Poor Netflix performance

[DaveAndrus]

I'm running the new (December 4 release) Boxee on a 2.6 Ghz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM. I linked it up with my Netflix account and I am able to browse through the instant watch movies. The movies DO play...but the video is really choppy. The audio is fine, but the video playback is maybe around 10 fps. Is there any optimization I can do for this?

I tried it with two movies "Meet the Robinsons" and "Six Days, Seven Nights." I can also play these movies just fine through the Netflix in-browser player, just not from within Boxee. Oh, and it's not my internet connection as all of the above happened at the same location and the same computer in my office on a University campus - we've got a pretty screaming connection.

[harleyquinn]

Ditto here. Mac Mini Core Duo 1.83 2GB RAM. 1920x1080.

Doing a quick exit and view of CPU history, both cores were tracking at 100%.

Also, received the Netflix, you internet connection has slowed message, even though I am getting 11Mb down. 6 Mb down on a ~bad day.

[mypridewar]

yes. also the same case here - also I've noticed that Hulu is running poorly. I've tried from my office on which I tried one of two un-rateshaped OC3's and my home Comcast 6Mbit service, and both NetFlix and Hulu are rearing POOR performance. I may go back to the previous version...

What's the deal guys?

[DSchwartz88]

same here, running a unibody 2.4ghz 2GB ram MBP with NVIDIA graphics turned on (not running the M version). Haven't tried hulu but netflix was not working well with the movies I tried. Where can we get old versions of boxee I might revert back.

[mypridewar]

I saved the old DMG's - let me know if you want it. I can email you a link as I don't want the whole world to find it, and or disrupt what the faithful boxee team is working on :-)

-jw

[PrimeOne]

So during the playback of MP: Meaning of Life the playback seemed to be dropping frames. It was in sync but the video just seemed to be 2 frames shy of smooth stream. But it worked and that alone makes me so proud of the guys at boxee. HA ZA!! HA ZA!! You guys really are amazing and to know that this is open source makes me proud to be a promoter of open source software.

Silly to say i'm proud of you. Sound like a parent when I'm only a 24 year old college student and don't even know any of the developers in person.

[SpaceBass]

But it worked and that alone makes me so proud of the guys at boxee. HA ZA!! HA ZA!!

Well said! Lets not lose track of how significant this achievement is !

[cubsfan61]

I'll be going back to my Xbox 360 where netflix streams like butter.

[cmolway]

I am looking forward to further refinement of netflix integration. Looks like I'll be streaming via firefox on my mac mini until you do.

now if we could only get Pandora working....

[gunnm27]

Netflix streaming works decent for me. Although I did have to try the 'linking' procedure a second time for it to work. The Login dialog inside Boxee doesn't work.

When I first 'linked' my Netflix account to Boxee, Safari had already cached my login information. I just had to click approve. However, this didn't work. I had to logout and the login again to approve and link the accounts for things to work.

Tried watching a little bit, and it seemed to work ok.

MacBook 2.4GHz 2GB
Wireless -> Airport 802.11G -> Cable

[jba474]

MacMini 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo running OSX 10.5.6 with 4 GB of ram and a 16 Mb down connection from AT&T Uverse. Running Boxee 0.9.6.4578 at 720P via DVI to HDMI cable. Long story long, choppy video in Netflix. Silverlight tries to continuously drop the bit rate because it thinks the Internet connection has slowed. Hulu and other streaming sites work great in Boxee. Netflix is buttery smooth in Firefox. I just got my Netflix account so I never tried it in previous versions of Boxee and can't speak to if it worked better in earlier builds.
Thank you for all of your hard work.

[invitation]

NETFLIX, THE COMPANY THAT MAILS YOU DVDS, HAS A NOVEL APPROACH TO AWARDING VACATION TIME TO EMPLOYEES. IF YOU GET YOUR SHIT DONE, YOU DON'T HAVE TO COME IN ALL THE TIME. FROM THE SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS: Employees at the online movie retailer often leave for three, four, even five weeks at a time and never clock in or out. Vacation limits and face-time requirements, says Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings, are "a relic of the industrial age."

[apostille]

What you're seeing in action is the fundamental difference between a
hi.,
BootCamp installation and a Virtual Machine installation.
When running under "BootCamp", you've turned your Mac's hardware completely over to Windows. Windows has direct access to the guts, and works with everything directly.
(This is why you CAN'T run OSX at the same time, and just "switch back and forth" without rebooting...)
In a "Virtual Machine", windows is running on, well, a "Virtual" machine. Fusion "fakes" a set of compatible hardware that Windows will run on...but it does NOT emulate a complete "second set" of everything in your machine... you don't get "two" Video Adapters, nic cards, etc; it just "looks that way". The hardware windows is running on in a Virtual Machine is NOT the same stuff that Windows runs on "natively" in BootCamp.
(This, BTW, is what accounts for the "Windows Activation" BS between a BootCamp and Virtual Machine install; Windows sees "different hardware" in each case.

In MOST cases, the performance in a Virtual Machine is just fine... but the "Virtualized" hardware simply isn't of the same speed, power, or capabilities of the "Real" hardware, so applications that need, or prefer, direct access to the actual hardware get a little pissy, or may not work at all. I'm guessing that Netflix is OK with the Virtual Hardware, but decoding/unencrypting/displaying video INSIDE all the overhead of "emulating" the hardware, AND passing all that data back an forth through Windows AND OSX on it's way to the screen... just too much work to happen at 30 frames a second.

There may well be tweaks, twists, and settings to improve your experience... I don't know. But fundamentally, especially in this instance, you're up against the difference in running Windows Natively, actually ON your Hardware, vs running it inside Fusion on Virtual hardware.

[criminallawyer]

Yeah, Silverlight was tuned for the slowest Intel CPU Apple used, not for the Atom.. It's definitely not as optimized as it should be. So no Netflix on this machine.
As for Hulu/Flash, works fine for me.. Just don't try the HD video option.. SD is all you can get out of this machine. It can be a bit jerky as it starts, but always smooths right out afterwards for all but the most high motion scenes. And the commercials are always choppy, but eh..
Tired of wondering if your Mini9 is doing ANYTHING? - Add a HDD Activity LED
UnaClocker
Mini OS X Specialist.

[shae marks]

In MOST cases, the performance in a Virtual Machine is just fine... but the "Virtualized" hardware simply isn't of the same speed, power, or capabilities of the "Real" hardware, so applications that need, or prefer, direct access to the actual hardware get a little pissy, or may not work at all. I'm guessing that Netflix is OK with the Virtual Hardware, but decoding/unencrypting/displaying video INSIDE all the overhead of "emulating" the hardware, AND passing all that data back an forth through Windows AND OSX on it's way to the screen... just too much work to happen at 30 frames a second.

There may well be tweaks, twists, and settings to improve your experience... I don't know. But fundamentally, especially in this instance, you're up against the difference in running Windows Natively, actually ON your Hardware, vs running it inside Fusion on Virtual hardware. More (http://www.nma-fallout.com/archive.php?year=2008&month=11)