Netflix Streaming Performance

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gehenna

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#76805 7-Feb-2011 09:53

Morning all,

Without getting into an instructional on how to get this working here (lots of info out there already and it's easy to work through), I'm wondering if anyone here is using Netflix Streaming in NZ, and what sort of performance you're getting. Might help to know what ISP you're on too?

I'm on Orcon, getting about 14Mbps at home, but speed-testing to LA, SFC, and NYC at about 2.5Mbps down. Europe servers much the same.

Netflix definitely works, on certain days I'm able to stream a TV show with about 30 sec buffering at the opening credits then smooth sailing from there. Often I get much worse than that though....from time to time unable to load a video at all. It's not an issue with the account or anything, purely performance based and I suspect due to some type of shaping.

I'm just curious as to whether anyone running the service here has good consistent speeds?

Cheers!

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Ultimate Geek

#436150 7-Feb-2011 10:20

I use both netflix and Hulu and have had issues for the last week or so. On telecom. Before that has been great.
Chorus has been about 2 blocks away playing with a cabinet that was put in in November, so maybe that is the issue for me.

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#436153 7-Feb-2011 10:30

I use Netflix and HULU too and have different experiences with both of them. I'm on Orcon + in central Wellington so I get pretty decent speeds but i'm positive shaping of traffic to the US is always occuring.

With the way that Netflix works i've found the best result is to stop the proxy/vpn once it starts the 'determining video quality' test and then the throughput is much better and I never need to wait for it to buffer after the initial on screen one.

HULU doesn't let me do this and I have rather poor performance from them. It's forever buffering and i'm not going to persevere thanks to the traffic shaping.

reven

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#436155 7-Feb-2011 10:31

i use netflix all the time, most days. and its very much down to VPN i discovered.

when i was using strongvpn, it would only work on some days. i switched to overplay.net (they have a boxee plugin) and now i never have any issues with netflix and any of the boxee sources (fox, cbs etc - except hulu no longer works in boxee, but hulu desktop app is fine).

im on snap btw and in auckland on adsl2.

gehenna

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#436162 7-Feb-2011 10:40

I'm not using a VPN, but rather a manual DNS entry on my aTV...

myopinion

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#436164 7-Feb-2011 10:45

How about these guys? It isn't a VPN service but claims to work via DNS:

http://www.usvideo.org/ or

http://usvideo.org/home-nz?gclid=CMDQ-cS-9KYCFR5hgwodDGXfbA for a NZ specific message.

Any experience with it? I found it as a sponsored link on Google.

gehenna

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#436165 7-Feb-2011 10:49

Yeah that's the service I use. It's pretty good, have had no problems except for the current ones.

myopinion

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#436167 7-Feb-2011 10:51

Cool. Is this how you setup your Netflix account or do you have a US card?
http://usvideo.org/how-to-set-up/netflix/

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reven

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#436171 7-Feb-2011 10:53

myopinion: How about these guys? It isn't a VPN service but claims to work via DNS:

http://www.usvideo.org/ or

http://usvideo.org/home-nz?gclid=CMDQ-cS-9KYCFR5hgwodDGXfbA for a NZ specific message.

Any experience with it? I found it as a sponsored link on Google.

thanks for those links, im going to check those out instead.

gehenna

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#436174 7-Feb-2011 11:01

myopinion: Cool. Is this how you setup your Netflix account or do you have a US card?
http://usvideo.org/how-to-set-up/netflix/

You can use a NZ card, you just need to arrange a US address

jbard

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#436177 7-Feb-2011 11:07

Pretty keen to sign up to netflix, but what sort of speed to you need as a minimum and how much bandwidth does say a 90min movie use on average?

Cheers

Rollux

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#436214 7-Feb-2011 12:18

gehenna:
myopinion: Cool. Is this how you setup your Netflix account or do you have a US card?
http://usvideo.org/how-to-set-up/netflix/

You can use a NZ card, you just need to arrange a US address

This is how I do it. I live at Ohio state university, lol.

jbard

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#436215 7-Feb-2011 12:19

Rollux:
gehenna:
myopinion: Cool. Is this how you setup your Netflix account or do you have a US card?
http://usvideo.org/how-to-set-up/netflix/

You can use a NZ card, you just need to arrange a US address

This is how I do it. I live at Ohio state university, lol.

I would like to see what happens if you said you lived at the whitehouse. haha

Rollux

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#436223 7-Feb-2011 12:21

jbard: Pretty keen to sign up to netflix, but what sort of speed to you need as a minimum and how much bandwidth does say a 90min movie use on average?

Cheers

I don't know exact usage, but we're on a 20gig plan, my wife watches Desperate Housewives, private practice and Bros & sisters, plus 2 or 3 movies a month on top of emails and surfing and i think once we've gone over our cap. All depends what quality you watch tho!

jbard

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#436229 7-Feb-2011 12:23

Rollux:
jbard: Pretty keen to sign up to netflix, but what sort of speed to you need as a minimum and how much bandwidth does say a 90min movie use on average?

Cheers

I don't know exact usage, but we're on a 20gig plan, my wife watches Desperate Housewives, private practice and Bros & sisters, plus 2 or 3 movies a month on top of emails and surfing and i think once we've gone over our cap. All depends what quality you watch tho!

So you can choose the quality to watch it in?

I heard a ballpark figure of 1gig an hour?

Rollux

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Ultimate Geek

#436230 7-Feb-2011 12:23

gehenna: Yeah that's the service I use. It's pretty good, have had no problems except for the current ones.

We use hotspot shield for the HTPC without an issue. Just have to close the explorer window to prevent the ads coming thru. Netflix is intergrated into MC so it's easy

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