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Netflix Streaming Jitter

post #1 of 158
1/16/11 at 11:27am
Thread Starter 
I'm considering cancelling my netflix subscription since streaming is just unwatchable due to panning jitter. I've counted six additional avs members who are near giving up and considering likewise. I hope we can consolidate here some of the input in various threads where this has come up.

After reading more extensively from other's experience with this I'm certain that known 24fps judder issues have nothing to at all to do with what we're experiencing. What is being experienced is a far more disruptive "jittering" at a much lower frequency than 24fps. This is such a prevalent subtopic in threads, and seems to have generated so many frustrating dead ends, that I'd like to give it it's own thread. Having first focusing on 24fps issues I ended up running down a lot of false leads and getting into needless and frustrating debates on the subject.

IMPORTANT! This is a netflix issue. In none of the cases I"m describing, and among none of the reports I'm referring to from other members, is this an issue with any other sources (dvd, bluray disc, HDTV regular broadcasts, etc) using the exact same components. Significantly, even though it is therefore logically a netflix issue, most neflix users seem unaffected by it. However in my experience and from others on this board it is so disruptive and unmistakable that it's almost impossible that anyone not noticiing it is simply not sensitive enough to it or otherwise not bothered. So there is some combination of the manner in which netflix is delivering content, and an equipment and/or software/firmware issue that simply has not been narrowed down yet.

A large part of the problem is vernacular. "Judder" offers up a red herring since it is so associated with 24fps. And there are a dozen other expressions for the problem certain folks are experiencing with netflix. So the reporting gets watered down among various reports of "judder" "juddering" "strobing" "stutter" "stuttering" "stop motion" "jerkiness" etc. When I finally Googled

"netflix jittery"

and "netflix jitter"

...I suddenly got dozens page links. These are pages from HDTV owners who are well aware of what to expect from varieties of source material on their televisions and are having an issue with netflix specific and apart from those. That's why I chose the term "Jitter" for this thread. Through Google I was even linked back to avsforum to a thread I'd never seen. What is described here is exactly the problem I'm having.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1255994

Unfortunately unlike those in that thread, I am connected via an internet enabled Samsung Blu Ray player.

There is also quite a bit of reference to it here...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1089285

As anyone weighs in, please list first your

Specific device? Game console/ROKU/HTPC/Blu Ray Player/etc.
ISP and connection speed
DSL or Cable?
Wired or wireless router connection to device/television?
Model of HDTV.
(I ask the last because a coincidentally high number of people affected seem to have mentioned using Plasma televsions and I wonder if that might also be exacerbating the effects somewhat.)

I'm presently using...
Samsung BluRay BDC6500 internet/netflix ready player.
Charter communications in West Michigan at steady 8mb.
Cable connected.
Wired (ethernet) connection to player. HDMI 6ft high-speed Monoprice cable from player to television.
Samsung PN50C550 HDTV.
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post #2 of 158
1/16/11 at 1:07pm
This is a well known issue that has been discussed ad nauseum here as your post shows. I have noticed it with DVD, some have noticed it with BR. Note that I have never noticed while watching HD cable programming. I think NF can reduce this by increasing the fps to 29.97 (or whatever the amount used for DVD); but that would increase the bit rate of stream. The best thing to do is to let NF know about this issue
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post #3 of 158
1/16/11 at 1:25pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:


Having first focusing on 24fps issues I ended up running down a lot of false leads and getting into needless and frustrating debates on the subject.

I was so hoping to avoid this.

I'm aware by now of the degree to which minor frame rate issues are to be expected. What you've noticed on dvd or br is not what is going on here. What you've described IS the kind of thing that has been discussed ad nauseum for years. I'm hoping we don't have to go down that road too many times in this thread. I am positive that most of you are fortunate enough not to be having this problem. If you're enjoying your netflix movies, you're evidently fortunate to have a component setup that plays them smoothly (relatively).

Yes there are very minor, widely documented and agreed upon, judder issues associated with film source 24fps. You mention that you notice it. I can also notice exactly what you describe, rarely, under extreme circumstances in dvd and blu ray films. And, as you noted, it's not a problem in most HD cable programming, much of which is 60fps. The netflix streaming jitter I and others are seeking solutions for is more on the order of 5 to 10 jumps per second and very disturbing to watch. It is clearly NOT judder as you've described it.

