Customer service

[Anon]

I had been a loyal customer for 6 years, but when I contacted them for support, it seems that Netflix now subscribes to the ever-growing philosophy that customer service is no longer about helping the customer. Instead, it is now "prove it isn't our problem". Instead of responding to my questions, I got to listen to the 'tech' read off what had to be an expanded FAQ list that in some cases didn't even relate to my issues. I got so frustrated that I cancelled my account and hung up on hm. The next day, I tried again. I opened the call with, "I need to talk to a someone that is well-versed in Instant Viewing to PC. Moreso that the standard scripts that you guys use." He assured me he could help then went straight into trying to prove it was my hardware or ISP that was the issue again. I was exceedingly polite in trying to deal with this guy, but by the end of the call, I was once again so frustrated with this guy trying to prove it wasn't his problem I again gave up. I don't really know why I'm posting here, other to vent my frustration. Netflix wasn't a horrible, but I refuse to pay for a service that, when you need help, instead of helping you, tries to prove it isn't their problem. I guess it is just the next generation in customer support. Sad really. Goodbye, Netflix. /salute

[Anon]

Damn. I didn't realize this would be a book, but you asked :) You are, of course, right. My initial post was really just to vent frustration. I don't expect any results, and if I think about it, the hours of my life that are reclaimed rather than watching 'the tube' is, without a doubt, a good thing. It is opening up whole new horizons in writing short stories *grin* .

First a little background. I have *always* had the problem, despite having 12mps cable, that Netflix's detector invariably sets my quality to the lowest setting. Long ago (using the ActiveX viewer), I discovered the Shift-B command that would manually override their setting. This made me a happy camper. All I had to do was set this when the movie started, jump through the DRM hoops again, and I was set.

I understand that it is probably a throttling issue with Comcast, Netflix, or somewhere in between that is causing the erroneous reading on Netflix's bandwidth detector. As I'm sure you're all aware, ISPs (at least Comcast) get very defensive when you start asking about throttling, and it never bothered me because I had the Shift-B override. Once set to the 2200k stream, I NEVER had any buffering issues. Watching the network activity, I would get a 30-second or so burst of data, then the connection would sit idle for a minute or so, then repeat. Even when I watched Jericho at 3400k (an aside here... thanks for that. The higher-than-usual quality was unexpected and appreciated) I was able to simultaneously play online games, talk on my IP phone, and otherwise tax my system and connection without so much as a hiccup in the playback.

Now comes the fateful day. I notice while browsing the movies in Firefox (my only use for IE was actually watching movies), that I can now use Firefox to view them. Nice! I can get rid of IE entirely! Get 'er done! Silverlight installs no problem and away I go. I hit my first "play" button, and, as usual, the opening credits are in that near illegible blur that is the 25x25 (I know, but it seems like it) stream that is 500k. You know... the one that, unless you know the title you clicked on, you can't tell what movie you're watching. Bleh. This sucks. I spend a couple hours looking for the Shift-B equivalent in Silverlight. No such thing. Well damn. I uninstall Silverlight and head back to IE... which prompts me that I need to install Silverlight to continue. uh oh. *insert sinking feeling here*

So, I call 'customer support' and jump through their hoops. The speed test they have me run returns with 11m down/8m up. More than sufficient for their 2200k streams. It isn't throughput. Next they start trying to blame my system. Before today, I can play a 3D game on one panel while a movie is playing on the other (30" 2560x1600 each). It isn't my system. Now he keeps trying to go down some track they have apparently had a problem with... framing issues in Silverlight. I keep trying to tell him I'm that, while I read up on these issues, that isn't the problem I'm having. I keep trying to ask how to set my movie quality manually, or go back to the ActiveX viewer. After two or three tries, he gets it that he is on the wrong track, but the only question he seems to hear is and reply to is there is no going back. While I'm bummed, I do understand end-of-life issues and whatnot. Technology marches forward! Anything else just has to be an ISP problem. This guy can't give me any more help than the pre-fab answers that are on his screen, and they don't answer my question. I can read FAQs and forums all by myeslf... I don't need a 'customer service' rep to read it to me. Frustrated I give up and cancel. Next day, having calmed down, I try again with the exact same results. They simply can't help me. So I head here to post my frustrations.

All I want to do force the higher quality streams. If I start getting buffering issues, I'll accept it or (try) to talk to Comcast. I'd rather download for an hour then watch rather than watching the organized blur of a LQ stream. From my chair, my problem isn't Comcast. They have consistently piped uncounted movies to me (well, Netflix has counted them, I'm sure... but it is a LOT). For about the last year, I haven't even bothered with DVDs. While you do have to wade through a lot of trash on Netflix, with a little digging, you usually can find something enjoyable on Watch Now, and unlike DVDs, all you have to do is hit the "Back to Browsing" button when you get a really bad one. DVDs waste all that time going back and forth. Instant gratification, ya know. Since my only use for Netflix is online viewing, this little issue is the dealbreaker.

