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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."
See what happens
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.
Oh well.. I tried to go legit, but time to fire up bittorrent again, I guess. They are just shooting themselves in the foot.
Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
It seems that Netflix is significantly throttling Watch Instantly users down to an unusable cap â" in my case, 48 kbps
That's about the cumulative bandwidth Clearwire gives me on some days.
(on the PC)
They must have partnered with Apple.
Netflix. Silverlight. And a series of tubes.
Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got...an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.
They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
I had streaming issues through Xbox Live tonight. I thought it was just me.
demand might be spiking more than they are used to and cannot keep up
were you watching during a high peak time? maybe they need to invest in more bandwidth.
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.
Now we have confirmed that Netflix is throttling instant streaming PC-users to a rediculous 50 or 60 KB/sec cap
That's an interesting argument. He showed that each thread was throttled to 50 or 60 KB/sec, but he never had any evidence to support his argument atht it's netflix at fault, not his ISP or some other internet issue.
... this doesn't make any sense. Its not like Netflix has a number of online offerings, and wants to prevent abuse from streaming movies - streaming movies IS the only (online) service they provide, and at 48kbps, their watch instantly feature is, as the poster said, completely unusable.
I suspect that this is a bug - they're probably detecting your internet connection incorrectly and streaming at a much lower speed than can actually be supported.
If this is deliberate - what did that expect - that nobody'd notice ?
FYI there was a misconfiguration in the Netflix service (I'm a Netflix admin). The throttling was SUPPOSED to be 480 kpbs, which we think should be sufficient. It's already fixed.
Tell them why.
Piracy this. Piracy that. What about the consumers that actually you know.. DON'T PIRATE? They get treated like this.
The people who pirate are better off. They get higher quality content and don't have to put up with the antics of corporations.
Why do you think it's Netflix? Maybe it's you ISP? This problem started for me when Comcast took over my local ISP. At the same time as the switch over there was a rush of people who brought in their computer for repair or upgrade because their internet connection was acting funny. When i finally complained enough they sent out a technition who told me they had installed allot of new software. Is /. trolling?
I read this article, and it seems to me this guy came to a conclusion before he came to an experiment.
What he DID prove is that a Netflix server in LA was only handing out 50KB/sec per http socket. Most web type servers will do this when under heavy load- better to give everybody a little bit than a few people a lot and the others nothing. I think this is correct behavior for a heavy-load situation.
However, when he accuses them of throttling, along with the way this article is titled, STRONGLY implies that they are throttling specific users who use too much. If he wanted to prove this the test is simple- log out of netflix and log in with a friend's account, preferably a friend who doesn't stream much.
Throttling also implies that Netflix is intentionally reducing the connection quality. I see no logical reason for them to do this to EVERYbody, as that would make the Instant Watch service useless for everybody. Far more likely, as stated above, is that he's on an overloaded server.
So my take on it is this article is incompletely researched, draws a bad conclusion (which doesn't make much sense) from too little evidence, and doesn't perform the one test needed to actually verify it's claim.
--IronHelix
I've been using the Watch Instantly feature on a pc, mac, and xbox 360 with an 8 mbps cable connection and I consistently get the top quality on all of them.
I just pulled it up, and it works great. Not sure what to tell you on that except I wouldn't think that Netflix is throttling all customers, or mine would have been throttled. Maybe you need to look at your broadband connection for errors or your wireless for issues.
In his blog lambasting Neftlix, he says:
"Bringing up the Status window I noticed my download performance was a far cry from my 7 mbps speed, but rather a measly 0.48 mbps, about 1/14th the speed of my line"
In the article summary above, he's now saying 48 kbps.
0.48mbps is actually 480kbps, so he's off by a factor of 10, which (while still pretty crappy) makes it sound much worse than it actually is. So which one is it, OP?
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
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.
If there is any throttling going on, it is more likely that your ISP is responsible for it. Cable companies and DSL providers who are getting into the video on demand business may not like Netflix beating them to market with a more cost effective product...
I'm on a ~10Mbps downlink, and 2 or 3 months ago my wife and I had no problems at all; watch instantly was literally just about that. I'm not sure if it's the new Silverlight player or if they are throttling bandwidth, but there definitely was a noticeable and sudden degradation in download / wait time performance 3-5 weeks ago.
KDawson, you're pissed at Blockbuster and now Netflix. Can no one please you?
/. as your personal pulpit.
Perhaps you should go back to reading books and not use
Yes I do feel 2 posts in 8 hrs is excessive. And yes I fully expect your "friends" to mod me down.
Netflix streaming seems to work just fine to my PC - I just tried it. It works fine to my Tivo as well. On occasion, there are problems - but as a reasonably intelligent adult, my first assumption isn't that Netflix is causing these problems intentionally. And you know what? If I go back and try again later, things usually have sorted themselves out!