I've watched the same netflix movies at three other homes on HDTV and they were flawless. The panning jitter I'm getting in my own setup is dizzying, noticeably terrible to everyone in the house and others who come over, and all other source material is handled flawlessly by my setup. My issue is the same as what is described in very good detail in this thread.....

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1255994

If what you are seeing in many netflix feeds, even movies that are not Starz, IS outright dizzying/distracting, as I and many others have discribed, then you are are an unfortunate minority and are NOT merely seeing the type of inherent, very minor, jitter that can be expected at this point in time with films depicted on large brilliant HDTVS, judder of the type that Cygnus2112 describes.




The following is what Justice Potter Stewart had to say on netflix "panning jitter" back in 1964...

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not [exhibiting] that." (emphasis and contextual clarifier added)

There you go. And in referring to "panning jitter as "that shorthand description" it's clear that even a sitting Supreme Court Justice was not completely comfortable with the terminology. I'm understand his frustration. And I think it's evident that his netflix choice that evening could not have been exhibiting what many of us are seeing in our own HT setups.
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post #4 of 158
1/16/11 at 5:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by frascati View Post

I'm considering cancelling my netflix subscription since streaming is just unwatchable due to panning jitter.

The problem is this. No one knows the frame rate of the Netflix encodes. The frames rates they stream to you has nothing to do with the frame rate output of the decoding device. I have stated many times that most IPTV that I have viewed looks like stop action animation to me. Some people see it, others do not.
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post #5 of 158
1/17/11 at 10:14am
Unless the problem exists constantly through the entire duration of a stream, the term/phrase I would use for what you are describing would be "dropped frames". Or is there some detail I'm missing that makes this phrase unsuitable?

I am a hardcore native framerate monger but have not noticed judder or dropped frames introduced as part of the netflix streaming process. Well, at least I don't notice any frame rate problems other than those caused by the PS3 not outputting 24p for netflix. Grrrrr!

But perhaps I am somehow pleasantly oblivious to a real phenomenon...

Is there a specific time code of a specific stream you would like us to test and weigh in on?
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post #6 of 158
1/17/11 at 10:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland View Post

The problem is this. No one knows the frame rate of the Netflix encodes. The frames rates they stream to you has nothing to do with the frame rate output of the decoding device. I have stated many times that most IPTV that I have viewed looks like stop action animation to me. Some people see it, others do not.

While watching on a PC or Mac, it is possible to see the frame rate of the stream as well as the playback frame rate. (Control - Shift - Option - D)

I have yet to see a stream or playback frame rate other than the original frame rate. Unfortunately my 60Hz iMac display can't do a multiple of 24p. In other words, no frames are being dropped and all judder-like problems are from the original source or a result of 3:2 pulldown.

Netflix used to bump up against the processing power ceiling of my old computer and it had difficulty playing streams without dropping frames. This was true for pretty much all high bitrate streaming via flash or silverlight. Frames were dropped because the codec wasn't hardware accelerated with my particular setup. (Or perhaps it was just poorly coded and not optimized at all)

With my new computer and/or recent netflix streams, this is no longer a problem. No frames are dropped. It has been quite a while since I saw any frame rate problems on a commercial streaming service. Bandwidth and processing power seem to have eliminated dropped frames from my life.
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post #7 of 158
1/17/11 at 11:29am
Don't know if it's because I've read this thread or because I'm at home on a business day watching at a time I don't normally, but I did notice this phenomenon myself for the first time today. "dropped frames" sounds like a good description... although noticeable on several occasions during the hour long show I was watching I didn't find it sufficiently irritating that I could allow it to spoil my enjoyment of the show. I suspect it to be an inherent weakness in real-time internet delivery rather than a specific fault... now maybe if I had paid a significant fee for a specific show i might be inclined to complain, but given how little I pay to have instant access to such a huge library and each month watch material that would cost me hundreds of dollars to buy I can live with this minor flaw.
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post #8 of 158
1/17/11 at 1:30pm
If Netflix sends an email questionnaire regarding the quality of a stream unless it is really good I reply "acceptable" unless it is really bad. If I were to see a lot of jutter or smearing then I'm inclined to reply "unacceptable." Players will often sync to the audio dropping frames to keep up. Basically you calculate the microseconds for the frame rate to compare, decode to the frame buffer and when it is time to show the frame swap the buffer. Some of the information I've been reading on judder suggests that it can drop down to 2 frames per second because it has to build too much of a full frame to do anything faster.
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post #9 of 158
1/17/11 at 2:26pm
NF often sends me emails to rate the quality of audio and video of streams. If its in HD, I normally rate as good; SD I rate as acceptable unless its bad. My way of letting them know I want more HD content.
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post #10 of 158
1/17/11 at 7:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dfiler View Post

