Netflix quality - Hows yours?

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garvani

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#140933 24-Feb-2014 21:48

Finally thought id give Netflix a go and just subscribed to the month trial as well as unblock.us 7 day trial.

Not getting great quality out of it, HD isn't lighting up like i thought it would.

Im with Snap adsl and im currently pulling 10mb/s to an LA server (which i was quite impressed with!) so i was hopeful of a better result. Are there any tricks to get better quality, does unotelly work better? Ive tried mediahint as well with no change.

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#993668 24-Feb-2014 21:53

I use getflix and get Super HD on my ps3 with 11 mbps to most la speed test servers. In fact on my PS3 I only get 7 but I still get Super HD and I think it looks perfect.

ubergeeknz

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#993671 24-Feb-2014 21:55

What kind of device are you watching it on?

garvani

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#993677 24-Feb-2014 22:00

Interesting. I was reading that you only need 8mb/s for superhd being that im over that im surprised HD isnt't lighting up for me. By the way i was testing it with house of cards season 2. My flatmate has a xbox360 i might have to reluctantly try it with that and see if its a device based problem. I hadn't heard of getflix, from what i was reading here most recommend unblock.us so i went with that, the beauty of these free trials though i can easily test getflix as well but that will have to wait till tomorrow.

garvani

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#993679 24-Feb-2014 22:02

ubergeeknz: What kind of device are you watching it on?

Just my pc at the moment.. I understand some programs don't allow HD on pc, but i believe HOC s2 does.

garvani

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#993695 24-Feb-2014 22:09

Typically!! i go to try again after reading this (about how to force it to HD). and now its working, and wow what a crisp screen.. Not sure what quality it is but it looks magnificent on my 1440p monitor!

eracode

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#993785 25-Feb-2014 01:48

Bear in mind that in Netflix-speak 'HD' is 720 and 'Super HD' is 1080. Not sure if those are i or p.

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davidcole

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#993817 25-Feb-2014 07:56

I'm watching on both Apple TVs and Rokus on a 4-5mbps Telecom connection, and most HD content looks pretty good - give it a while to spin up and stabilise the connection though (a couple of mins).

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JimmyC

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#993838 25-Feb-2014 08:55

benokobi: I use getflix and get Super HD on my ps3 with 11 mbps to most la speed test servers. In fact on my PS3 I only get 7 but I still get Super HD and I think it looks perfect.

ISP and plan?

I'm on Vodafone's 130Mbps cable plan, viewing via Apple TV and performance is patchy at best. I'm using the Sydney getflix DNS server, not their Auckland one where performance was even worse. When I stated with getflix, streaming was really good. The last couple of weeks however and I'm buffering like a bastard. 2-3 times per episode of West Wing for 20-30 seconds at a time. Very frustrating.

I don't expect it to be perfect, but I would love to know if anyone on Vodafone cable watches Netflix via a device like XBox, Apple TV etc. with minimal disruptions.

Edit: and I seem to get circa 5Mbps to the Internode server in LA.

steve98

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#994064 25-Feb-2014 12:49

I'm on Snap UFB (30/10) with Unblock-us and watching Netflix on PS3 and 3x Apple TVs. The stream normally starts off at 480p and ends up on Super HD after maybe 10 seconds and generally stays there although very occasionally it does drop back to a lower quality momentarily and then back to Super HD after a few seconds. This is even with two different shows / movies being streamed to two different devices at the same time.

Hulu Plus is always full HD with almost zero initial buffering and zero buffering between ads / shows - it's almost like watching American cable sometimes (with shorter ad breaks), the experience is that seamless.

Have you double-checked in your Netflix account settings that you haven't got it restricted to SD or anything like that?

geekiegeek

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#994074 25-Feb-2014 12:59

JimmyC:
benokobi: I use getflix and get Super HD on my ps3 with 11 mbps to most la speed test servers. In fact on my PS3 I only get 7 but I still get Super HD and I think it looks perfect.

ISP and plan?

I'm on Vodafone's 130Mbps cable plan, viewing via Apple TV and performance is patchy at best. I'm using the Sydney getflix DNS server, not their Auckland one where performance was even worse. When I stated with getflix, streaming was really good. The last couple of weeks however and I'm buffering like a bastard. 2-3 times per episode of West Wing for 20-30 seconds at a time. Very frustrating.

I don't expect it to be perfect, but I would love to know if anyone on Vodafone cable watches Netflix via a device like XBox, Apple TV etc. with minimal disruptions.

Edit: and I seem to get circa 5Mbps to the Internode server in LA.

Doesn't Vodafone (previously Telstra) have issues with using DNS services due to reverse proxy?

trig42

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#994075 25-Feb-2014 13:03

How can you tell on an AppleTV?

Most of mine looks fine to my ancient bad eyes from the couch, but up close, can look a bit yuck. I never check during up close once up and running though, so it probably does get better after starting.

Never had any buffering issues, my speed (speedtest NZ servers is about 12Mbps).

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stevenz

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#994077 25-Feb-2014 13:07

eracode: Bear in mind that in Netflix-speak 'HD' is 720 and 'Super HD' is 1080. Not sure if those are i or p.

They have "regular" 1080 (4-5Mbps) and "SuperHD" 1080 which is a higher bitrate 1080p (7-8Mbps) with - content that is available in SuperHD will automatically be displayed if your settings are set at "maximum".

They're definitely progressive scan, I suspect most clients would have a fit if you tried streaming an interlaced signal to them.

Not all clients support "Super HD" as it uses a slightly different compression algorithm, although most do, I've yet to get any 3D videos to play (needs ~12Mbps but my ~30Mbps VDSL connection apparently can't get that from Netflix).

The video is adaptive, I've watched it scale from 284 -> 320 -> 480 -> 640 -> 720 -> 960 -> 1080 -> 1080SHD

If I watch it using the client on my TV it tends to bounce between 720p -> 1080p. If I watch it on my PS4 then it seems to stay on 1080p solidly.

I can't tell the difference between 1080p and SuperHD during regular playback conditions, even 720p -> 1080p is often not worth the difference in bandwidth.

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reven

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#994080 25-Feb-2014 13:11

on the following devices i get 1080p 5.1
google tv, samsung smart tvs, ps4, ps3, xbox.

via snap adsl2+ and unblockus.

i however cant get 3D working.

stevenz

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#994086 25-Feb-2014 13:14

3D requires a sustained ~1.5MB/sec transfer speed which is getting near the upper limits of _most_ ADSL connections, particularly when going to the states.

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YadaMe

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#994095 25-Feb-2014 13:21

Don't know if you guys know about this but if you search for " Example Short 23.976 " and play this it will show the resolution and bitrate of your connection. Seems to take a minute or two before the bitrate increases (esp on my chromecast)

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