bringing up the Status window I noticed my download performance was a far cry from my 7 mbps speed, but rather a measly 0.48 mbps, about 1/14th the speed of my line:
I decided to pop open the “Show log file” screen to see if I could get more information about where my video stream was coming from to help determine if it was my connection (and my fault) or Netflix’s problem.
After opening the log file, 26 lines down I found the line:
CAxPlayerCtrl::SetMediaURL: “http://netflix-699.vo.llnwd.net/s/d3/699/393441699.wmv?e=1237204120&h=b493e799e62ec39856e36a667a1eb2d0“
So I did a tracert from my PC to the base llnwd.net URL to see what came up, here’s what I got:
Tracing route to netflix-699.vo.llnwd.net [68.142.79.69] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms home [192.168.1.1] 2 36 ms 34 ms 33 ms tcsn-dsl-gw13-205.tcsn.qwest.net [SNIP] 3 35 ms 33 ms 35 ms tcsn-agw1.inet.qwest.net [SNIP] 4 33 ms 35 ms 33 ms tcs-core-01.inet.qwest.net [SNIP] 5 * 47 ms 47 ms lap-brdr-03.inet.qwest.net [67.14.22.74] 6 45 ms 47 ms 45 ms 63.146.26.50 7 49 ms 51 ms 49 ms 64.213.78.254 8 48 ms 51 ms 48 ms ve6.fr3.lax.llnw.net [69.28.171.205] 9 46 ms 66 ms 45 ms cdn-68-142-79-69.lax.llnw.net [68.142.79.69] Trace complete.
With an average of a 50ms response time, I’m going to go ahead and say my 7 mbps Qwest DSL service is working as advertised, and there is something fishy going on with the Netflix service.
I then copy-pasted the URL from above into my browser and decided to literally try and download the WMV, surprisingly enough it started to download, at exactly the same speed I was seeing from the player:
My first thought was “maybe Netflix is throttling per-thread” like a lot of download sites do, so I popped open the Firefox “Download Them All” addon and re-started the download. This time, with 4 concurrent threads, I got 306 KB/sec, almost 6x the performance (roughly 2.5 mbps):
I figured I’d bump the threads up to 10 and see how far we get here, apparently Netflix isn’t running out of bandwidth, it’s just throttling me to hell and back.
After turning Download Them All up to the maximum of 10 threads and relaunching the download, I saw my speed spike over 700 KB/sec (roughly 5.6 mbps):
Now we have confirmed that Netflix is throttling instant streaming PC-users to a rediculous 50 or 60 KB/sec cap… I was about to make the qualification of “at peak times” but after seeing my ability to easily increase my download speed from the Netflix streaming server by a factor of 14, I have to imagine the servers have quite a bit of room to grow at the moment and could offer me better performance than this.
To further clarify, I think throttling is likely a valid strategy for Netflix to employee to stop servers from maxing out and crashing — the problem here is the 50-60 KB/sec cap that produces unusable results with a “Watch Instantly” service — you could easily drive down the street to a video store, take your time choosing, and have it back in your house before your video were done buffering with the Netflix Watch Instantly service — and view it at a higher resolution as well. This is the core of the problem, Netflix is throttling PC viewers (And likely others) so aggressively they aren’t delivering the service they advertise. And when we work around this trottle manually (with DTA) we see that the servers scale bandwidth (and potentially video streaming performance) without a problem — so what’s going on here?
OK, Netflix is Throttling Streaming, but Why?
Netflix already has a reputation for silently throttling their customers, but what would cause them to throttle performance so hard that the service is basically unusable for any customers that are either watching “too much” instantly streaming video from the Netflix service (as determined by Netflix of course) or just trying to watching movies at times of very heavy server loads?
My guess is that Netflix didn’t have the infrastructure to support the rollout of the Xbox 360 Netflix streaming dashboard update that went out a few months ago. I’d also further a guess that due to contractual obligations with Microsoft, Netflix had to guarantee a certain level of service to the Xbox 360 users above and beyond what the PC-streaming viewers got, making the Xbox 360 a prioritized device when it came to throttling instant video streaming requests from one of the Netflix servers.
I would also further a guess that we won’t see this situation fixed for users of the Netflix “Watch Instantly” service until Q4 this year as Netflix tries to find the balance between spending themselves into bankrupcy and signing additional device deals with Sony (for the PS3), TiVo and possible some of the cable providers which will all require basic QoS conditions for those customers.