While watching on a PC or Mac, it is possible to see the frame rate of the stream as well as the playback frame rate. (Control - Shift - Option - D)

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-D for Windows. I tracked an HD stream which started out in the player as SD and I clicked on HD and after it buffered it switched to HD. I've been playing with Silverlight streams on the Expression Encoder and it will create several streams at different resolutions at bitrates (you can specify how many and at what bitrate) so it can switch between streams.
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post #11 of 158
1/18/11 at 9:32am
Thread Starter 
Quote:


Is there a specific time code of a specific stream you would like us to test and weigh in on?

In another thread I mentioned a scene in The Fall at minute 15 where Alexandria has been shooed away from the ice delivery wagon and is walking the sidewalk to the men's ward. Behind her are multiframed windows set against white stucco. As she walks the white frames of the small panes actually flicker black/white as they pan in the background. And they are doing so at a rate far less than 24fps. More like 6fps.

For some reason animation (not cgi but traditional animation) really brings it out. Any panning motion in The Iron Giant was really really stuttery on my television.

I have been, since it was pointed out, paying attention to Starz vs other. And it did seem to hold true that the worst performers, in terms of jitter, were Starz features. But last evening I watched Ondine and was shocked to discover after the film that not only was it not a Starz feature, but it was delivered in HD, which my blu ray player is supposed to be automatically detecting and playing. Ondine was among the worst films yet on my television with respect to jittery motion. Indoor scenes where there are many vertical lines panning by in the background behind the actors stagger by at what looks like six frames per second. The Fall is an even better feature to see this effect. There are many daylight scenes in the hospital with lots of vertical lines, windows, door frames, etc, panning by behind the actors.

Once again, this is definitely not 24fps judder artifacts. I've seen that. Also, I seen none whatsoever of what I'm describing when viewing any other source.... dvd, blu ray, HD television broadcasts.

Please do mention the following when responding...
Your television model and plasma/lcd.
Your connection speed
Your connection type (wireless, ethernet, hdmi, etc)
Your streaming device (game player, HTPC, blu ray player, etc)

I really would like to eliminate my PN50C550 Samsung Plasma as the source of much of this. Something about the way this television/blu ray combo talks to netflix has me wondering.
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post #12 of 158
1/18/11 at 10:48am
Just checked out the scene you mention in "The Fall"and the effect on the windows is quite visible on my Mits 65837 via Comcast cable whether viewed via component on my wirelessly networked Wii or via HDMI on my ethernet wired Panasonic BDT-100, so it appears to be an encoding issue rather than any problem with your devices.
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post #13 of 158
1/18/11 at 5:44pm
Confirmed, on my PS3.

The Fall (2006) is encoded at 30 fps with 2 blended frames per 5. In other words they took a pulldown source and instead of reversing it back to 24 fps, they just lazily blend-deinterlaced it.

I saw one HD stream even worse than this, filmed at 24 fps but encoded at 30 fps with one dupe every 5. Just a different deinterlacing choice but I feel that the blur effect is a bit smoother.



The Iron Giant similarly has blends, though it seems to be at a nonstandard frame rate altogether. Thanks for the heads-up on this one as it's getting removed tomorrow and I haven't seen it yet.

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post #14 of 158
1/19/11 at 5:34am
The funny thing about my love of home theater, as is probably true for many on this forum, I sometimes prefer analysis of the presentation as much as the actual presentation itself. So last night I sat down with a few bottles of IPA and looked for these framerate problems. Yes, I enjoyed it more than if I had just watched a movie.

Here's the system:
25Mbps FiOS + wired gig-E
PS3 outputting 1080p60 via hdmi
Denon 3808ci receiver
Infocus X10 projector via hdmi
Netflix streaming always gets to x-high hd within 6 seconds and never drops down once at that level. (FiOS is great)

15 minutes into the Fall -- I was unable to discern framerate problems. However I kept searching and sure enough, when looking for dropped frames or encoding-introduced jitter, it was there. The worst example I could find was in some of the opening scene of The Good The Bad The Wierd. That movie has amazing picture clarity but the jitter made it almost unwatchable, for that scene at least.