I have to wonder about the average age and/or maturity level of some Slashdot submitters, as well as the editors approving these "stories"...
#DeleteChrome
It is like water pressure when taking a shower. When too many people try to watch a movie at the same time the pressure drops. Then there isn't enough force to get it to your TV or computer, and whatever does make it through is so weak that it has trouble pushing photons out the screen. They sort of dribble out and the quality sucks.
So, I figured it would be best to check out if his story is true, since he was getting just 48 Kb/sec that is what I expected to get when I spawned curl, but instead I got: 1817k Uh, what happened there? How come it worked perfectly fine? It is even maxing out the 20 Mbit connection I pay Cox for monthly!
They're both about as ill-informed, uninteresting, and/or blatantly untrue. Actually reading the reasoning behind the theory is like listening to my cousin babble about how he had to reinstall Vista so it would be on the "inner discs" of his hd platter thereby running faster.
Slow news night?
Sometimes a static queue isn't such a horrible thing. :P
A class-action law suit is in order. The key argument here is that they say: "Streamed instantly to your TV... etc."
Instant streaming implies that you are able to watch. This is NOT the case with throttling. The throttling is deliberate and prejudicial based on the unit used to connect to their service.
*** Don't be dull.***
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.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
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?
One of my neighbors is a netflix subscriber. His work is such that he HAS to have access to the internet all the time. So he has both DSL and Cable through a router that allows him to use both. This router allows him to direct traffic through one ISP or the other. When he directs netflix through the cable connection, the video stream stutters and skips. When he directs it through the DSL connection, the problems disappear. This is despite the fact that the cable connection has a nominal bitrate that is much higher.
The conclusion that he came to is that his cable provider is messing with netflix because it is competition for their own on-demand service.
I think something similar may be happening here.
This makes a lot more sense than the notion that netflix would drive away customers by providing a broken service.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Just because they perceive there to be extra capacity doesn't mean there is. Whenever you use additional TCP connections, you take bandwidth at the expense of everyone else because TCP (Jacobson's algorithm) rations on a per-flow basis and not a per-user basis.
http://formortals.com/Home/tabid/36/EntryID/170/Default.aspx
Means they can't use copyright infringement on behalf of users as justification for illegal acts either.
Doesn't seem to stop them.
Because a Netflix admin posted that they had typed in the limit incorrectly as 48kbps instead of 480kpbs.
If that's right then YOU have to apologise since the article is correct and kdawson is right. And YOU are wrong. Twice.
With an average of a 50ms response time, Iâ(TM)m going to go ahead and say my 7 mbps Qwest DSL service is working as advertised,
Most likely his provider blows.
He WAS throttled to 480Kbps, and was getting download speeds of about 50K (that's kiloBYTES) per second (per connection).
TFA:"Bringing up the Status window I noticed my download performance was a far cry from my 7 mbps speed, but rather a measly 0.48 mbps...:"
0.48Mbps = 480Kbps (kiloBITS/sec) = roughly about 48KBps (kiloBYTES/sec)
So the /. story summary makes things sound an order of magnitude worse than they are. But you know, what's just ONE order of magnitude of error between friends, right?
This is ridiculous. I know plenty of people, myself included, who have no trouble streaming Netflix. I stream to a Mac connected to our home theater with almost no buffering.
It's obviously this guy's connection, and the obvious solution is to change ISPs. There doesn't have to be some conspiracy to throttle throughput. It could simply be congestion. Performance where I live is always better at off peak times.
Make love, not reality television.
or a Layer 8 issue- Your choice.
netflix has been throttling back lately. Especially on my 360, HD content always starts out as HD and then stops because the buffer runs out. My comcast cable is setup to burst the first x number of MB in any download or stream. So, I get 40-60Mbps for the first 20-30MB of the stream or download, and then it's down to 6Mbps. Netflix sees this as my internet connection slowing and turns down the bitrate dramatically. PC streaming was generally lower res than the 360 though.
I also discovered that the bitrate on my PC was being locked at 500Kbps. They have two different bitrates: The video playing bitrate and the buffering bitrate.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I use my Netflix in NYC close to every night of the week; and watch HD content (sometimes via my Blu-ray, and sometimes my computer if I'm in a different part of the apartment) and it's impressive - no long load times, only once in a while does it reload at a lower speed (and this is usually from a temporary drop in my connection - if I stop and restart it goes right back to HD quality). In NYC we have a LOT of people sharing a finite amount of data transfer via cable. So this smells like BS (or perhaps the OP just has a bad connection, it happens).
Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody... - Dick Armey
but my experience is pretty terrible. I usually stream Netflix videos with my XBox 360 and have a fast enough connection that it is possible to get "4 bars" from Netflix. However, most of the time I have to watch everything at the lowest quality, presumably due to congestion. I am not using anywhere near my maximum down bandwidth (according to the bandwidth graphs on my router), and my ISP is surprisingly good at being able to provide that full bandwidth. If I actually try to max out the connection, I can usually reach 85-90% before things become more-or-less unusable, but Netflix almost never works right. It worked great a few months ago, but lately I can't take it. So, while I don't agree with the article's methodology, there may be some substance to comments about the experience. I know I spend a lot of time angry with the whole thing.
My guess is that this is a plant from Blockbuster to combat people leaving because of their Total Access policy change about swapping movies at the store. I read that story and immediately went to Netflicks to look at their packages... and I'm switching! So, nice try Blockbuster...
I *did* read the article (imagine that!). The writer is way too eager to blame it on Netflix with very little, if any, proof it's their fault. Here's my main arguements, which I posted on his blog: ---------- "âoeThe overall slow down combined with the huge discrepency between the two experiences (Netflix-enabled device and my PC) made me decide to start Googling and see if I could figure out what was going on â" I smelled shenanigansâ¦â What discrepancy? The service is sucking on both. Maybe the client software is written slightly different on each platform? âoeNow we have confirmed that Netflix is throttling instant streaming PC-users to a rediculous 50 or 60 KB/sec capâ¦â Uhh⦠yeah⦠no you didnâ(TM)t. All you proved is thereâ(TM)s an issue somewhere between your computer and the netflix service. Where did you, at any point, prove itâ(TM)s not Qwest putting in an artificial limit? Maybe itâ(TM)s a peering problem somewhere on the route. Traceroute isnâ(TM)t going to show you where the bad link is. Lets say Qwest is filtering the video service, well ping and traceroute wouldnâ(TM)t show a damn difference compared to normal. Personally I think this is a non-story as far as itâ(TM)s written until further, better proof can be obtained. For now, this is someone who knows just enough to do basic network diagnostics and who jumps to conclusions, rather than taking a more âoescientific approachâ to solving the problem. Go around asking other people with Netflix streaming over other ISPâ(TM)s who watch about as many movies a month as the writer if their service has crapped out, then maybe youâ(TM)ll have more of an âoeEducated Guessâ rather than your âoejust pointing a fingerâ answer." ----------- Call me crazy, but it seems more like jumping to conclusions rather than figuring out the common denominator between any other users who may be experiencing slowdowns/poor service themselves.
Honestly that's crazy. I know in this area the burst went up to around 12mbps, though they do advertise 16mbps in some cases (not sure if that's not offered here yet or if we're a little too far out/on a semi-loaded up loop). Very rarely does mine last at that speed for 20-30MB, mostly that seems to be with Microsoft's website downloading an app for someone in need. Most of the time it tops at about 6mbps which is the reg rate (as you post). Either your numbers aren't quite right and are exaggerated, Comcast is giving you a nice deal, or you're on a different plan I haven't seen available in this area. I'm not saying either is right, but if it *is* the second option I'm jealous. Most of the files I download sit between 30MB to 50MB and having the 40-60mbps would be sweet!
The approach is simple: Any time you have a problem watching a Netflix Instant View movie, contrive a grand and complex reason as to how Netflix is secretly (insert devious deed here) your (insert desired activity here). Sprinkle it with important sounding numbers, straw men and kittens and your done.
It's BS it's his isp or his own network. I wouldn't be surprised if it's his own network considering he doesn't appear very smart. I watched 5 hours of netflix yesterday and it was fine.
On my xbox 360, videos buffer in hd resolution in about 5 to 10 seconds. Sometimes they don't look as good as hd-dvds or bluray, but they definitely beat out a standard dvd. Not all instant movies show in hd, but those that don't load even more quickly and still look dvd quality.
If they have actually been screwing with his connection he deserves a full refund. Netflix loves to throw around the word "unlimited" however they don't see to love to offer it. It looks like we have to sue just to get what we paid for (again).
me too. my mac is fast. I can speed test my connection for both burst and sustained transfers. I can watch Hulu and related without gaps. yet Netflix chokes. Not all the time. Just between 6 and 11 at night.
When you trace route the connection you find it makes about 5 hops in comcast network than about 5 to 10 hops in the limelight network. limelight is netflix's stream provider.
There appear to be huge latentcies-- like 500 milliseconds.
When I talk to the netflix techs they say the latencies are the issue. They cause packet resends.
I point out to them that if their streaming protocol were designed properly, given there is ample bandwidth, they should be able to work around the latency. Besides which I'd be even happier if I could switch between streaming (for browsing movies) and pre-loading them for viewing (like apple).
They say that they have no control over the transfer protocol--that's handled by silver light. and they have no control over the ability to buffer or pre-load because that's set by their drm contract's with the movie providers.