I would predict that my 2010, if Netflix signs 1 or 2 more significant partnerships, Friday and Saturday nights PC-based users of the streaming video service will barely be able to watch something without an hour of buffering at the lowest level.
Conspiracy Theory
… for those that like taking thoughts to the logical extreme — I could also see Netflix trying to degrade the PC-based streaming experience to drive people towards more “official” Netflix-enabled devices, like the Xbox 360, Roku box, hybrid Blu-ray media players and I’m sure 10 more devices that will hit the market this year.
You know the real shit of it all? I can absolutely see how this is probably better for Netflix’s bottom line, both in the sense that it improves relationships with exclusive contractee’s (Microsoft, Samsung, etc.) and drives consumers to look around for alternative solutions to their streaming problems which are very clearly outlined on the Watch Instantly web page in your browser.
Updates
Update #1: I’m going to go ahead and assume that this post got passed around Netflix HQ (as one of their engineers already posted to the story with a random suggestion of upgrading to the much-maligned Silverlight-based player) and I’m now feeling the wrath of their angry fingers:
Incase the image doesn’t display or you aren’t clear on what I’m getting at, during the original authoring of this article, my buffer time for media on my PC was around 1.5hrs. Now when I try and play something on my PC (2 days after this was written) my buffering time just hangs at 6hrs and 59 mins… that’s right, 7 hours of buffering time.
</sarcasm>That’s definitely a technical glitch and not Netflix leveling the hammer of streaming-justice against me as retribution for the article… god knows they are above that</sarcasm>
My previous run-in with Netflix “customer service” was when I had the 5-at-a-time account, and had what I think was Transporter 2 (Blu-ray) sitting at the top of my queue for 7 weeks. I got everything else in my queue as it bubbled to the top, but Transporter 2 stayed right at the top with “Long Wait”. I finally lost it and sent an admitedly rude (and typical internet-venting) email to the Customer Service team at Netflix. 3hrs later the wait had changed to “Unknown” or some other dubious hint at Netflix giving me the “Fuck you guy, go climb up a tree and die”.
After I cooled down (1 day later) I sent an appology… guess what? Just guess… yea… you know where this is going… I got a shipment notification for the movie a few hours later and it was on it’s way to my house.
Naturally Netflix claimed that the Customer Service reps have no access to individual customers Queues or the abilities to change them. I’ll go out on a limb here and declare shenanigans all over this like a warm pile of turtle-shit.
This company is an odd duck… it delivers an awesome service that would be so easy to sing the praises of if they just delivered it as advertised. But they don’t… and they’ll zing you if you call them on it, so you get left with this meloncholy feeling of trying to decide if you like their service or not, cause you know your aren’t getting the service they advertise… but you sorta-kind are.
If you don’t agree, cut your subscription back to “2-at-a-time unlimited” and try and rent-and-return 1 movie every other day, $1 says after you get to 6 rentals for a month, you’ll start seeing major lag in the turn around time on your movies.
Update #2: From the screenshot above where you see the 7hr buffer time now that I’m getting on my PC from Netflix for anything streaming, the odd part is that when I bring the debug menu back up and show the status window, it’s still capped at the same 50 KB/sec or so.
To clarify, the day I wrote this article, my transfer was capped at 50 KB/sec, and buffer time was 1-2hrs as reported by the player.
Now 2 days after this story went up, my transfer speed is still 50 KB/sec, but now my buffer time is 7hrs… odd.
Update #3: Stephen Stockard wrote in with a workaround for folks having this issue and it was essentially to use a proxy service to hide his throttled IP address from Netflix, more specifically:
I had the same problem as you did with Netflix throttling my streaming. It is very odd though only on my computers, which are both connected to a high speed network, the speed was throttled. When I signed in on my brother’s computer at home the movies were instant, and the same when my fiancé watched movies from her home.
I concluded that it was my IP address that Netflix was targeting.
To solve the problem I downloaded a proxy that would hide my IP address and use another while enabled. I tried again and while enabled the proxy allowed full streaming speed back at the high quality it was originally. Personally I use GoTrusted Secure Tunnel, though you might not want to pay an extra $5 something to stream from Netflix, but I have found the service well worth it. If you can find a free program that works too, but that is the solution I got.
how do you turn up download threads then where is that located? sorry I’m new to all of this but I am having the same crappy experience with them telling me my internet connection has slowed and I have dsl
Danielle, as far as I know you cannot control the speed of streaming on the PC or any of the Netflix-enabled devices. If you try and stream at different times of the day OR different movies/shows do the performance characteristics change for you?