Could you take a look at the 4 minute mark of The Good The Bad The Weird? The camera pans onto a set of railroad tracks while a few words of the opening credits pan across the screen. The text flickers and jitters, strobing in such a noticeable manner that I think 99% of the population would wonder what was wrong. It is that noticeable! The entire screen also flickers as the camera finishes its pan onto the railroad tracks. Is this the same effect that you are seeing elsewhere?

The problem isn't apparent in every film I sampled though. For instance, the opening few minutes of Insomnia features footage of an airplane flying over glacial fields in Alaska. It is a well lit scene with tons of contrast and detail. There are pans across the landscape as the camera follows behind the plane. The only framerate problem noticeable in this scene is the 2:3 pulldown from 24fps. (not the phenomenon being discussed here)
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post #15 of 158
1/19/11 at 8:17am
Thread Starter 
Bottles of IPA!! Visual panning judder! I just knew you guys would come through! A little input to narrow down the source of the problem, eliminating one factor after another to finally recognize a commonality.. presto......

Seriously, thank you for taking the subject seriously. I'll take a look at the four minute mark of good, bad, weird tonight.

Another specific scene is within the first five minutes of "Shutter Island". DeCaprio and his partner have just stepped off of the ferry and been introduced to a few of the staff before getting in a car and being driven up the long straight avenue leading up to the prison. The camera takes a sweeping helicopter shot high above of the car while the trees and foliage pan across the screen. There are so many similar shots in movies that it's easy to recognize the slight stutter of 24fps in extreme panning shots such as this. It's always there if you look for it. But here, at least on my setup, the foliage is staggering by at more like six fps. I can't say, of course, if it's a consistant frame loss, or if it's just dropping frames randomly. But it's dizzying.

Quote:


The funny thing about my love of home theater, as is probably true for many on this forum, I sometimes prefer analysis of the presentation as much as the actual presentation itself.

Yes, and me too, but I also appreciate some member's sensitivity to "nit-picking" or to exaggerating problems that are better left alone. And that's why I've been frustrated by the fact that 99 percent of netflix's customers are only getting inherent, and better left alone, 24fps minor judder issues. They think I"m nitpicking.

In a thread devoted to my specific plasma television model someone pointed out his disatisfaction with a demarcation line about 1/5 way from the top which is always present, usually invisible, but evident in certain conditions like clear blue skies or solid light gray shaded backgrounds. He returned two sets and finally just changed brands. Sure enough, it's there if you look REALLY HARD for it. DAMMIT!! I'd really rather have not had this pointed out to me. But it's so subtle, and so easy to miss if you're not looking REALLY HARD for it that it frankly does not trouble me. His two sets may have had a much worse condition, but it exists on pretty much all of these models.

My point being that most people think I'm pointing out something minor that they'd rather not be reminded of. And I understand that. I just wish I could invite them into my home for an evening to see that I'm not exaggerating this one.
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post #16 of 158
1/20/11 at 9:56am
hi frascati

I have been experiencing the same jitter issue for the last one month since I bought new HDTV and started using Netflix streaming. I see this problem in about 30% of movies I watch - mostly on older movies but also on some new and even HD.
I have been, probably unfairly, blaming my new TV (Vizio XVT553SV) to the point that I have it ready to go back to the store.
But reading various forums and speaking to people I hear that this issue exists on various TVs to different extent. I did couple of tests playing the same movie from DVD on DVD player - the issue has been reduced to minimum but had not entirely disappeared.

In some movies this problem is so disturbing that I simply cannot continue watching. The worst I find it in animations, specifically Caillou. When camera or object slowly moves the jerking effect is unbearable. The other example is Jaws (minute 16th where kids are moving on a background).

When you say "I've watched the same netflix movies at three other homes on HDTV and they were flawless" do you mean they are streaming as well ? What setup do they use ?

Here what I have:

Vizio XVT553SV, wireless streaming by HDTV itself (no additional streaming device), Verizon FIOS router (i will have to check speed)
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post #17 of 158
1/22/11 at 3:23pm
So I definitely see the judder in "Shutter Island", "The Fall" and the "Good the Bad and the Wierd" at the points mentioned. The interesting thing is all these titles are being sent by the BD390 at 1080P60 to my TV (an LG 55LE8500). I know Netflix is sending 720P or 480P/I and it is being up converted in the BD390 - the interesting thing is the output frame rate

My BD390 is set for its 1080P display mode to be 24HZ - for Blu-Rays that means that 1080P24 sources are sent at 1080P24 to the TV - 1080i sources and DVDs are sent at 1080P60.

