Are you experiencing loss of video quality? PLEASE READ

[kmp_9999]

1. Northville, Michigan
2. AT&T
3. DSL
4. 3MP-6 MB. Generally get around 3.6 - 4.2 MB
5. ESN: 20F87Y008926
6. Since, early November
7. I forced the stream to 4 dots via "secret screen" and since then have had no problems. I wish that this option be made available from the standard menu screens.
8. My interpretation of the issue with my Roku device is that my dsl connection speed fluctuates quite randomly and rapidly, and that the device is either too sensitive to speed fluctuation or simply registers the lowest speed and then locks in the streaming speed accordingly. I wish the device would let the user pick the speed and would adjust the buffering automatically based on realtime connection speed. (I think it does something similar anyway when you force the speed via the "secret screen".)

Thanks for a great product (almost ) and great customer support - Roku Team!!

[dana7]

1. Delaware, Ohio
2. Time Warner / Earthlink
3. Cable
4. Advertised to be 7MBS, but dsl reports generally reports 3-4 MBS
5. ESN: 20F84N017074
6. Since late Oct, early Nov.
7. When I first got the box, I had 4 dots all the time, then in early November - only one or two. After the hidden screen hack, I could force it to have four dots, but it will rebuffer 2-6x per movie - each rebuffer taking ~ 5 minutes.
8. When I first got the box, I was able to start watching a movie within a minute. Now it takes about 5 minutes to start, and each rebuffer is another 5 minutes.

Thank you!

[mightysloth]

1. Austin TX
2. Grande Communications
3. Cable
4. 6-7 Mbps
5. 20F871015817
6. Two weeks ago it suddenly went down to 1 dot streaming
7. I've forcing higher quality streams and it will take a very long time to buffer. Sometimes it will make through an hour of playback without a problem but more often it has to rebuffer every 5 or 10 minutes
8. the buffering problems exist at all hours of the day and I've tried changing all the network settings that are talked about in the forums as possible causes of low quality streams.

I look forward to this problem being resolved and appreciate your dedication to your customers experience.

[stevenbrower]

1. Gloversville , New York
2. Road Runner
3. Cable
4. 9 Mbps
5. 20F87L026062
6. couple weeks
7. Forcing it sometimes helps but usually causes too often or too long buffering.
8. Readjusts its speed, then rebuffers at least 5 0r 6 times per movie.

[oitokyo]

1. West Los Angeles, California
2. Time Warner Cable / Road Runner
3. Cable
4. Speakeasy 3789kbps. speedtest.net 13343kb/s . (Go figure!) however I pay for 10mbps.
5. 20F878007625
6. Early November, the week of the xbox 360 service update.
7. Can force it to 4 stars, but rebuffering is taking approx 4 minutes or so. Way longer than previously when it streamed correctly, and not user friendly!
8. Rebuffers to 2 dots after a couple of minutes. Not difference whether i wire connection or wireless. Meanwhile i can go a stream a 720p trailer after a few seconds.

[RokuJamesL]

Hi folks. I think enough people have posted their info here to provide ample data points for Netflix, so there is no need for any further posts of info. Thanks to everyone who did take the time to provide your data and a special thanks to Rich for putting together the spreadsheet of data points. Hopefully, it will be sufficient to determine what is causing this issue. Netflix has not provided any updates on their end yet. Meanwhile we are taking another look at our software code to see if there is anything on our end that can help. Unfortunately, we don't have anything more definite to report but as soon as we have any updated information, we will post it.

If there is anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area who is experiencing this issue, and is willing to let one of our engineers visit your home to analyze your broadband connection, please send a PM. It would be a big help in furthering the efforts to find a solution.

[rosseroni]

1. Portland, Maine
2. Verizon
3. DSL, highest tier
4. about 2200 (supposed to be 3000)
5. 20F864004719
6. few weeks
7. no, didnt force stream.

I get one or two stars ROKU, but full resolution on my computer with instant watch.

[anthonyzeh]

Phoenix AZ
Cox Communications
Cable
12 Mbps
serial no. ? Not at home
since early November I noticed it
No forced stream

one sometimes two stars hope this get figured out.

[SkOrPn]

I think they said they have enough info now to figure it out. But I guess it doesn't hurt to keep posting info.