Basically if you want to watch a movie at assuredly good resolution and without gaps then maybe it's worth paying apple a couple bucks to pre-download it. Of course, the drawback is you have to know what you want to watch first.
Having done it both ways I find that part of the magic of a good movie is the immersive suspension of disbelief it creates when it is uninterrupted. So these interruptions are more than just annoying. They move the experience to a different part of your brain-- the part that likes TV not the part that suspends reality (like a good book can do).
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I've done that test. Qwest DSL and comcast cable suck equally.
I discussed what I think is the real issue in this post above.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I think this is related to the conspiracy against PC users who don't get HD streamed like the xbox crowd who does.
I use the Watch Instantly all the time as I do not have cable and have no problems. I'd check with my ISP before blaming Netflix.
OP: Are you doing any P2P stuff with your connection? I think you better check all your activity before you go blaming Netflix.
As it happens, the video in this story is being served up by Limelight (a CDN similar to Akamai, but aimed at streaming media), not Netflix itself.
That said, if Limelight is pulling the original file to its edge servers (Los Angeles, in the case of this story) from a Netflix-controlled origin point instead of a Limelight origin point, then shitty speed on Netflix's server would translate to shitty speed from Limelight for the user.
Disclaimer: the company I work for (not Netflix!) uses both types of origin points with Limelight, and we do occasionally see serious speed issues on files served from our self-run origin points. Usually only on the really big ones though (like 1GB +). And a phone call to Limelight's client support usually fixes the problem within a few minutes.
Dammit, I meant to post that anonymously!
I just am on my 2nd month with netflix, .. I only use it for Blu-Ray, I wish they were able to have better quality streams and even Blu-ray streams.
~~ My pc is running amd64x2 DUALCORE 6100 -- 3.2gig /// with 8gig ram only using a geoforce 8400 vid card for now...
anyways- I just like renting blu-ray from them,.. i get 3 a time,.. and thats like every 3-4 days for me... saves alllot of money from buying them. only one i own is "FearLess" bought it when i bought my Blu-ray drive at BestBuy.
I'd call/email Netflix. Their customer/technical support has been excellent every time I've used it, which is a shocking rarity these days (especially if you have to deal with Verizon and their ilk on a regular basis).
Netflix are one of those weird companies that still seem to give a damn about their customers. It's one of the things that keeps me a subscriber.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I smelled shenanigans
Thank goodness this close to St.Patty's Day somebody is finally smelling them shenanigans!
Who cares about the throttling?
The link he posted in the article to the WMV works for anyone!
i stopped using their service in protest as they were throttling my DVD delivery service. if you use too many dvd's per secret time period they purposely hold your dvd's longer. it's not surprising that they're doing this too. get away with one bad customer tactic, try another one.
Mark Smith
if you are experiencing those kind of buffering times you must be using the crappy old player. Try upgrading to the new player.
Is it possible they are running out of bandwidth due to increase demand of their streaming service?
I still think it is junk that PC streamers do not get HD options as we pilot'd the product and yes I have gotten obsurdly low results before.
I was having all sorts of trouble. Watching my bandwidth meters on my Smoothwall (stand alone firewall on a spare machine), it appears that the data stream on the RED side (connected to the cable modem) was being interrupted somewhere, (7Kbps to 0Kbps for 5 seconds back to 7Kbps) and of course, I blamed the ISP.
While waiting for the tech to arrive, I dug a bit deeper. SSH'ed into the firewall, and turns out the RED NIC was going bad. Collisions and errors like crazy.
Swapped out the Smoothwall with a spare Linksys and DD-WRT, and the issue is resolved, and have full 10Kbps download again.
The moral of the story...check your hardware in detail, too. Working doesn't always mean it's working correctly.
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I streamed a season or so of the office in HD and my ISP throttled my connection back to the point where I couldn't even watch it in standard definition. I doubt it's netflix and more likely it's your ISP cutting you back because of the heavy usage. Is it just your netflix service or does the rest of your internet get slow too?
I use the streaming pretty frequently over the 360 and occasionally with the browser player and never had any issues. Not a one. In fact the quality on the 360 is fantastic.
I had some issues with my Cable Modem, which would just reset when streaming from Netflix. I got another cable modem (since mine was 5 years old) which solved the problem and I consistently get the best quality stream now. I would have your ISP check out your cable network for faults and do further troubleshooting.
The whole article is a miscalculation.
His player reported 0.48 Mbps or 480 kbps and not 48 kbps!!!
From FTA:
"Bringing up the Status window I noticed my download performance was a far cry from my 7 mbps speed, but rather a measly 0.48 mbps, about 1/14th the speed of my line:"
Even the screen image shows 1/2 Mbps.
480 kbps is nothing to complain about.
Can't believe nobody noticed this... is this ./ ?
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