TiVo Community Forum banner
  • TiVoCommunity.com Ambassador Program Now Open! >>> Click Here

Netflix poor quality

12K views 98 replies 38 participants last post by  302481 
#1 ·
Has anybody seen poor/inconsistent picture quality on Netflix Tivo app in the past several weeks? My Roamio ethernet is hard wired to a 10Gbps switch, and ISP speed is 65Mbps. Other devices on the same switch see full port speed and full internet speed. However, Netflix quality is extremely variable. Starts out ok, then drops very low every few minutes, then back to good quality. Used to be good for hours at a time in months prior.

If I watch the same exact program on a Fire TV stick over wifi, quality is constantly the highest, no issues at all, in spite of slower connection.

I'm thinking something weird is going on with the app, not the network connection, since I can have several Minis streaming from it simultaneously with no issues.

So can anybody watch Netflix on Tivo, say 30 minutes, with no quality drops?
 
#2 ·
It might be more a case of Netflix playing around with their encoding system than any sort of connection issue. I was watching Watch Bordertown Online | Netflix over the past two weeks and was getting what appeared to be two different encode profiles. I would get one that ran at 7.15 Mbps but several times during the episode it would drop all the way down to less than 1 Mbps and slowly ramp back up to 7.15. Other episodes would start at 4.22 Mbps and run the complete length without issue. A couple times when getting a 7.15 encode I would back all the way out from the Netflix app and then go back in and occasionally I would get a 4.22 encode instead of the problematic 7.15 but that only worked once or twice.

Now, that's the only content I've watched on Netflix over the last 2 weeks so it's an extremely small sample size, but that's my guess at what you might be seeing.
 
#3 ·
I'm seeing the same problem for the past 2-3 weeks. My Internet connection is 200Mbps, but the Netflix speed test shows only 25Mbps. Streaming from Netflix has been stuttering for several weeks. For some reason, if I exit the Nextflix app and start playout again, the stuttering usually clears up.

Up until this time, I've found Netflix to be very responsive and reliable on TiVo, while the Amazon app has always been much slower to respond.
 
#4 ·
I'm having the same issue with my Tivo Roamio Pro. I can watch Netflix shows in 1080p but every few minutes it drops to 240p and then slowly builds up to 1080p. This started in the last few weeks. In the past I had no problem watching shows in 1080p.

I am using a 1Gbps wired Ethernet connection connected to a ~225mbit internet connection. My internet connection is mostly idle so I'm wondering if this is an issue with the Netflix app.
 
#5 ·
Same here. This started about a month ago when I got the slightly "updated" Netflix UI on my Roamio.

Another (lesser priority) bug is that it now takes much more time to ramp to 1080p. It used to ramp to that resolution within a few seconds of starting a show; now it takes about a minute and a half.
 
#7 · (Edited)
I went around & around with Netflix on this for a week or two-- exact same problem of it bottoming out to 240p / 0.7 Mbps quality then ramping back up to normal quality. It started sometime after the last firmware update & the new Netflix UI rollout. Netflix kept sending me to ask my ISP to do all kinds of service resets and DNS cache clears, etc but it was obvious it was a new Netflix problem. I already had an outstanding Hulu quality problem that has been going on for months so I decided to move on, bought a Xbox One and passed my TiVo through it's HDMI pass-through feature. It also integrates with Xbox's guide for live TV channel changes & pausing, only need TiVo remote when watching recorded content. Anyway not here to sell an Xbox, just to confirm Netflix issue is real for multiple users ;)

Here's a short thread on the official TiVo forums from a month ago:
Netflix awful quality | TiVo Troubleshooting | TiVo Help Forums
 
#8 ·
Same issues with me for the past 10 days or so. During the viewing of a show on Netflix, I'll get about 5 minutes or so of 1080, then it instantly drops to 240, and then takes about 30 seconds to fully get back to 1080. Amazon Prime and YouTube will always maintain the HD, so it's not my internet. It's definitely a Netflix issue. If it just dropped to 480 for the same about of time, it would be tolerable to a point. But 240 simply looks really bad and takes you out of the program.
 
#12 ·
Okay, I thought it was just that series I was watching having some weird encodes but I started Sense8 last night and it was happening again. It will ramp up to 1080p within 12-20 seconds and roll along with a 6Mbps bitrate and then all of a sudden the image quality goes to a barely discernible less than 1Mbps bitrate and then takes at least a minute to get back up to top speed.

I tried two other devices, a Chromecast and a Roku and they both ran just fine albeit at just 1080p/60 and not the 1080p/24 I prefer from the TiVo.

It appears that the TiVo has some issue, which is disappointing as it's my go to device for streaming, primarily because of ease of access and the 1080p/24 output. I do not have a lot of faith that the problem is going to be fixed, TiVo hasn't seemed to be as active in fixing issues lately has they have in the past. I'm currently looking at some cheap Samsung and Sony BD players to use for Netflix as they(most?) can output at 1080p/24. It's ridiculous to think about getting another device to do what I used to do with the TiVo but I have zero confidence that TiVo will fix this.
 
#13 ·
I have been having the same problem for the last few months. The quality of Netflix streams on Tivo is very variable: from 1080p the drops down to 480i, then builds back to 1080p, then drops back again.

