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Home Forums General Silverlight Getting Started Netflix Problem
8 replies. Latest Post by tomtaylormsft on July 13, 2009.
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R. Kevin...
Member
0 points
3 Posts
02-07-2009 11:40 AM |
Silverlight is installed on Intel iMac under Leopard. Netflix Instant Watching works in Firefox and Omniweb just fine, but when I try it in Safari, instead of smooth motion I get a slideshow type effect. This is not the result of slow download speeds, as my download speed is about 6000kbps. My only fix is to use a non-Safari browser when I want to watch movies--I use Safari for everything else. This problem began after I switched to the *faster* (WiMax) ISP. It seems to have something to do with how Silverlight and Safari interact when download speeds go above a certain level.
Ken Tucker
All-Star
16276 points
2,479 Posts
02-08-2009 4:20 PM |
Have you seen this blog entry by NetFlix. Suspect they still have some issues to work out in there player
The Silverlight player is currently more opaque, since it picks the stream to deliver dynamically. If your connection slows, as the buffer empties, the player starts buffering a lower bitrate stream and switches seamlessly across. Conversely, if the buffer fills rapidly again, the player can pick a higher bitrate stream. (Note that if Outlook (or some other large application) decides to wake up and refresh your email in the middle of a movie, Silverlight might be starved of CPU and drop some frames; this may cause the player to conclude that it should switch to a lower bitrate stream that won't overload the CPU. Today, we haven't figured a reliable way to determine that the CPU is again underutilized and permit switching back up again, so my advice is to close Outlook and similar periodically expensive applications prior to playing the movie!)
03-15-2009 1:13 PM |
No, the problem has something to do with Safari. First, the Silverlight-based Netflix player works great on every browser I've used except Safari. Second, the Safari problem is not due to download speeds, as I only got the problem after I started using a Wimax service with 6000 kbps download speeds. Third, it's not a result of memory mismanagement, as it occurs even when no other programs are running. I don't get the impression that Netflix or Apple know or give a damn, which is odd, since both are major market players. You would think that Netflix would at least want to add a line in supprt pages that if one has problems with Safari, use another browser, but no. I found that it was essentially impossible to notify Netflix directly, as they have no vehicle for feedback, and though I did send a bug report to Apple, they haven't done anything about it. The striking oddity was that it occurred only after increasing my download speeds substantially, which suggests that it has something to do with how the speed testing and subsequent adjustments are implemented. I am in a test market for Wimax, and the Netflix/Silverlight/Safari combination worked fine at the slower speeds that are currently common. I suppose that once Wimax becomes big, and Netflix, Microsoft and Apple start getting *lots* of reports, then someone will care. But for now, I just work around by not using Safari with Netflix.
03-15-2009 1:50 PM |
I did some searching at the Safari support page, and one of the posts there suggested emptying the cache. Famous last words, but, that seems to have fixed the problem!
Barbara ...
2 points
1 Posts
03-30-2009 4:40 PM |
It isn't just Safari, it is also Firefox on a mac. Both just crash in the initial buffering. My guess is that my pc will still work on IE...is this the latest marketing campaign for Microsoft?
Brett_md
6 points
04-28-2009 7:15 AM |
Wow, did you write the script that Netflix is forced to read to angry customers when they call because Silverlight is screwing up video? Because that is the same crap that I was told when I called to figure out why my video sucks so bad after being forced to install Silverlight.
jdachik
16 points
8 Posts
05-09-2009 10:37 PM |
FYI, I was afflicted by the Netflix/Silverlight upgrade issue.
I have a pretty low-end laptop (Acer 3680, 1.86 GHz Celeron, Vista Home Basic), but it worked great with the Windows Media Netflix player, but then it played like absolute dung with the Silverlight one - poor resolution, freezing every 5-10 seconds with stuttering audio.
Got nowhere with Netflix support, and was justifiably ticked at being unable to go back. Decided for the heck of it to download the Windows 7 RC, and see if it had any effect. I'm pretty pleased - for the most part, the issues are gone. Now it is only a brief pause every few minutes, and no stuttering audio. Definitely watchable (whereas the combo of Vista/Netflix/Silverlight really wasn't). Starts out with low resolution, but improves after 20 seconds or so (10 Mb download speed)
Would a clean install of Vista have had the same effect? Maybe, I don't know. For now I'm happy, and will ride out the Windows 7 RC until March and decide where to go then.
Just an FYI for anyone suffering from the same issues.
markusello
06-10-2009 4:06 AM |
Hi,
I spent a week working on this frustrating issue and have figured out the problem. Like you, I stream Netflix from my laptop which is a 1.8ghz running Vista. The old player worked perfectly for years, and I couldn't be happier. Then, I was forced to coerced to install the Siverlight upgrade which has made the streaming service worthless.
After days and days of troubleshooting, I have narrowed the problem down to Silverlight. If I run the video in full screen, Silverlight uses 100% of my CPU. This could be the result of poor coding on the part of Netflix. That is, Silverlight has the capability to utilize the computer's GPU, but it appears that currently this feature is not in use. As a result, Silverlight has to use 100% of my CPU power. I have the exact same problem on my 3.0ghz P4--using 100% of the CPU.
When the CPU is maxed out the video drops about 10 frames per second. If I run the video in a small window, it plays okay. This is very, very lame considering it was working perfectly before.
I am very frustrated with Netflix, and I had been a happy customer since 2003 !
tomtaylo...
379 points
114 Posts
07-13-2009 1:20 AM |
markusello:After days and days of troubleshooting, I have narrowed the problem down to Silverlight. If I run the video in full screen, Silverlight uses 100% of my CPU. This could be the result of poor coding on the part of Netflix. That is, Silverlight has the capability to utilize the computer's GPU, but it appears that currently this feature is not in use. As a result, Silverlight has to use 100% of my CPU power. I have the exact same problem on my 3.0ghz P4--using 100% of the CPU.
GPU acceleration is a Silverlight 3 feature, which was just released last week. You willl likely see some performance improvement by installing Silverlight 3 today, but the biggest performance boost will happen once Netflix releases a GPU-accelerated version of their player. I've posted a few details on the following thread:
http://silverlight.net/forums/p/100755/248040.aspx#248040
thanks!
- Tom
Tom Taylor | Microsoft Silverlight
Netflix Problem