I use to have NetFlix and it streamed just fine. When I moved I cancelled it. I just recently signed back up and was happy to learn that I would get unlimited movie streaming instead of the limited amount of hours I use to get. Only one problem. IT DOES NOT WORK! I have DSL and have no problem streaming YouTube, Google, Megavideo, you name it. But NetFlix takes five or ten minutes just to buffer and then when it plays it is horrible quality, like it is only playing every third frame or something, constantly freezing up. It is totally worthless. I have tried it at different times of the day and it is always the same. It is completely unwatchable. I would rather have five hours per month that I can actually watch than unlimited streaming that is completely worthless. And I see by this article that the problem has been going on for over a year? Netflix should fix the problem already or it should stop participating in false advertising by claiming that you will get streaming movies on your PC. I can’t stream anything from NetFlix. It would take five hours to watch a two hour movie because it keeps freezing and trying to re-buffer.
Most of have no problems streaming Netflix. I stream Netflix nearly daily for the last 18 months or so with no problems. I get 4-dot and HD streams consistently.
I am not convinced this is a Netflix issue that you’re having. You said you don’t have problems with YouTube or Google, but neither are generally as high quality as Netflix. Netflix’s 4-dot requires about a 2mb/down connection minimum.
There can also be issues with your ISP. You might be getting high latency or having issues with your connection to Netflix’s nearest CDN.
Oh cut the crap. Both the Netflix community discussion site and the Silverlight community discussion site is swamped with similar complaints. I could care less about the “quality” of the movie. What good is high quality if I can’t even watch it? I have no problem streaming anything else on the internet: only Netlfix. So what good is it? If there are some type of requirements needed to use the instant watch on Netflix then they should tell you that before you sign up for it. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve wasted fiddling with this and diddling with that trying to get it to work to no avail. Of course it is a Netflix problem, nobody else’s. I had no problem streaming their movies before they switched to Silverlight and now I can’t stream them; they play like a slide show. Duh. Figure it out. Go back to Real Player or whatever until the glitch is fixed or give us at least an option to use one or the other. Countless others have reported the same problem. Duh. Fix it! I smell a HUGE class action lawsuit coming against Netflix for false advertising.
A class action lawsuit because either your network or your computer sucks? I don’t think so.
48% of Netflix subscribers use instant watch, but only a handful of problems seem to get reported. I personally know several people who stream Netflix on a regular basis (myself included) with absolutely no problems.
It’s your network — your isp, your computer, or something else that is the problem.
And to suggest ANY company use Real is just extreme ignorance.
i changed internet service and still get the same
How dare you call me ignorant! You are obviously a Netflix troll monitoring these blogs trying to blame Netflix problems on their customers. Why else would you be spouting unverified statistics from undisclosed sources? All you have to do is google “netflix instant watch not working” to see page after page after page of people with the same problem that I am having. The average person doesn’t want to hear excuses about IPs or networks or throttling or whatever, they just want the stupid video to run when they click on the play button. Even in the remote chance that what you are saying is true, it is STILL Netflix’s fault. I don’t see any disclaimer on Netflix saying there are certain system requirements needed to use the service and, oh, by the way, it doesn’t work with some internet providers or in some areas. No, they just take your money and let you waste your time trying to use it. That, my friend, is definiely a basis for a class action suit.
Same problem here in CT for 2 months. Ostensibly an organization with integrity (their stock price says they could afford it), in truth they don’t have the nads to make a press release announcing the de facto business model change. In the boardroom, they must be saying, “Let the think it’s their ISP!”, “Yeah, great idea, JR!” Like almost all other companies in these times – straight out of Dilbert.
If it is the ISP that makes the throttling, what will be the most ideal thing to do in order to fix things? any recommendation?
Well, let me clear up a few things for people. Netflix is most certainly throttling just as they’ve done in the past.
Some years ago (3-4), I joined the class-action lawsuit that was brought about against Netflix for… you guessed it, throttling of DVD by mail service. Netlix lost the lawsuit (though they really won). I was awarded a mere month of service, WHICH I HAD TO TERMINATE TO AVOID FURTHER CHARGES!!! I swore I would never use them again, but with the changing times and shrinking alternatives I felt that I had to give them another try.