Back to Netflix. A quick test this afternoon showed that Lost Season 5, Being John Malkovich, Cleopatra, Damages Season 1 are all output at 1080P24 by the BD390 - yet all the problematic scenes mentioned in this thread are being output at 1080P60.

I wonder if some shows/movies are encoded at 24 fps where other are encoded at 30i or P60. I am not saying 'Lost Season 5, Being John Malkovich, Cleopatra, Damages Season 1' don't have judder - I haven't spent enough time looking at them.

My set up Verizon DSL at ~5mbps, BD390 and 55LE8500.

Edit: I was a little surprised about Lost and Damages - I expected movies not TV shows to be at P24 - but I guess if they were originally shot on film then P24 encoding makes sense. Lost in particular looks very good on streaming.
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post #18 of 158
1/27/11 at 2:11pm
I too have been having problems with this ever since Netflix switched to Silverlight. I've also seen discussions of the problem plagued with misinformation and assumptions from people who don't have the problem and seem to insist that, therefore, the problem simply doesn't exist for anyone. I'm a professional cinematographer with considerable experience in encoding and frame-rate conversion issues, for what it's worth, and this seems to be the skinny:

*It's not a client-side bandwidth issue
*It's not a configuration issue
*It's not a judder effect caused by frame/refresh rate mismatching (my TV supports 23, 24, 59 & 60hz, and switching between them yields no difference in playback; furthermore, the effect doesn't look anything like judder)
*It's actually not a matter of jitter, either --- it's clearly dropping frames
*Despite this, it's not a performance issue (I can chew through Blu-rays in software playback, with post-processing), and most baffling, the Netflix stats console claims that no frames have been dropped

It's bad enough on my end that, for the most part, I never bother streaming anything from Netflix. Streaming from all other services --- Hulu, Fox, CBS, NBC, SouthParkStudios, etc. --- is silky smooth. I literally only have problems with Netflix's service. The problem has not been ameliorated in any way by updating to later versions of Silverlight, and it makes no difference whether I use hardware acceleration.

What complicates the issue is that, as has been noted in this thread, some of the content on Netflix is badly encoded in the first place. However, I'm affected by severe stuttering in *all* content, and the stutters are *not* reproducable, but are completely random --- thus ruling out the quality of the source itself.

My own research (over the course of months, as I really would like this to work: Netflix actually has quite a few notable films that have only been released in HD through their service; stuff like Stuart Gordon's "Edmond" and Cassavetes's "A Woman Under the Influence," which aren't on Blu-ray but are available in great-looking HD streams) has yielded some strange info. Unsurprisingly, Netflix apparently has a rather bizarre streaming implementation that is generally considered to be inefficient; apparently each title has upwards of *10* different encodes, to accommodate various bandwidths across various devices (for instance, Mac/PC encodes are done in WMV3 or VC1, whereas the PS3 get AVC encodes, etc.). This creates a large amount of overhead on Netflix's servers, and get this, apparently Netflix's way of dealing with network saturation is to drop frames on the server side. In other words, if there's not enough bandwidth to go around, Netflix will drop frames on their end, which would explain why the console stats on the client's computer would claim that no frames have been dropped: technically they haven't, as the client computer has indeed rendered all the frames that were delivered to it. If this is the issue we're seeing, then ain't nuthin' we can do about it except complain to Netflix. Who, of course, swear up and down that Nothing Is Wrong.

However, I'm not certain it's that simple, or if what I've read is even true. I'm not at all convinced that frames can be dropped before decoding the video, especially with highly compressed, bidirectionally predictive codecs like VC1 and AVC. Also, I have noticed that disabling Aero in Windows 7 improves the smoothness somewhat --- but it also causes massive, unwatchable V-sync tearing. In any event, this seems to be a very complex issue, and the real problem is Netflix's refusal to acknowledge it, even if many users don't have/notice the problem.

