Slashdot Mirror
Uproar Over Netflix's New Instant Viewer
almechist writes "Many Netflix customers are up in arms over the new instant-watch player powered by Microsoft's Silverlight. The official Netflix blog is full of complaints from users who decry not only the new player's quality but also the way it's being distributed, with many claiming they were deceived into downloading it. Once you opt for the new player, the old Windows Media based player won't function, not on any computer associated with the account. The new player is supposedly still beta, but NF members are strongly encouraged (some say tricked) by NF into the so-called 'upgrade,' which is permanent — there is no way to opt out. The marked decrease in video quality seen by those who have switched is perhaps not surprising, since the old player could utilize bit streams up to twice as fast as the new one, but this information is nowhere given out by NF. So far NF has been answering all complaints with variations on 'tough luck pal, you're stuck with it,' but many customers are so disgusted they're ready to cancel their NF membership. This could be a public relations disaster in the making for Netflix."
Really. No one wants DRM. The process of taking your computer from you is slow and incremental.
It looks like a flag is set for the account when you "upgrade."
no, really. cancel your membership. now. everyone. then they will change. consumer whining does nothing. comsumers taking their money elsewhere does everything.
I was one of the early adopters. Within a week of the release of NetFlix streaming on the XBox, my PC feed became useless. It would keep stopping to buffer, and eventually stop indefinitely. When I called NetFlix to complain, they suggested I try the Silverlight player. The quality was roughly on par with YouTube, but the buffering problems went away, so I went with it.
I'm wondering if the problem is not so much poor software quality as it is a bottleneck in the feed itself. Perhaps the servers can't take the load, or perhaps they simply don't have enough well-placed bandwidth. Their instant viewing subscriber base has been climbing tremendously.
well from the summary, it sounds like it's server side, because other computers on the same account can't use the old player anymore either, so a simple uninstall and reinstall wouldn't work.
when i first saw the silverlight player i considered trying it out. but when i looked into it, netflix made it clear that this would make silverlight your only option. i didn't really want to go full-on with silverlight so I just passed up on it.
it's not like netflix hid the fact that you couldn't use the WMP version. it wasn't discreetly placed in the fine print.. it was pretty clear.
now, i don't really understand why they are forcing it to be an all-or-nothing decision.. but don't blame them for something they told you ahead of time about, and you had to opt into.
frog blast the vent core
Even though they were running both players... This situation certainly associates silverlight with poor quality.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
=FUD. I have never seen an article penned by him (or her) that does not over-exaggerate the facts of the matter. The silverlight player has been out for a few months now. To have 480-odd complaints in that time, considering the size of Netflix's user base, while not great, is not that significant.
The implementation of silverlight is still an important problem because of the DRM and the possible incompatibilities and bugs, but it is nowhere a "disaster".
kdawson does nothing positive for slashdot. He should be removed. His entries sound like the worst kind of hellraising politics.
Personally, I am very happy with the new Silverlight-based movie player. The Windows Media Player-based solution offered no OS X support and I was forced to use VirtualBox to watch NF movies.
Also, in my experience the new player loads much faster and fast forwarding and rewinding works much better. I have not noticed a decrease in quality, probably because my Internet connection wasn't fast enough in the first place to get the highest-quality streams.
TerraIM - my pet AIM client project.
This could be a public relations disaster in the making for Netflix.
Nah, they'll be fine, as long as it doesn't make Slashdot.
Anyone remember being able to have multiple queues on your (shared) account with someone? Thrown out, in the name of "efficiency" to much booing.
They reverted that decision after the public outcry. We still have multiple queues on our account.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
The real reason for this change is that there are tools that rip the old Windows Media stream and let you save the instant movies on your computer. So far I haven't seen a similar tool for the Silverlight streams.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
There are pretty much three choices for streaming video right now:
1. Crappy encoder, low bitrate. This is what Youtube went with originally--they used FLV1 (Sorenson H.263) video, which at the time was the only real option (other than VP6, which wasn't much better). They went with 350kbps video. The result was pretty awful, but it worked for Youtube videos. It's free, so people will tolerate it. But for a paid service, such quality is absurd.
2. Crappy encoder, high bitrate. This is what Stage6 did; they used DivX, which, while better than FLV1, wasn't too much better. But what they did was allow absurdly high bitrates; I saw bitrates over 12 megabits per second for standard definition video! Of course, we all know what happened to Stage6; upon realizing the sheer amount of money that such bitrates cost, they went out of business, sort of like Wile. E. Coyote falling to the ground only after realizing that he was standing on air.
3. Good encoder, low bitrate. Facebook does ~600kbps standard definition video, and it looks great. Vudu does 1080p video on demand at 2.8mbps. Youtube now does 720p HD at 2 megabits. What do they have in common? They use x264 for encoding.
NetFlix chose to use VC-1 instead, and as a result they have 1.5 megabit standard definition streams that look like crap. And they don't even have an excuse anymore, because Silverlight supports H.264. Which is rather odd, actually, as Microsoft has been pushing for years to try to replace H.264 in the marketplace with their vastly inferior VC-1. Maybe they've given up because their campaign just isn't working.
At least they've got a player to whine about....
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
It looks like a flag is set for the account when you "upgrade."
So just cancel your account and sign up for a new one. Not like you get any special deals for your long-term loyalty.
