DracoFelis
Premium
join:2003-06-15
edit:
June 25th, @11:42AM
| said by hulber  :I was happy to find out that pausing a program does not subject me to delay once I hit play again. This seems to indicate that the player is holding xx seconds of content in its buffer. Yes, I also noticed with my unit, that the player does contain a real (if not exactly large/huge) video/audio buffer. By watching the unit and the internet bandwidth used, I think the buffer is a few seconds to a few minutes long (depending upon the bandwidth/quality of the video that is currently being streamed).
In fact, the latest version of the router firmware I use (I use the open source »www.dd-wrt.com firmware in my router) now has a real time bandwidth graphing tool. So I was able to compare that bandwidth graphing tool (of my router firmware) to what was happening with the NetFlix Player.
Here are some more observations I've made since my last post:
1) By watching my router bandwidth graph, I found that The NetFlix Player (or possibly the internet link between it and NetFlix?) seems to use bandwidth in bursts. i.e. it's NOT a steady use of bandwidth, but rather alternates between trying to saturate my internet link (which is held in check by my router's QoS, if something else needs bandwidth), and periods of lessor (and in some cases zero) bandwidth usage.
1a) I expect that this is also why the player often picks a slightly lower video setting than the software only NetFlix client. After all, if the player is buffering in "bursts" (vs using bandwidth in a more steady fashion), it would (due to the times it is not using bandwidth at all) have a harder time maintaining the video quality setting when you just barely have enough bandwidth for a given video quality.
2) The player will still buffer for a time (presumably until its buffer gets filled?) when you pause. I know this, because my router bandwidth monitoring shows that the bandwidth continues to be consumed for a while and then stops completely. And when you again hit play, it takes a few seconds after the video starts before the bandwidth starts being used again.
3) By examining my router logs (and other status info), I've discovered that on at least one occasion my ISP dropped the connection and then the router reconnected shortly after (but with a different external/internet IP address), while I was watching a program. And apparently the buffer was "big enough" that the NetFlix Player didn't miss a beat (i.e. the video/audio continued straight through without interruption). I'm guessing this is because the player had enough video/audio buffered to cover the short time the internet was down, and by the time it was back up (albeit on a different external IP), it could again (automatically) buffer more of the movie.
4) And on another occasion, my internet went out and stayed out for an hour or two. And I discovered that I was still able to watch a short amount of the program (after the internet went down) before the buffering ran out (and the program abruptly stopped). So there is clearly a small buffer in the NetFlix Player, and it might be as big as a few minutes long.
5) The current firmware in the unit usually works OK, but is not totally bug free. I discovered that occasionally the unit would get into some weird state where things didn't work right (or in some cases, not work at all). Usually this was triggered by me rapidly switching between options (such as many fast forward, view a section, fast forward, type browsing). In such cases, simply unplugging the power, and then plugging it back in (i.e. resetting the unit) fixed the problem (at the time cost of waiting for the unit to reboot). I suspect this will be improved (made more reliable) with later firmware releases. After all, early versions of firmware often have a few bugs/glitches in them.
6) There is no power off switch on the unit. The unit is designed to be up/running all the time.
7) And even if you put the unit on a power strip, the "reboot time" (from power off) is a few minutes (i.e. a minor PITA to power up the unit from being off).
8) Thankfully, the unit doesn't use much power, so it's not a total waste of energy to leave the unit on (and available) all the time. I tested it with my Kill-A-Watt meter, and I discovered that the thing was usually only using about 5 watts of power, even when I was viewing streaming content. This is a small fraction as much power as most computers use these days. So they clearly used low power components in this player!
9) The documentation doesn't tell you how to change your settings, download new firmware, etc., which IMHO is a limitation of the documentation. Yes, you are prompted to do some of these things automatically if/when the player detects that it is necessary, but otherwise I couldn't figure out how to change things. But I did happen to stumble upon (by accident, when playing with the remote) the "trick" to get to the settings menu whenever you want. From the main choose a video display, simply press the following on the remote: Up arrow -> Right arrow -> Down arrow. At this point you are in the config menu and have a number of options, such as telling the player the resolution of your TV, ask to look for and download new firmware, change what internet setup you are using, etc. And to get back to the main screen setting, just reverse the process. i.e.: Up arrow -> Left arrow -> Down arrow.
10) I have noticed that I fairly consistently show signs of less bandwidth (slower buffering and/or lower quality video) in the evenings, even though I'm on DSL (and therefore have no contention for the first link of my ISP connection). Still somewhere there seems to be bandwidth limitations that affect my quality in the evening (when presumably a lot of people are home from work, and therefore using their home internet). I just don't know if the speed slowdown is at (the head end of) my ISP, on the internet link to NetFlix, on NetFlix's end, or some combination of the three. Of course, even though buffering/quality often goes down in the evening, it's still is usually "good enough" to continue watching even then.
said by hulber :I am using the HDMI output of the player. It is not showing HD content at this time but it does show what would be HD content in 16:9 so at least it takes advantage of the capabilities of the TV. I would like to see them add digital audio first and then work on getting the video content higher. Personally I'm just using the composite video/audio hookups (directly into my standard def TV), and the picture generally looks pretty good. It's even acceptably viewable when I get the lowest video setting, but that does show some usable video limitations. However, as long as I get at least 2 dots of quality (when it auto-chooses quality during the buffering), the picture is usually quite OK (at least on my older TV). And even one dot of quality (the lowest setting) is still viewable, if not exactly "good" video in that case.
One simple thing I would like them to add (to the config menu of the player), is a quality/bandwidth limiter option. At the present time the unit will just try using any bandwidth it can get, to get as much video quality as possible. And there are times when I would prefer to trade off a little "quality" to save some bandwidth (which also would result in faster buffering). And right now that isn't an option.
NOTE: As far as I know my bandwidth isn't "capped" by my ISP. But if I was on a "capped" internet plan (and I'm sure some users of this player will be), the ability to limit bandwidth (by setting a maximum quality setting option) would be very important to me. And I can't exactly see the down-side to NetFlix either, as they would also save on bandwidth if/when a user chose to force a lower video quality/bandwidth setting! |
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