So, my first experience was with my XBox360. Initially, everything was great! I use the 2-at-a-time DVD by mail service and I’m lucky if I’ve averaged more than 1 movie of week. That’s because I really found that I would rather use the streaming service. So, After about a month or so of watching many, many TV shows (watched all 9 seasons of Coach) I notice that my service began to slow dramtically. In fact, it got so bad that I no longer wanted to use the service. I once again contemplated ridding myself of Netflix completely.
Enter my PS3. I was excited to try the service on my PS3 and was again amazed at the difference. Suddenly, I was wondering if my Xbox was the problem. It didn’t make sense to me, but it was undeniable; my PS3 was working great with Netflix while my Xbox was so slow as to not be useable. (I am running both through the same wireless)
After watching a few seasons of some other shows on my PS3, I find myself again with dismal Netflix service.
It’s simple; the more that I use the service, the slower that it gets! Thank again Netflix, you scheming bastards! And if you think this is in my head, take a gander of one of the other side-effects of that class-action lawsuit…
From Netflix Terms of Usage:
We reserve the right in our sole and absolute discretion to make changes from time to time and without notice in how we operate our service. Any description of how our service works should not be considered a representation or obligation with respect to how the service will always work. We are constantly making adjustments to our service and often these adjustments are not completely captured within these Terms of Use.
It’s time to let Netflix know that you are tired of their underhanded ways!
I happened upon this as I was looking around for a “reason” why all of a sudden for the past few weeks my streaming to my xbox 360 has gotten so terribly slow at times.
Here is just another “proof” for the doubters.
I watched on streaming for about a 2 months, on and off, NEVER had a problem, always fast and very good quality. Then about a month ago I started watching some old tv series streamed. I got through one series, about 4 seasons, no problems. I cute back again watching anime series off and on, still no problems at all.
Now, for the past few weeks I have been basically homebound due to an injury so I have been watching more than I used to. First week all was fine. Second week… starting to get some really bad buffering times, figure it is just bad timing or what-not. Week 3…. fine for an hour or 2, then bam….. almost constant “adjusting playback” crap. I KNOW it is not my connection as my laptop is right next to my 360, running off the same wireless connection, and if I turn to the laptop when this is happening I am at full strength with zero issues.
Also, I am on the 2 at a time plan…. and when I go through movies at a faster rate the shipping time slows down considerably (from about 3 days from day I send to day I recieve, to up to 9 days). If I keep a movie for 3-4 days at least I tend to get the next one much faster than if I send it back within 1-2 days.
“Unlimited” should mean what it says, and not be tappered down if Netflix considers you are getting “too many” or watching “too much” streaming. And this is exactly what they are doing!
Streaming Video Recorder is economical way to record the video u given very useful info
Bah, they pulled it on me too. I just tested out my bandwidth and it’s at 8Mbs, until of course I try to watch a movie and it goes down to 800kbs. What’s bothering me is that the quality of the video stream is slashed to minimum when I try to watch a certain show.
Either way, there’s no way a corporation wouldn’t do whatever it took to make all the money they want. A corporation has no conscience and doesn’t care about their customers so why would anyone expect them to do what’s best for the customers?
I feel they are throttling. I admit I am a heavy streamer on my LG Blu-Ray player I got it in December 2010. All the movies were pretty much in HD quality, I then started to watch TV shows I never seen, I mean the complete seasons. After a month of watching shows almost daily the connection is hit & miss. I rarely get HD anymore, and a lot of the time the quality is so poor I just go do something else. I know Netflix used to hold back on heavy movie dvd users (I been there and experienced that)…but that seems to be fine nowadays (If I recall correctly they were sued for that).
Funny thing is my connection ranges from 10Mbps to 20Mbps depending which server I am talking to. Heck I get 1.4Mbps hitting one half way around the world…so go figure. At first i thought it was Comcast throttling my Netflix, but yet I can download Youtube and other huge files from the net with no problems….which makes me think it is Netflix, and I would not put it past them. I’m thinking of putting Netflix on a 3 month vacation statues and see what happens then when I reactivate it. Worse case I cancel Netflix and just rent movies from Redbox…LOL So really Netflix if your limiting people that is plain stupid, what happens is we end up canceling our services and if we ever here of a lawsuit we sign up down the road.
