Netflix Throttling Instant Video Streaming

rsk writes "For the last few weeks I've been experiencing terrible streaming video performance from Netflix on both my Xbox 360 and PC. While my Xbox 360 would at least stream at a lower resolution, my PC cannot seem to avoid 2-hr. buffering times before playback even started. I smelled shenanigans and started digging. With some help finding the debug menu for the streaming video player, I set out to figure out why playback was so slow. It seems that Netflix is significantly throttling Watch Instantly users (on the PC) down to an unusable cap — in my case, 48 kbps — on a per-connection basis."

Hrm.

[pregister]

I dunno. I used it tonight and the speeds were fine even when fast fowarding through slow parts of my selected movie.

I'll try later tonight. The streaming is the only reason I use netflix. I haven't actually returned the one DVD I have in the last few months.

Not Netflix fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot should actually do a little fact checking before posting stories such as this. I have the Netflix service and it works perfectly, the problem here is the user's internet connection or internal network. The testing he utilized tripped of a DDOS on the Limelight network content delivery service.

Netflix doesn't even deliver the streams to individual users, so if this were an actual problem Limelight would be the one to go after, not netflix. Again, there is nothing wrong with netflix, the problem is behind the keyboard.

48 kbps?

[pgn674]

In the blog post, Riyad Kalla says it was going at "0.48 mbps" (should be Mbps BTW), which is 480 kbps, not 48 kbps. Still slow for high quality streaming video, but much faster than dialup.

Re:Not Netflix fault.

[frapas]

Hi agree. I used netflix whith a domestic ADSL from Italy. Netflix block instant watch outside USA, so I used a simple virtual server whith squid http proxy located in USA. Netflix worked fine nevertless the longest path !

Re:maybe they only have so much bandwidth?

[Ethanol-fueled]

No luck. Just tried and it was unable to disentangle the Netflix DRM (prompt for username and pass) from the wmv.

Note: Tunebite looks a little too, ahem, legit for that anyway ;)

Pure FUD

[Mike Buddha]

Wow, is Slashdot making a news article out of every morons malware induced performance issues? I watch Netflix Instant View DAILY (love the Kojak, baby) and have NEVER had issues with bandwidth limiting in the last few weeks or ever for that matter. After I read the headline, I fired up Stargate Continuum on my PC (highest quality stream, according to the service menu) and my Xbox 360 (IN HD NO LESS) and it popped up instantly with no quality issues and no delay. Next time, try contacting your crappy ISP before you waste our time with your sky-is-falling BS.

My current experience

[2.7182]

Is that streaming has been working particularly well for me in the last few weeks. I use a Mac. Maybe it's a zero sum game?

Re:My current experience

[DurendalMac]

Define "particularly well". I can't watch Netflix streaming on the Mac because of the constant stutters. Every 5-10 seconds or so, the video will stall for about a second, then catch up. It's not a connection issue as it's buffered out fine. It's not a speed issue as I'm on a 2.8ghz Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM. It's just shitty software.

Re:Not Netflix fault.

[jimbudncl]

This is correct. Diagnosing bandwidth issues between two points on the internet is extremely non-trivial. If you don't have access to every device between you and someone else, the best you can do is make educated guesses. Now, if he looked in the debugging info and saw:

"Throttling this luser's stream to 48Kbps, mwuahahahaha!"

THEN, that'd be something worth reporting ;)

On a side note, my data center's main bandwidth is provided by Limelight Networks. Some offsite backups are sent to a separate office building using Time Warner's commercial cable. Eight months ago, our throughput dropped from a steady 10Mbps to 30Kbps... for a month straight. Many hours of phone calls resulted in everyone finger pointing at everyone else. In the mean time, I setup a VPN between the two sites using IPSec, and was able to initiate a transfer through it at 10Mbps. The same transfer, outside the VPN, resulted in 30Kbps throughput. IPSec hides even the Transport layer data, so only source and destination IPs are visible (no TCP/UDP port numbers can been peeked at by prying eyes). Once they couldn't classify the service (SSH, HTTP, etc), whoever was throttling just let it pass.

Interestingly, once I harped on this enough to higher level managers, the problem disappeared :)

Don't trust anyone.

Re:Sue them

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, because internet neutrality doesn't currently exist.

Re:Sue them

[Firehed]

No laws currently exist either way, but ISPs (at least US-based ones) are currently operating in a net-neutral manner in order to keep common carrier status and therefore not be liable for any of the illegal downloading their customers do. It's certainly in their best interest to continue doing so; trying to force their own service over a competitor's may net them a bit more cash, but it would also allow them to be put directly in the crosshairs of $100B mass copyright infringement suits from the RIAA and MPAA, among others.

Don't confuse that with QoS between protocols, though. AFAIK, it's okay for them to prioritize VOIP over HTTP over streaming over bit-torrent without losing common carrier status, so long as the prioritization is equal for all destinations (i.e., Skype and Vonage would be on par with their own VOIP offering).

IANAL of course - that's just my understanding of the issues. Could be way off, in which case please correct me.

Re:Sue them

[Fancia]

ISPs are not common carriers, and never have been. It's a common misconception on Slashdot for some reason. Like this [cybertelecom.org] article notes, ISPs have historically not wanted to be regulated under the pre-existing common carrier regulations.

Re:My current experience

[NeverVotedBush]

The Roku player is only $100 and I have only had it stutter once when my maximum download speed via DSL was 1.5 Mbps.

I have upgraded to 7 Mbps service from Qwest and it works like a dream. I have Tomato on my router so can view the bandwidth as a real-time graph and I see pulses of around 5 Mbps down with about a 25-33% duty cycle.

Obviously you need to pipe the Roku output to something to display it. I pipe it to my TV instead of trying to watch movies on my Mac. But the convenience factor is very nice.

The Roku player has also just had a firmware upgrade that allows you to tie the player to Amazon as well as to Netflix. They say even more is coming. But it's now possible to rent or buy movies from Amazon to watch on the Roku too. Quality is the same as Netflix movies as best I can tell.

One thing to watch out for if you want to rent a movie on Amazon and have a Netflix account - make sure it isn't available on Netflix already for streaming viewing. It's interesting that a number of Amazons movies available to rent or buy are also available through Netflix as part of your regular account.

I use computers for lots of stuff but for me, watching a movie or TV show on a big display in my living room or bedroom is much nicer than sitting at my desk or holding a warm laptop.

Re:Not Netflix fault.

[spire3661]

I watched 4 hours of Netflix last night without a hitch. Granted it was really late at night, but it was just like watching normal TV.