Back in June of 2008 Netflix was going to shutdown the feature for managing separate queues. They sent an email and I canceled my account that day. Not sure how many of us there were, but they reversed course quickly. If you're pissed about the silverlight player. Close your account and email them a note to say why you did it. Maybe this will be a non-issue in the morning... Here is a link to the original plan on Ars Technica: Netflix killing extra queues
I just logged in to check, and the quality is fine. About as good as standard TV.
I think it is sort of funny that netflix gave this service to existing customers for free. and now people are bitching about the quality of this service that i see as basically icing on my dvd subscription cake.
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... or they could just conform to open standards.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
except that new accounts get no choice.
I recently signed up and never new about anything other than the silverlight player.
I don't read AC A human right
.torrent + utorrent + VLC = WTF is NetFlix?
If I could watch the instant content in Linux, I would already be a customer.
For now though, my torrents provide me the latest content, DRM-free, and they usually arrive faster than the mailed DVDs.
I would open another Netflix account and sell my old-school-player account on Ebay. New accounts now are Silverlight-only and the ability to use the old player has market value.
You need to upgrade your "sense of entitlement" -- you're falling way behind the current population.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
You can rent a physical good, like a disk or a cartridge, but you can't rent information.
At least, not until they have brain implants put into all their customers that delete the memories after the rental period is over. I'd give it 15 years or so.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Yes, how DARE customers expect a quality product....Imagine the GALL of a customer expecting to be treated with respect by people they give money to.
Note, in my OP i specified existing customers. If i recently became a subscriber because of watch instantly, i would be annoyed if the service declined (which i have not seen any evidence of personally - although i have had A/V sync issue specifically with animated content which i contacted netflix about with no reply).
As for respect? I have had pretty good experiences with netflix in the past. It does seem totally ridiculous that people can't 'back out' of the silverlight upgrade. I think perhaps netflix underestimated how quickly watch instantly would be adopted.
Let me just add, 95% of the shit we all bitch about (myself included) on slashdot is evidence of entitlement. We aren't complaining about not having food, or being jailed or executed for voicing our opinions online. We are bitching about not being able to play our movies or music everywhere we want or crappy software. Sure, if you pay for a product, you should get what you pay for. But remember that we are lucky to have access to the technologies that we have.
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Seriously I think it works excellently. And to complain about DRM on a RENTAL is insane especially when the original had DRM too. Sorry Im sure Netflix will take being able to offer films to Mac users and soon linux users with moonlight, over a few people bitching any day.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
OH puleeze...it's their service. They don't even have to HAVE streaming. If you don't like it then drop it.
You clearly are new here. As a subscriber to a technology that has both DRM and Microsoft attached to it, you are mandated to be (at a minimum) morally outraged.
I use Netflix, both the delivery by mail system, and the Instant View.
I "upgraded" to Silverlight when the service required me to do so.
The video quality is better. It is not interrupted nearly as often by network congestion as the old player was, and the "backwards/Forward" slider actually works without rebuffering the entire movie again. It also remembers where I left off when I close the IE. I can come back a week later and pick up right where I left off. The "free" service works better, by far.
But what about Windows Media player being borked? Until I read the summary, IT DIDN'T MATTER. Why?
Quite simple. I don't use Windows Media Player for ANYTHING BUT NETFLIX! Matter of fact, I don't use Internet Explorer for anything but Netflix as well!
As a matter of fact, Netflix is the only reason either of them are even installed on my machine. So, in essence, there was a net effect of ZERO, other then the above-mentioned benefits.
Amazing? It's called Alzheimer's disease you insensitive clod!
I just tried it yesterday. It seems to work fine. No fast-forward/reverse, but forward/backward selection from an image preview stack works well enough for me (for now). It does seem like the default auto-bitrate tends to set things on the low side. Try control-shift-alt-b to manually select from the three available bitrates, and control-shift-alt-m for a menu of other interesting stuff.
Coincidentally, I just dropped the Cox Cable DVR (SciAtl 8300HD) in favor of TiVo HD and...NetFlix!
I don't "see" the issues reported, at all. What I do see is that most users...Windows or not...don't have an optimal network setup, and THAT will impact any player, SilverLight included.
We've gone crazy on the "Instant" stuff, both with the Video On Demand feature of TiVo and the "Instant To Your PC" on the NetFlix site.
So far, only ONE movie has had issues and those traced back to my DSL router and ISP. Here's a good example of network "gotcha", by the way. My TiVO Desktop machine is a new build and the MTU was defaulted to 1500. That's cool UNLESS you're on a DSL link using PPPoE that supports 1492 as a max MTU. A video stream running in that setup is in packet fragmentation hell. Setting a correct MTU made NetFlix fly. End of problem.
Plus, I would NOT trade the MUCH better experience with TiVO/NetFlix compared to Cox. If nothing else, the equipment is better. The video scaler in the TiVO box is markedly better than the cheap chips in the SciAtl 8300HD. With component or HDMI, the TiVo provides a cleaner picture. HD is great, but the real test are OTA and basic cable analog signals; TiVO kicks ass. MUCH less noise and not as soft as the SciAtl box.
Oh, and another thing...MCards do exist and do work. I had Cox tell me they would be bringing 2 SCards for my TiVo HD. I insisted they bring ONE MCard, which they said "Tech Support has never heard of". The tech showed up with both, the MCard worked fine...after a 2nd poke from the Cox network...and it's great. I went back to the local Cox store and told the 2 CSRs there I had indeed received and installed the "non-existent" MCard.
In short, SilverLight works fine; most consumers...and their networks...do not.
I am my own gestalt.