Netflix streaming ... Needs work
Dear Netflix
Since there seems to be no way to properly or officially submit my comments, I'm making them "open letter" format.
Yesterday I watched Farscape Season 1 Episode 1 on my PS3 using the streaming feature. I upgraded my DSL line specifically for this feature as it was recommended to have a minimum 3Mbps connection.
First problem is: It was VERY difficult to get that number. You do not publish a recommended connection speed anywhere. It took a lot of reading on various forums, blogs, magazines, and other websites to get that number.
Bad customer experience #1. There is no good way to tell what I, as a customer, need to make this "work" properly.
That aside, I started watching it. Farscape is old enough that it was recorded in Standard Def 4:3.
Even at that, the picture was lower quality that "inferior analog cable". Though it was, I would deem, acceptable, you really need to get the video quality up. At the very least, it needs to be the old "analog cable" quality.
While watching, I would look at the codec display. I would see the bitrate jumping around peaking around 2.6Mpbs, but much more usually around < 1.5. This tells me there was a lot of "unused" space that likely, with better buffering, etc... could have made a good dent in that problem.
Nice try, but still needs work.
I might call it "acceptable" but not "good".
Bad customer experience #2: Video quality of this standard def 4:3 TV show was not even "analog cable" quality.
The audio was even more abysimal. It was muddy. The background and forground would munge together in a way that made certain scenes very difficult to make out what was being said.
Again, looking at the codec information, the PS3 reported a fixed 128kbps MP3 stream.
128k MP3? Really? This was the "standard" in 1997, and you guys are still using it in 2010? It's no wonder the audio was so horendous. The MP3 protocol is not well suited for this purpose, and you're chopping it off at the knees using such a low bitrate.
Bad customer experience #3: Poor/muddy audio quality.
It almost seemed enough to add insult to injury then. I received the invitation to take the "survey" on my satisfaction for the show I watched. I, eagerly even, clicked on the link wanting to let you know what I thought.
All i was given was a three point scale amounting to, essentially, "very good", "acceptable", and "unacceptabe".
I chose "unacceptable" as, to me, it certainly was not acceptable the quality I received.
I then was given a chance to "elaborate". Happy to do so, I clicked the link.
And again was given a very neutered list of of choices, none of which was representative of my actual experience. The choices were so non-representative, I was forces to submit the survey without actually making any selections.
Bad customer experience #4: Extremely poor user feedback system.
I'd be only too happy to stream what I watch if you could provide a quality worth watching. So far, that does not seem to be the case. The show I was watching used less than half my available bandwidth and provided an experience I would consider substandard to analog cable.
I do hope you have milestones in your plan for improving the experiences. Cable/SD quality, DVD quality, HD/BluRay quality.
A netflix customer.
Since there seems to be no way to properly or officially submit my comments, I'm making them "open letter" format.
Yesterday I watched Farscape Season 1 Episode 1 on my PS3 using the streaming feature. I upgraded my DSL line specifically for this feature as it was recommended to have a minimum 3Mbps connection.
First problem is: It was VERY difficult to get that number. You do not publish a recommended connection speed anywhere. It took a lot of reading on various forums, blogs, magazines, and other websites to get that number.
Bad customer experience #1. There is no good way to tell what I, as a customer, need to make this "work" properly.
That aside, I started watching it. Farscape is old enough that it was recorded in Standard Def 4:3.
Even at that, the picture was lower quality that "inferior analog cable". Though it was, I would deem, acceptable, you really need to get the video quality up. At the very least, it needs to be the old "analog cable" quality.
While watching, I would look at the codec display. I would see the bitrate jumping around peaking around 2.6Mpbs, but much more usually around < 1.5. This tells me there was a lot of "unused" space that likely, with better buffering, etc... could have made a good dent in that problem.
Nice try, but still needs work.
I might call it "acceptable" but not "good".
Bad customer experience #2: Video quality of this standard def 4:3 TV show was not even "analog cable" quality.
The audio was even more abysimal. It was muddy. The background and forground would munge together in a way that made certain scenes very difficult to make out what was being said.
Again, looking at the codec information, the PS3 reported a fixed 128kbps MP3 stream.
128k MP3? Really? This was the "standard" in 1997, and you guys are still using it in 2010? It's no wonder the audio was so horendous. The MP3 protocol is not well suited for this purpose, and you're chopping it off at the knees using such a low bitrate.
Bad customer experience #3: Poor/muddy audio quality.
It almost seemed enough to add insult to injury then. I received the invitation to take the "survey" on my satisfaction for the show I watched. I, eagerly even, clicked on the link wanting to let you know what I thought.
All i was given was a three point scale amounting to, essentially, "very good", "acceptable", and "unacceptabe".
I chose "unacceptable" as, to me, it certainly was not acceptable the quality I received.
I then was given a chance to "elaborate". Happy to do so, I clicked the link.
And again was given a very neutered list of of choices, none of which was representative of my actual experience. The choices were so non-representative, I was forces to submit the survey without actually making any selections.
Bad customer experience #4: Extremely poor user feedback system.
I'd be only too happy to stream what I watch if you could provide a quality worth watching. So far, that does not seem to be the case. The show I was watching used less than half my available bandwidth and provided an experience I would consider substandard to analog cable.
I do hope you have milestones in your plan for improving the experiences. Cable/SD quality, DVD quality, HD/BluRay quality.
A netflix customer.