Streaming video issue

[Alex]

I see a lot of posts about streaming problems where the user gets a "connection too slow" message

I do not get that message, but as my machine streams the video, you can hear the hard drive "click, click, click, click"

With every click comes a little jump in the video.

My machine and connection seem to be fast enough to stream properly, but the jumpy/choppy video is very annoying. (there is no jumping in the sound... only the video)

Are there any settings or anytihng I can change to fix this issue?

[Daniel]

There are some serious issues with Netflix Watch Now for me.

They are erroneous and I can't figure it out at all.

Starting about 4 or 5:00, it becomes unusable. My internet connection, capable of 6-7 Mbps (Comcast Cable) is still able to download at 600 KB/s, but watch now is a crawl.

Netflix employees never answer real questions about this. They skirt and avoid the issue, and they have no tools I can use to see what is going on. Are their servers overloaded? Is Comcast throttling connections to them but nobody else?

I can start a watch now session and have it tell me my connection is slow and take 20 minutes to an HOUR to start playing. However, I can open five browser windows to netflix.com and play 5 previews at the same time with no problems in quality while downloading a file.

I don't have bandwidth problems. Not even at peak hours. My connection to the streaming servers run at 35 KB/s while I am downloading two files from other sources at 300 KB/s each. If I stop those downloads so my connection is idle and restart netflix watch now, I STILL get 35KB/s, and my show doesn't come up for a half hour.

This is recent too. I liked watch now so much I bought the ROKU player (which is an awesome little piece of technology) Things worked great for about a month. Then two weeks ago, I can't get anything on my little ROKU box from about 4-5 PM to midnight. Then it works again. Same for doing it on my computer.

I suspect Comcast, those snakes, but I just can't really pinpoint the problem. Nobody helps me, and it is a very difficult issue to see where a connection is being throttled. So be wary! Don't join netflix for just the watch now.

[Spindaddydad]

Comcast throttle

[Aces]

I watch a lot of movies on line through Netflix, HULU.com, IMDB.com, etc. All of the movies stream fine except Netflix. Before 2 weeks ago I had only gotten a few of the messages about the internet slowing and shows would stop briefly to adjust but now it's on most of the shows I watch. I'm thinking it has to be the NF servers since other sites work fine and NF did before. I was wondering if it might be due to more members using the Instant Watch feature now that it works on Macs. I've never called about it so I don't know what they would say but it's odd when I queue up a 30 minute TV show and get a message that it will take 10 minutes before it begins. I'm not on Comcast and I don't think my connection is "slowing down".

Whatever it is - I love NF and the Instant Watch feature.