Mark,
Similar to your experience I only notice “throttling” from netflix either with disks or streaming when I start using it heavily.
If we start burning through a series on streaming or disk and have occasion to watch things really fast I have noticed the same thing. I suppose Netflix has analyzed the data (they are smart folks) and figure out that if they don’t throttle the heaviest users they dominate the infrastructure of the service… which is unfortunate for the heavy users
We went from 8-movies-at-a-time down to 4 and just watch 1 or 2 things a week now… that seems to work better for them and we watch more things on Hulu now (streaming via PlayOn to PS3) which helps balance out the streaming load a bit for us.
Also Hulu is talking about possibly releasing a premium $10/mo service that gives you access to the backlog of episodes for shows so you get full retention… that would be a dream come true for me.
Here’s my issue:
The amount of bandwidth Netflix uses completely cripples my network. The moment someone in my apartment (my roomate, his girlfriend and my girlfriend) is streaming a show/movie from Netflix, the network becomes unbearable going from a stead 56ms to an average of 300+ ms. The person who is streaming Netflix has no problem whatsoever as they’re gobbling up all the freakin’ network, which leaves me with no other choice than turning the wireless and lying about the internet having issues to do the simplest of tasks like using my e-mail.
I’m using AT&T DSL “optimal” for online gaming (which I cannot partake in anymore given the abhorrently slow speeds the network suffers the moment someone streams something).
Any networking gurus out there know how to limit the bandwidth speed for wireless users who are streaming? I fear that I’m going to be the first person to commit murder over slow network speed in his own household >.> (this is a joke before someone reports me to the FBI).
Chervy,
Don’t murder anyone yet — this is why god invented QoS (quality of service) settings on your router. Login to your routers admin interface and see if there is a “QoS” setting page anywhere, if there isn’t, check under wireless and see if you can throttle how much bandwidth wireless users use to avoid them saturating the connection.
If neither of those two options work for you, talk to your neighbor and start using his wireless connection instead
Riyad,
Thanks for the help, but it seems that my router (Linksys WRT54GL) does not appear to have native QoS capabilities. I would have to d/l third party firmware that replaces the Linksys router config menu and from reading a few posts about it in forums, it seems like a great deal of trouble for so-so results.
I guess I’m just stuck of being shady and turning the internet off when I can’t take it anymore and lie about AT&T having problems ^^
hahah, Chervy I’m sorry the solution wasn’t easier, but I like your workaround. Eventually people will get so sick of the issues with “AT&T” they will stop streaming Netflix
I just joined Netflix for the instant streaming – but hardly any movies are available. Everytime I pick one, it is only available in DVD or Blu-Ray. Guess I will be canceling after free period!
Alicea,
There is actually a pretty good selection available for streaming, but it is true that not a lot of the main-stream movies (especially new ones) you might be picking are available yet.
I don’t know how you are viewing the streaming offering (Xbox, Roku, PC, Blu-ray player, PS3, etc.) but on the Xbox/PS3/Wii and compatible Blu-ray players, the “streaming” offerings is all that should be shown to you.
If you are on PC, you need to click the “Watch Instantly” tab to only see streaming stuff, that way you don’t have to wade through a mix of streaming/DVD things.
I am watching on my PC as well as on my Wii. I searched for about 15 movies that were listed as the “Top 50 movies” for 2007 and 2008 and not one of them was available for instant streaming.
Ahhhh yea, I think newer movies are not on streaming. It seems to me that they need to be like 3+ years old, but more like 5 or so to be on streaming.
Then again sometimes you get lucky, for example, Pixar’s Up is on streaming and I think it came out last year.
A great way to find titles that are good to watch is go to:” button on top heading of page
1. Watch Instantly
2. Click a Genre you like
3. Click the “See all
4. Then click “Sortable List” on left header above list
5. Then click the “Stars” column and sort all movies by rating.
You can also check the “Show movies I’ve already seen” Box if you feel like rewatching something.
That is what I do, because I find it impossible to find movies I want to stream otherwise for the same reasons you were getting frsutrated — the massive selection just isn’t there yet so it’s easier to go into the process only looking at streamable things first.
About half of my netflix watch instant Que have been moved to saved. That is why so few movies show up.
Mike now that you mention it, my Watch Instant Queue > Saved list is pretty huge a well… I wonder what’s up.