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Comment by notlisted | Hacker News Reader

I have a theory... (based on personal experience). The issue for many is (was) with Apple TV, and not Verizon.

I updated my Apple TV in november (shortly after Netflix introduced its SuperHD mode). For a long time after that, Netflix performance was abysmal (dropping down to sub 480p at times, especially during the night time).

I complained to netflix and verizon. The latter suggested I try connecting to netflix on a PC connected to the modem. I did and experienced no problems. No problems on my Android device or chromecast either. Only my Apple TV box had issues. Ultimately I found a thread on the forums which suggested a hard boot (power down) of the Apple TV device. Once I did that, the problems went away. If you have Verizon and use Apple TV to watch netflix, give it a shot.

I would love to see ars/netflix display a bandwidth graph by device.

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Interesting, but what percentage of people have Apple TV? Is it enough to have that much of an impact?

Note: Edited to remove part that was actually addressed in original post.

Not sure (Apple TV and Verizon I assume).

This article might implies quite a few might: http://www.tuaw.com/2013/07/16/report-half-of-streaming-boxe...

We have a 40Mb link from XFinity (Comcast), and we only have problems with Netflix. Amazon prime streaming works great, Hulu worked great when we had it (I couldn't stand paying to watch the same commercial over and over again), HBOGO, XBLN movies, and the assorted Xfinity services all work perfect. It's only Netflix that we have trouble getting a HD stream from.

We use these services on an Xbox, Roku, and Kindle/PC - and Netflix is consistently the slowest of them all, no matter the platform -- sometimes not getting an HD stream at all during playback, but usually only getting HD stream for about 30-40% of playback.

Wow I didn't realize Hulu Plus still showed ads. That's quite annoying.

I had the opposite experience: Netflix was fine on Comcast, Amazon Prime was surprisingly poor.

For what it's worth, I've had the same type of issues with my Roku on Comcast. I have multiple Roku boxes in my house and all have the same issue. For the past two or three months I've had buffering issues out of the blue.

Our Rokus all worked great, until one day around 1.5 years ago, something changed. They are only barely functional at this point. Charter cable here.

Netflix is unusable on my Apple TV. I can't even get through a 20-minute TV episode without it dropping to sub-480p quality and/or stopping completely. I've never been able to figure it out. I have the latest generation Apple TV updated with the latest software. I have tried rebooting it, etc.

It's only a problem on my Apple TV. Netflix works flawlessly on my Playstation 3, iPad, iPhone, and PC. My ISP is a regional provider called Mediacom.

This is what did the trick for me. Update Apple TV to the latest version, unplug. Unplug the modem. Plug it back in, wait for it to come online. Plug in the Apple TV again. Wait for it to go online. Enjoy.

PS Amazon Prime Instant Video and Vudu have never given me any problems.

I have FiOS and use google tv (underrated, but great) and I have been having issues with Netflix recently.

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