In fact, I suspect far more Netflix users are affected by this than we think, and they probably just don't notice it or don't care. In my experience, most people can't notice 24/60 judder even if you sit down and point it out them. And heck, a lot of the people I know watch entire movies in atrocious YouTube encodes, something I can't put up with for more than a few minutes. Visual-motion acuity is the privilege/curse of the few, I think, and we're going to have to suffer until Netflix either upgrades their streaming infrastructure or switches to a more efficient system. Why they didn't initially go with VP8 Flash encodes, which are directly scalable from 360p ---> 1080p and are supported by pretty much everything, is beyond me; oh wait, it's probably because Microsoft paid them a backend to use their failing 'alternative' to Flash. Until then, there's always Hulu
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post #19 of 158
2/8/11 at 9:28am
Thread Starter 
Flanger, thank you very very much for taking the time to go through some of that. It's one more very reasonable commentary on the topic and makes it that much easier for me to "live with it". If it's something I can't do anything about, and has little to do with my equipment, then I can quit obsessing. Even if watching "Crusade, A March Through Time" last night was a smearing jittering mess. It was still fun. And yes, Starz features are the very worst in this regard.

I'm a little relieved that vadimgot listed his Vizio XVT553SV LED and undecided listed his 55LE8500 LED. I was getting worried that everyone observing this problem with netflix playback was going to list a plasma set like mine.

But if the general lack of responses from others in an enthusiasts forum such as this are any indication, then our cries in the wilderness are not likely to motivate netflix to offer any more corrective than an "i'm sorry for your experience, but there is nothing wrong at our end". In fact when I did call customer service on this weeks ago I was told "wow, you're the first customer to mention anything LIKE this".

I"ll apologize for a bit of exaggeration/untruth here as well. In my frustration with folks telling me that they just did not see any of what I was describing I attempted to give them an "out" and thereby discourage them from insisting that this is all "business as usual". I fabricated three other "friends and neighbors" with other setups who have flawless netflix playback. I just figured that anyone who arrived at the thread just itching for an argument, for no other good reason, could just turn around and go home when they discovered that "hey, I must be one of those lucky people like his friends and neighbors". Unfortunately, Vadimgot called me on it. MY apologies. It was just a device.

Anyway. if Flanger, with his credentials, observes what I'm observing and cannot suss this out on our end, and netflix insists it's not an issue, and not enough of us notice it to MAKE it an issue for them, then that's the bottom line I'm afraid. End of story.
Just gotta live with it.

For 8.99 a mo I guess I'll live with it. As I mentioned in another thread, that presents a little frustration since, yeah... the movies are unbeatably inexpensive... yet it's a shame that my initial impression of any fantastically high quality, well scripted, well acted, new film should be that much less than what it could be. Even if it were 10 cents a film. Or free.

There are sooooo many films out there I've yet to watch, and with my new big screen (which I fkkkng adore) I've been watching a lot of double features lately. That, with any service other than Netflix right now, would be a couple of hundred bucks a month. So, yes absolutely, I'm not knockin the service all things considered. But the SECOND that another service comes along and splits the difference, say 25 to 30 per month for great selection at great quality, I"m dumping netflix. That is unless they can get their streaming quality straightened out.
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post #20 of 158
2/9/11 at 11:16pm
Have you tried these 24 fps test clips from Netflix

Just search for Just search for '23.976'

I tried them through my BD390 and a 55LE8500 - the 55LE8500 reports it is getting 24fps and it looks smooth.

I also think that the following titles seem smooth Battlestar Galactica Season 4, Lost Season 5, Being John Malkovich, Cleopatra, Damages Season 1 are all output at 1080P24 by the BD390.

The problematic titles (eg "Shutter Island", "The Fall" and the "Good the Bad and the Wierd") are all output as P60 by my BD390 (doesn't mean they are P60 encodes only that the BD390 outputs them this way).

My BD390 is set for its 1080P display mode to be 24HZ - actual output varies by Netflix title.
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post #21 of 158
2/10/11 at 6:51am
You just build up a tolerance to it like the macroblocking and banding that is usually present in the PQ.

What's sad is free streaming from ABC.com and other free major networks have better PQ and less jitter.
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post #22 of 158
2/10/11 at 7:24am
Quote:


What's sad is free streaming from ABC.com and other free major networks have better PQ and less jitter.

And that's probably because they use Flash, which was developed and is constantly being refined as a presentation technology rather than the slow moving and clumsy 'general purpose' Silverlight.
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post #23 of 158
2/10/11 at 8:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 42Plasmaman View Post

You just build up a tolerance to it like the macroblocking and banding that is usually present in the PQ.

