Blurry picture on replays

[nifft]

We have the Roku 2 XS set up for 1080P. The quality of TV shows on Netflix is generally fine, but they can be very blurry at times, especially if we back up to watch a scene again, or return to a previous episode. Has anyone else had this problem? Suggest a fix?

[mikebdoss]

We have the Roku 2 XS set up for 1080P. The quality of TV shows on Netflix is generally fine, but they can be very blurry at times, especially if we back up to watch a scene again, or return to a previous episode. Has anyone else had this problem? Suggest a fix?

The adaptive streaming starts at a low bitrate, and improves to match your internet speed. I've found that rewinding can make it "start over" at the lower bitrate, and it takes a couple seconds to improve again.

[-LD]

It a feature.

[jeffrok]

All snarkiness by -LD aside, it's not really a feature but a different method of streaming..

When you see the picture get "blurry" it's because your internet connection has slowed down, and instead of going to a black screen and re-buffering to a lower dot-quality like on the Roku1, the Roku2's Netflix will drop the stream down to a lower bitrate in real-time, thus saving you from having to sit there and watch it re-buffer.

[-LD]

Not exactly. It's blurry because there is no pre-buffering as Roku prefers speed to first image rather than quality of that image. The adaptive streaming allows them to show a blurry image very quickly while the buffer fills with a higher quality stream. This is why for many the first few seconds or more of a movie/TV show will be blurry. The same can be true when you rewind because it doesn't have the high quality in the buffer but can show quickly a low quality image.

[mikebdoss]

Not exactly. It's blurry because there is no pre-buffering as Roku prefers speed to first image rather than quality of that image. The adaptive streaming allows them to show a blurry image very quickly while the buffer fills with a higher quality stream. This is why for many the first few seconds or more of a movie/TV show will be blurry. The same can be true when you rewind because it doesn't have the high quality in the buffer but can show quickly a low quality image.

...which is still better than "REBUFFERING" and a black screen.

[-LD]

I disagree. I'd rather have a high quality, watchable image after a couple seconds than a blurry image quickly.

[nushmut]

I disagree. I'd rather have a high quality, watchable image after a couple seconds than a blurry image quickly.

I agree that this would be a desirable setup. However, stopping to rebuffer at a mid-level quality during occasional bandwidth slips (the Roku 1 method) is not preferable to dropping down seamlessly, then going back up as the bandwidth improves (the R2 method).

So I guess the ideal solution (at least to me) is a hybrid of both methods. Buffer to get the highest quality stream possible from the start, then take advantage of adaptive bitrate during playback.

[dmacleo]

need to balance it out, slightly more buffer time initially to stop the horrible picture while running as is throughout.
once its going its fine, unless you replay any, but the initial is just bad.