/rant on
It sickens me that customer service (not just Netflix, this is a growing trend) is reduced to hiring telemarketing rejects and teaching them to read a script with absolutely ZERO concept of what they are supposed to be supporting. If they can't read an answer from a FAQ list, then, "so sorry, it has be someone else's problem". Maybe I'm just getting old. I do start too many sentences with, "I remember when..." I remember when the customer was always right. I remember when I had to deal with customers, it was my job to bust my ass to make them happy... to do whatever it took. No exceptions. I remember when...
/rant off

[Knaldskalle]

Before today, I can play a 3D game on one panel while a movie is playing on the other (30" 2560x1600 each). It isn't my system.

What's your system?

[Anon]

Core2 QX6700 2.66; Nvidia Quadro FX4500; 4g memory; Win XP

Its a generation old, but it most certainly can play a movie. Just simpler things like World of Warcraft and Civ4. Far Cry and Crysis chug doing this.

[Knaldskalle]

I studied up on it a little. Silverlight 2 doesn't use your GPU, so the size of your card doesn't matter, but some claim that nVidia cards get more "screen tearing" than ATI. That explains why you don't have the problem with 3D games, but only Silverlight. Silverlight 3 (which is currently in beta and scheduled for a July 10 release) shifts more of the work onto the GPU, making it easier on older systems (supposedly!). We'll see.

Here's a suggestion how to make Silverlight run a little smoother. It may or may not work for you.

[I'm Not a Turnip]

Select stream in Silverlight...... CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-S

I don't think your problem with always having to change from lowest to highest quality is necessarily a Comcast issue. I have a different ISP and it does the same thing for a week or two then goes back to automatically choosing the best stream for a week or two.... back and forth....

I had to "upgrade" to Silverlight over the weekend. Out of curiosity I played an item I watched the night before to compare quality. Unfortunately, the best stream on Silverlight looks like the lowest quality stream on the old viewer. Bummer. Hopefully other titles look better.

[JMGNYC]

CTRL+ATL+SHIFT+M pops up a menu where you can set the stream rate among other things so there is something similar to the old SHIFT+B.

Having said that I still can't get Silverlight to play Netflix without dropping too many frames and tearing. Oddly I can play other videos for other sources in Silverlight with nary a problem.

I personally think Netflix has over compressed their encodes which are eating CPU cycles like candy. My CPU (E4500 Core 2 Duo) playing something from Netflix hovers around 90%. With the old player it never broke 50%.

[Knaldskalle]

Have you tried the method I link to above? Might be worth it...

[Anon]

I appreciate the research, Knaldskalle, but no, I didn't try it. I never did have the tearing/framing issues that people complain about... of course, I never did try Silverlight until yesterday. I did use a friend's account to try the Ctrl-Alt-Shift funcitons and was able to choose between 500, 1000, and 1500k streams. It was consistent across several titles, even Jericho, season 1 which allowed me to go up to 3400k using the old viewer. It also didn't appear to change the quality of the movie in any significant way. You weren't imagining things, NotATurnip. The highest quality stream available in Silverlight isn't as good as the old viewer, which usually had settings of 500, 1000, 1600, and 2200. I understand a lot can be done with codecs, encription and whatnot. To be fair, it wasn't horrible, but it still was of considerable lower quality than we had before. Thanks all for your responses.

To rant just a little more, why do they (Netflix) have you do speed tests to a 3rd party server when Silverlight has all those tools and more built in, and gives a reading directly to the most important server there is... the one you are downloading from? Thanks Netflix 'customer service' for knowing the product you're pushing sooo well. Try putting Ctrl-Alt-Shift in your FAQs that your reps read to us. It may actually promote the illusion that they have a clue. (Man, sarcasm just doesn't come across well in plain text).

[Lester]

I don't understand why you are so concerned about CS. I would think that if you like the IW service, then you would focus on being able to use it, and not about what happened on some phone calls. If you like the titles available on IW, there's a simple solution: $100 for a Roku. It doesn't involve your computer and is a great device.

[I'm Not a Turnip]

Ha ha! You mentioned Jericho - that was the item I compared old viewer vs. Silverlight. Now I'll have to try something else for a tie-breaker. Maybe the Silverlight streams are messed up.

[I'm Not a Turnip]

Yep, just watched a few minutes of The Orphanage. It had the tearing issue (due to my old CPU?), but the overall quality as good as I was used to seeing with the old viewer. I'd say the Jericho encodes for Silverlight just didn't turn out very good.

[Jason]

I just ran a test with my old clunker of a machine single core 3.4 ghz P4 SLI Gforce 7800's runing Windows 7 with the beta version of silverlite testing with Jericho its running a average 2112 low up to 7408 k / bits per second and the picture is clear. I also have a roku box and I have to say it was the best 100 bucks I every spent.