Amazon VOD bad picture quality/low streaming rate.

see http://www.avsforum.com/t/1311425/amazon-prime-instant-video/840#post_22491416

Also see the posts after the link to see some other members views...

If you have Vudu HDX it will be the best quality - after that Netflix is generally better than Amazon.

I got a real stinker from Amazon VOD last night also. Price was nice ($1.99 to stream), but the PQ was disgusting with pixelation on dark scenes etc and a very mushy picture in all scenes. At the end I noticed the bars showed low quality and a bit rate of 256 or 326 or something like that. I have an 8000 connection. Anyone know why that is? Amazon's server overloaded on a Saturday night? Makes me not want to do it again, though I like the convenience and the pay as you go feature.

^^^

Amazon frequently has bandwidth issues in the evenings. I always get 4 bars HD from them in the mornings and afternoons, evenings are unpredictable.

Well, I had a look again yesterday morning. Went on another PC and played the trailer for the same movie. Same old slow download rate. Then I went to Amazon's troubleshooting area and saw that such issues can sometimes be resolved by rebooting the modem/router and so I did that. Immediately I saw 480 and a decent picture. On regular Amazon Instant (streaming, non Prime)I am not sure one gets real HD. Has anyone seen more than 480 on that? At 480 I do not think I would have a complaint for $1.99 a pop.

Interestingly also, I got a mail from Amazon asking me to rate the audio and video playback and I checked "awful", the lowest rating and in the comments stated I doubt I would rent again. Will see what happens.

Agreed. I don't watch during the day but when I have tried lately at night I rarely get HD. This seems to have started after the most recent and infamous Netflix outage.

I'm sure that building and maintaining the infrastructure for an ever expanding base of streaming users is a nightmare. The crush of post-Christmas new devices and users is to blame for this. No doubt once the shine wears off many of them will fade away. Netflix is having similar issues. And I wouldn't rule out similar issues coming from ISP's getting overloaded. Everything is overloaded.

Also it has been affecting Netflix too as Netflix uses Amazon CDN.

Sorry I don't believe that . How come then speed tests are a steady 15/1 and ping test is a A for the quality then. It is not the ISP's it is the CDN getting overloaded.

IMO the best way to check your internet speed is by using some large real world download files. The “Speed Boost” that IP use leads to false readings when using “Speed Test”. Go to the fastest site you can find and download a very large file and look at your browsers download manager to see your real world speed. In many cases you will see several MB download in a short period of time but after several seconds the speed will slow to a much lower value because the Speed Boost has dumped its cache.

I had the same issue with reddice and I am also on Time Warner. It's been working well for awhile, but the other night I couldn't keep HD consistently until after watching for 30+ minutes. I tried changing DNS servers as well to Google's. I have 30/5 and have always consistently received that, and very fast speeds downloading large files (as fast as the site could serve). I don't think it's TWC in this case.

Thanks. Glad I am not alone. As I said some nights are better than others.

reddice, I download up to 50 megs of files every day for my work over a regular DSL line (I work at home) from various sites around the US. Sometimes it screams, sometimes not, and yet my ISP speed test is always maxed out. There is no predicting my actual download speed at any given time.

Our Netflix connection has been degraded in the evenings since Christmas. This happens every year. It always passes.