Netflix on HTPC - Page 5

Update on Hulu...had some tearing on a couple shows last night. I think a lot depends on how well it's been encoded on the back end because it's not every show. But even with the tearing there was, it was a lot better then before.

Netflix streaming is weird to say the least:

http://yfrog.com/mnnetflixp

And after streaming a movie for about 20 minutes:

http://yfrog.com/0pnetflix2p

I think they need to stabilize their buffering much like Hulu.

Hulu uses Flash movies that are constant bitrate and Netflix uses WMV movies that are variable bitrate. Also, the Netflix player is in constant communication with their servers as well as constantly monitoring/testing your connection speed. So you will never see the Netflix movie buffering "stabilize".

has anyone reported having problems to netflix? i went though the 'watch instantly' contact us page and reported all of my latest movies has having stuttering/pauses

After bumping up to a Powercolor fan less 5670 1 gig card and increasing memory to 6 or 8 gigs, netflix plays fairly smooth on both my 1080P monitors simultaneously. Sometimes I forget I'm watching shows on the net.

mcantu1

No specific information to go on so here are some suggestions on trying to track down the problem(s).

check your internet connection. make sure your connection speed will support one of NF speeds. NF takes 60% of your connection to determine which of the NF encode rate to use.

if wireless, again check your connection, especially if your are attempting to get a NF HD stream.

Now let's go to your hardware. Using a browser, I use firefox, start an IW movie in the browser. Do not go to full screen mode. Once the movie starts, perform an Ctrl-Shift-Alt-s on your keyboard. This will overlay a statistics window on the movie playing. Now go to to full screen mode. The statistical overlay may help you in determining where your problem is located. There is also Ctrl-Shift-Alt-m.

It's possible that your CPU or graphics cars is not powerful enough, especially if you are trying to stream an HD movie. When NF 1st turned on HD streaming for PC, there were a lot of people who had a internet connection capable of getting the HD stream but their computer was unable to handle the new HD stream. In the browser there is an option to not use an HD stream. See if this will fix your problem. Also, you can force the NF player to use one of the lower SD encode rates. See if a lower SD encode rate will fix your problem. If a lower encode rate fixes your problem then it sounds like either the cpu and/or graphics card may need an upgrade.

thx for the input.

hardware:
cpu: AMD Phenom II X3 720
video card: 8800GT
ram: 4GB

network:
50Mb down/5Mb up
connect to router gigabit lan port with cat 6a cable

the silverlight stats screens how everything is running as it should. the pauses happen on HD and SD movies. however, when watching with an xbox via wifi, there are no pauses at all.

changing my power settings from 'balanced' to high performance' helped some but there are still noticeable stutters esp on panning scenes

I'm seeing references to Netflix HD. Does Netflix actually stream content in HD now? How can I get it? I'm seeing only material available that is below DVD quality.

Yep, listed in the particular movie whether it's available as an HD stream.

Works great on stand alone boxes like the XBOX360. Also now works on HTPCs/computers. Lots of reports about subpar experiences on high performance HTPCs on fast dedicated networks though some people find it acceptable, too.

I gave Netflix a try tonight on my PS3 connected to my DSL Lite INTERNET connection. The movie is from a DVD and looked like a DVD should look. It played fine. I was amazed because I expected HTPC Hulu like stuttering and degradation. Soon I will try Netflix out with my HTPC and with a HD movie.

However, the audio was stereo. I looked into the audio quality issue and found out that stereo is all that is sent, (subtitles available only on foreign films). I have found a well recorded stereo track can be adequate, but if the sound recording was not done very well I have difficulty understanding the dialogue.

Add me to the list. i just built a new i5 clarkdale based WMC7 system with the intel graphics on the chip. cpu usage is very low, netflix at 3800Kb, 50Mbs internet connection, lots of video buffered yet i get judder when the scene pans. i tried turning my power settings to full throttle and i thought that might be better but tonight i still see it.

is there a place i can control things like refresh rate? when wmc goes full screen it seems to apply it's own settings rather than the ones i set up in the graphics card. all i can find in wmc is this goofy little window asking if i have a tv, projector, etc. maybe the wmc display settings are in a registry setting?

greg

why is everyone trying to fix Silverlight's problems by fixing their computer?

I've seen any number of (non-Netflix) video streams play perfectly on Silverlight. I'm sure it is a combination of the encoding not really working all the well with the way Silverlight does playback. My guess is that both the Netflix encoding and Silverlight both need to be updated.

so i never noticed this judder on xbox. do they use a different software stack over there?

greg

I built an i3/530 machine with 4 GB RAM, have the same stutter in Netflix mostly in pan scenes. Fortunately I have an Xbox 360 in my setup which works great for Netflix, so I've been using that for now. But would prefer that they fix this for HTPC's.