I have a 100Mbps connection, hard wired into the Tivo. It isn't an issue with the connection from the ISP to Netflix, as I was watching a program on Netflix in the Tivo, it drove me nuts, then I switched to UHD blu ray player, which could maintain a 4k stream.

This really appears to be a problem with the Tivo netflix app.
 
#14 ·
Last night I watched two more episodes of Sense8 and had zero problems, the first episode ramped up very quickly to 6 Mbps/1080 and the second episode started right at that rate, no rampup. Neither episode had any drops down to a low bitrate stream while viewing; everything worked exactly as it should.

I made 3 changes to how the TiVo is connected to my system but I really don't believe any of the changes corrected the bitrate dropping problem I've experienced on and off over the past several weeks. I only mention them as anything is possible, especially when not all TiVo/Netflix users have experienced the problem, only some.

1) I swapped out the Ethernet patch cord although the TiVo was stilled connected to the system via the very same switch as before so this really should not make any difference at all.

2) Instead of having the TiVo connected with an assigned static IP address I unassigned it to obtain an IP dynamically.(I think that's how it works). This might have had some effect, but since all the other streaming sites work without issue I tend to think it didn't.

3) I deactivated the TiVo from being a Netflix streaming device, restarted the TiVo and then when into the Netflix app and logged in again. If anything I did had any effect at all I believe it would have been this move as it may loaded up a "fresh" app from Netflix.

Of course, tonight I could have the same problem repeat itself and all I'll have accomplished is having practiced my typing skills! :D
 
#15 ·
Well I went ahead and cancelled Netflix about a week ago, even if it's Tivo's issue. I need Tivo for all the other OTA programs I record, plus Prime and YouTube. None of those are affected. I can live without Netflix awhile until it's remedied. Funny enough, as I have a couple of weeks left on the membership, I watched a complete movie after I cancelled and it played fine. :rolleyes::mad: But that was short-lived, as it again got worse with subsequent programs.
 
#16 ·
An update to my last post. None of the above worked, the problem reoccurred again Sunday night while finishing off Sense8, the first 3 episodes played perfectly but the last one had at least two drops to extremely low bitrates; less than 1 Mbps and 180 resolution. And this was with a direct connection from the router to the Roamio. At this point, I have no idea what's causing the problem.
 
#17 ·
My Roamio started doing this about three months ago. Just streaming Netflix.

So I tested tonight, ran a show through the Tivo on Netflix and the exact same show at the same time through my MacBook. Both wireless connections, both the same distance from the router.

The Tivo consistency dropped into poor quality modes for a few minutes at a time, almost like a really bad youtube video. The MacBook show was flawless in picture.

So that pretty much tells the story in my opinion, the Tivo just has bad quality in streaming Netflix.

Do mods or technicians read these forums?
 
#20 ·
Very annoying, I've got my eye on a few inexpensive Sony BDP players on Ebay to use as a backup just for watching Netflix because I have zero confidence that TiVo will even acknowledge there's a problem or have a fix for it.

The only thing I can think of is that the Netflix app has changed from whatever it was several months or, a Tivo update "broke" something, but I don't recall when the last TiVo update was.
 
#26 ·
I have exact same problem, Netflix streaming fluctuates from 7.12-0.12Mbps. Awful ... even my 18 month old pointed at the picture and said "Broken" :)

I contacted Tivo support 3 times and sadly i have to say: they are worthless. They cant even listen to what the problem is. Suggestions were: from connecting to the Tivo Service (several times), to removing/re-adding NetFlix App and of course restarting Tivo & my router. I tried to explain that my Amazon Streaming and You tube work just fine, that i un-plugged the network cable from Tivo and plugged it into AppleTV and my laptop. It works just fine & picture quality is awesome and clear.
That means something is wrong with Netflix App on the Tivo.

Who is responsible for Netflix App on Tivo? Netflix or Tivo?
 
#27 ·
Netflix, but that's not to say that all the responsibility lies with them to fix it. Something TiVo may have done might have "broken" how the app communicates with the TiVo's Ethernet interface, or it might even be how the TiVo caches the data on the HDD while streaming.

If I were a betting man, I'd say that TiVo is the guilty party here and not Netflix. And from a practical standpoint, given that the number of Netflix subscribers who also access the service via a TiVo device is going to be extremely small I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Netflix to fix the problem if they are in fact at fault.
 
#30 ·
The Netflix app that's loaded on the TiVo comes from Netflix, whenever you see a change in the UI, the way content is displayed for example, that means that Netflix has loaded a new app on the TiVo, it's not coming from TiVo itself. These apps are often specific to the platform, the app that's on the TiVo will likely not work on a PS3 or Roku for example.

That said, I tend to think this is a problem created by TiVo as well, it seems lately that every time there's a new software update they break something that was working before. It's the same story with the audio dropout issue, it was fine, and then it wasn't. With Netflix, it was working fine for years, and now it doesn't, extremely annoying. It's annoyed me to the point that I purchased a used Sony BD player just to use the Netflix app on it as it will output 1080p/24Hz, a playback format that's not possible on my Oppo 103D, Roku 3, Fire Tv Stick or Chromecast.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top