[Booblack]

I saw the post about "enough information" has been posted, but I thought I would put my two cents in...again.

Austin. Texas
Time Warner/Road Runner
Cable/Broadband
Speed 6852 kbps
492 kpbs
20F877029354 First box returned 11/24/08 (Roku's suggestion)
20F87W018766 Second unit activated 12/03/08

I thought that it seemed that we all started having problems the first of October when Starz joined the line-uo. Thinking that it may have to do with too many programs being added to the queue, today I dumped a lot of the movies. This did not work.

I have forced the speed. This did get it to three dots, but the programs no longer load (slowly or otherwise).

We have been unable to retrieve anything on our Roku since, approximately, 11/20/08/

[SolarPVgal]

Reports are showing up from Engadget Dec 5 that Netflix has fixed this? Well, not exactly we are still having the problem and it is actually worse for us now. Since nobody has chimed in from our area so here is our information.

1 ) Endwell, NY
2 ) Binghamton Wireless
3 ) Broadband Canopy Subscriber
4 ) 6 Mbps
5 ) 20F854004040
6 ) August
7 ) We tried to force to 4 dot quality but the buffer time was excessive (20 min). However, forcing to 3 dot worked quite well for a few months but now recently takes 20 min to buffer at the forced 3 dot quality which is additionally plagued by frequent re-buffering interrupts while watching.
8 ) Speak Easy Speed tests to NYC have come back consistently between 4 Mbps - 6 Mbps yet a 4 dot (2.2 Mbps) stream does not play since August, what gives??!! Now we are having trouble with 3 dot (1.6 Mbps) and even 2 dot (1.0 Mbps). 1 dot quality is not acceptable for us to watch so our Roku/Netflix box is pretty much useless until this is resolved.

Thank you to RokuJamesL for taking this on. We are really hoping that it will be resolved soon because we dropped DirecTV/cable to make ROKU our primary viewing supplemented by local over the air channels and reduced Netflix DVD's.

[nnyxmfan]

dexter,ny
time warner cable
cable
5945kbps
20f877030706
its been for about 2 weeks
i can force it to 3 and 4 dots but takes around 10 mins to load then rebuffers multiple times and when rebuffers it takes 10 mins to reload
on pc works fine and says i have full quality and in debug mode says on 10.1 network

[pablolie]

To me it is quite clear that is is an issue arising with the popularity of the Neflix on-demand service. It is always at popular viewing hours than the quality goes down from 4 stars (which I always had initially) to 2 stars at peak times - that is evening after 7pm and especially weekends. The results of the Netflix speed test confirm this: I get way over 3Mbps most of the time, but whenever I have issues it has gone down to 1Mbps or so. And my cable connection still reports speeds of 20Mbps downstream.

San Jose, CA
Comcast
Cable
Over 15 Mbps consistently
SN not available right now
Problem has worsened over the last 5 weeks or so, worked flawlessly initially, was especially bad about 3 weeks or so ago, and unfortunately I have started relying less on the box because of that.

[wideasleep1]

To me it is quite clear that is is an issue arising with the popularity of the Neflix on-demand service. It is always at popular viewing hours than the quality goes down from 4 stars (which I always had initially) to 2 stars at peak times - that is evening after 7pm and especially weekends. The results of the Netflix speed test confirm this: I get way over 3Mbps most of the time, but whenever I have issues it has gone down to 1Mbps or so. And my cable connection still reports speeds of 20Mbps downstream.

San Jose, CA
Comcast
Cable
Over 15 Mbps consistently
SN not available right now
Problem has worsened over the last 5 weeks or so, worked flawlessly initially, was especially bad about 3 weeks or so ago, and unfortunately I have started relying less on the box because of that.

I would LOVE to agree with you, but I still think it's provider-related. I use (most-likely, we could test it) the exact same cdn server-San Jose, that you do...but I don't have the peak-time issues you do. Our main difference: I'm dslextreme, you're Comcastic cable. Since you're in San Jose, pm one of the devs (RokuJames) and invite Roku over to test...others suffering this issue would be grateful!

[Scottheb]

I was working much better over the last 3 days with the exception of some shows not available at this time until tonight. I am back to very long load times, rebuffered 5 times during Karate Kid, and going from 4 dots to one.