XBOX works much better, in my experience, than a high powered HTPC, for streaming Netflix HD.

I have netflix setup on my Xbox 360, my HTPC build with i3 & H55 in WMC7, and another HTPC build with athlon X2 and HD5670 in Vista MC. I am able to stream HD content on my WMC7 and Xbox 360 but not on my Vista MC build. I have the latest Silverlight installed on my Vista build but can't get HD to stream using MCE or a browser. Is HD streaming content only available for W7? Other than that I don't seem to have any juddering issues when view on any of my systems.

mancatu1

I do not claim to be an expert but I would point my finger at your 8800 GT card as being your problem. I have a 9600 GT card and I do not have any problems with HD streams. I would make sure that you have the latest drivers from Nvidia. Note - I am NOT a big user of IW.

utee05

I was able to stream HD under Vista with MC. Regardless of whether you used a browser or MC in Vista you had to update to the new NF player to get the new HD stream. The update was suppose to be automatic but there were people who's machines were not automatically updated. Do you see the 'HD' icon in the NF control bar on your screen in Vista? If not, then I would suspect that your machine has not been updated. You can force a new download of the NF player but have to find the existing NF player and delete it.

For those of you that are having problems and think it might be a hardware problem you might want to try this http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml . This is a software product that AnandTech has started using when testing hardware as a HTPC.

I don't think the WMC Netflix studdering issue has much to do with hardware.

Netflix is working fine on my HTPC with an OK picture and 5.1 sound, (the movie North Face). I think the HTPC is a little better platform than on my PS3. I am using Windows 7 Media Center, Internet Explorer, Silverlight, a D-Link DIR-655 router, GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P P45 775 R mother board, HIS H467QSS1GP HD4670 1GB graphics card, CPU INTEL|C2D E7400 2.8G 775, 2GX2|A-DATA ADQVE1B16K memory, HD 640G|WD 7K 16M WD6400AAKS hard drive, DSL Lite Internet, ATI catalyst 10.7

For reference quality blu-ray where I want 1080p picture quality and top of the line audio I would stick with a blu-ray disk. Otherwise, Netflix "watch now" does the trick for me.

5.1 sound? Netflix isn't offering that on the PC AFAIK.

I thought 2.1 was the top I could get.

And maybe I was mistaken, but I was getting sound that seemed to be coming from my surround speakers. The 2 channel lpcm icon was on the computer lcd and the 5.1 icon was on the receiver. Try the movie North Face and see what you get.

I tried it. To make sure it's the same movie, it's a German movie with subtitles in English?

Anyway, it was 2 channel for me. Although it was a very good mix thru all 5 speakers. Then again I have my AVR set to mux 2 channel to the 5 speakers. But the AVR only detected 2 channel PCM.

Correct, that is the movie.

I heard one particular sound about 2/3 through the movie that seemed to be coming from my right surround speaker and the storm on the mountain at the end seemed to be using the surround speakers. However, unless Netflix is rolling out 5.1 I am mistaken. Maybe something fell off the shelf under the right surround speaker, the storm audio was just a good 2.1 mix or the city is putting something in the tap water. I am not feeling a need to be right about this.

I hope this Netflix /Silverlight issue gets resolved soon. I get slight jerky studder on my new HTPC, only on Netflix. My kids Wii Netflix looks better.

On another matter . . .

One thing I have never found on this forum is what are the optimal GPU settings for ATI Cataylist(I have onboard HD 4300) specifically for HTPC use. There are alot of settings in there and I am not sure I have them set correctly - Periodically I get strange slight shading on video images(Netflix) and not sure if I have everything set optimal.

Is there a guide somewhere for this.

Are you using Pro Logic? I've found it to be pretty good at putting atmospheric effects in the surrounds.

i just wish they would make the netflix interface in WMC not take forever and a day.

select netflix, go get a beer, select instant queue, go put in a pizza, select tv show, let the dog out, select episode, let the dog back in...
eventually i get to watch something.

ha, and eat and drink and the dog is happy. that's not a bad system.

I see issues with Judder also on a Spring 2010 13" Macbook Pro. The problem exists when running either OS X or Windows 7 (installed with bootcamp) on the same Laptop. So, the problem is not isolated to PC only, but the Mac as well. Both OS X and Windows 7 are running Silverlight 3.

Specs:
2.4 Ghz Intel Duel Core CPU
Nvidia 320M GPU

Display: Panasonic 1080P LCD HDTV
Display Input: HDMI

Verified yesterday that even with gpu accelleration enabled on my quad core win 7 pc the problem still persists. Does anyone know what the recent silverlight update was supposed to correct?