What's sad is free streaming from ABC.com and other free major networks have better PQ and less jitter.

I guess in the end this is true. Vudu HD/HDX which I can stream over my ~ 5mps DSL is so much better picture and audio quality than Netflix. The Netflix HD streams and many SD streams look pretty good and very watchable - but they could be better....
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post #24 of 158
2/15/11 at 10:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flanger View Post

I too have been having problems with this ever since Netflix switched to Silverlight. I've also seen discussions of the problem plagued with misinformation and assumptions from people who don't have the problem and seem to insist that, therefore, the problem simply doesn't exist for anyone. I'm a professional cinematographer with considerable experience in encoding and frame-rate conversion issues, for what it's worth, and this seems to be the skinny:

*It's not a client-side bandwidth issue
*It's not a configuration issue
*It's not a judder effect caused by frame/refresh rate mismatching (my TV supports 23, 24, 59 & 60hz, and switching between them yields no difference in playback; furthermore, the effect doesn't look anything like judder)
*It's actually not a matter of jitter, either --- it's clearly dropping frames
*Despite this, it's not a performance issue (I can chew through Blu-rays in software playback, with post-processing), and most baffling, the Netflix stats console claims that no frames have been dropped

It's bad enough on my end that, for the most part, I never bother streaming anything from Netflix. Streaming from all other services --- Hulu, Fox, CBS, NBC, SouthParkStudios, etc. --- is silky smooth. I literally only have problems with Netflix's service. The problem has not been ameliorated in any way by updating to later versions of Silverlight, and it makes no difference whether I use hardware acceleration.

What complicates the issue is that, as has been noted in this thread, some of the content on Netflix is badly encoded in the first place. However, I'm affected by severe stuttering in *all* content, and the stutters are *not* reproducable, but are completely random --- thus ruling out the quality of the source itself.

My own research (over the course of months, as I really would like this to work: Netflix actually has quite a few notable films that have only been released in HD through their service; stuff like Stuart Gordon's "Edmond" and Cassavetes's "A Woman Under the Influence," which aren't on Blu-ray but are available in great-looking HD streams) has yielded some strange info. Unsurprisingly, Netflix apparently has a rather bizarre streaming implementation that is generally considered to be inefficient; apparently each title has upwards of *10* different encodes, to accommodate various bandwidths across various devices (for instance, Mac/PC encodes are done in WMV3 or VC1, whereas the PS3 get AVC encodes, etc.). This creates a large amount of overhead on Netflix's servers, and get this, apparently Netflix's way of dealing with network saturation is to drop frames on the server side. In other words, if there's not enough bandwidth to go around, Netflix will drop frames on their end, which would explain why the console stats on the client's computer would claim that no frames have been dropped: technically they haven't, as the client computer has indeed rendered all the frames that were delivered to it. If this is the issue we're seeing, then ain't nuthin' we can do about it except complain to Netflix. Who, of course, swear up and down that Nothing Is Wrong.

However, I'm not certain it's that simple, or if what I've read is even true. I'm not at all convinced that frames can be dropped before decoding the video, especially with highly compressed, bidirectionally predictive codecs like VC1 and AVC. Also, I have noticed that disabling Aero in Windows 7 improves the smoothness somewhat --- but it also causes massive, unwatchable V-sync tearing. In any event, this seems to be a very complex issue, and the real problem is Netflix's refusal to acknowledge it, even if many users don't have/notice the problem.

In fact, I suspect far more Netflix users are affected by this than we think, and they probably just don't notice it or don't care. In my experience, most people can't notice 24/60 judder even if you sit down and point it out them. And heck, a lot of the people I know watch entire movies in atrocious YouTube encodes, something I can't put up with for more than a few minutes. Visual-motion acuity is the privilege/curse of the few, I think, and we're going to have to suffer until Netflix either upgrades their streaming infrastructure or switches to a more efficient system. Why they didn't initially go with VP8 Flash encodes, which are directly scalable from 360p ---> 1080p and are supported by pretty much everything, is beyond me; oh wait, it's probably because Microsoft paid them a backend to use their failing 'alternative' to Flash. Until then, there's always Hulu

Have you tried Ip Man - at least on my BD390 I don't see jitter. The martial arts scenes look fluid. My BD390 is outputing this movie at 24P to my TV. Most of the problematic shows and movies are output at 60P (and yes I have no idea how the BD390 decides whether to output 24P or 60P. I set it to output 24P which it does for Blu-Ray. On DVDs it decides to output 60P. Vudu is 24P - Netflix varies from title to title as either 24P or 60P).

It may help that my TV (55LE8500) evidently handles 24P correctly - repeating the frame 5/10 times at 120/240HZ
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post #25 of 158
2/17/11 at 11:29pm
At the risk of flogging a dead horse.......

Watching 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest'

On a PC I can view the silverlight stats - everything is fine and dandy 24 fps no frames dropped - but it stutters.

Same scenes on my BD390 - also reported as 24 fps - no stutter.

I was particularly looking at around 11m into the movie when the camera pans across the page.
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post #26 of 158
2/25/11 at 9:15pm
I have this problem and have seen it in all Netflix HD streaming content during pan scenes.

HTPC playing through MWC7 (64 bit)
Ati Radeon 4200
AMD Athlon X2 240 2.8GHz
4 Gb ram
Comcast cable internet @ whatever the highest bitrate is (48mb/s?)
Wired gigabyte ethernet connection
output at 1080i to Sony KDS-R50XBR1 via HDMI

This problem occurs during every streaming TV show during pan scenes. It is a low frequency jitter that is severe. Non-paning scenes look great. I don't really watch streaming movies unless I really have to so I can't really comment on that content.

I don't have this problem with any other source. It is only Netflix streaming content.

I too am looking for a solution as this is a very distracting problem.
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post #27 of 158
2/25/11 at 9:37pm
OK, after doing a little bit of reading about different encoding for different players I decided to check streaming quality outside of WMC7.

Streaming Discovery Atlas 4D under WMC I experienced severe jitter at low frequency (a few times per second)

Streaming the same content through the Netflix player via their website gives significantly better performance. Jitter is greatly reduced and content is much more watchable.

Looks like it's time to exit WMC - open browser - login to netflix website - view content with Netflix player

This is too bad because I can access Netflix with my remote control via WMC but to get better jitter performance now I have to get out the keyboard and mouse (or at least the mouse) and use a more cumbersome configuration.
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post #28 of 158
2/26/11 at 12:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SXRDork View Post

I have this problem and have seen it in all Netflix HD streaming content during pan scenes.

HTPC playing through MWC7 (64 bit)
Ati Radeon 4200
AMD Athlon X2 240 2.8GHz
4 Gb ram
Comcast cable internet @ whatever the highest bitrate is (48mb/s?)
Wired gigabyte ethernet connection
output at 1080i to Sony KDS-R50XBR1 via HDMI

This problem occurs during every streaming TV show during pan scenes. It is a low frequency jitter that is severe. Non-paning scenes look great. I don't really watch streaming movies unless I really have to so I can't really comment on that content.

I don't have this problem with any other source. It is only Netflix streaming content.

I too am looking for a solution as this is a very distracting problem.

As I posted above it seems some streams show the problem on a PC but not BD390 Blu-Ray player - we know netflix has different streams for different playback devices. On my BD390 I also note that streams encoded at 24P don't seem to have the problem - streams encoded at 60P seem to be more problematic

Have you tried these 24 fps test clips from Netflix

Just search for Just search for '23.976'

It seems to me on PC streaming they stutter - on my BD390 they look fine.

On a PC 'CTRL ALT Shift D' will bring up the AV stats (you must not be in full screen mode when first access the AV stats)
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post #29 of 158
2/26/11 at 6:10am
I usually play content through WMC. I tried exiting wmc and using the Netflix player via their website. The jitter was significantly reduced using this player compared to the WMC player. Playback much smoother.

Test material was Atlas 4D by Discovery.
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post #30 of 158
3/2/11 at 8:20am
Thread Starter 
What exactly do you all mean by "netflix player"? I"m trying different approaches. Currently I"m using the samsung bd6500 blu ray player. I tried using my PC connected via hdmi. Opening Netflix and configuring my PC required downloading/installing silverlight and then proceeding. Is this the "player" you're referring to? Or is there and even more direct method of accessing content?

Also, Why can't I seem to find any info online about Samsung's server outage? I haven't had access to netflix for two days and Samsung told me over the telephone that I will not for two more days since their netflix connections are down for service. More than 24hrs into this, netflix had not heard anything of it, from any of their customers, which seemed really odd. And no mention of it on the web.
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