Rate your ISP Netflix Experience

Chevauxza

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Rate your ISP's Netflix Experience

I find that it’s quite tough to get an objective view of which ISPs are the best these days with all of the user feedback threads here on MyBB. To me, and I’m sure a few others, streaming performance/reliability is the most important metric which I measure my ISP on.

I came across a way of measuring the Netflix video performance which appears to be a little hidden gem on Netflix (though a there have been a couple mentions of it on MyBB). I thought that it’d be a nice way of objectively rating our ISPs rather than “seems slow”, “lots of buffering” type feedback would be to use this tool and for everyone to post their results here.

So, if you’d like to participate, here are the steps:

On your usual Netflix-watching device, search for a video called “Example Short 23.976”. This is a special video from Netflix which displays the actual bitrate and resolution in yellow text in the top right corner of the screen. The video itself is quite random, but the goal here is not to watch an Oscar performance!

Let the video play and post your results here using the template below. You should be looking for the bitrate your connection is able to sustain reliably and which was the peak bitrate which it achieved.

If we all participate, this should hopefully prove to be a helpful and relatively objective thread about SA’s Netflix streaming performance.

ISP/Product: (eg. Afrihost Capped, Afrihost Business Uncapped 10mbps, WebAfrica Business Capped)
Line Speed: (eg. 10mbps, 4mbps)
DNS Provider: (eg. UnblockUs, Unotelly)
Streaming Hardware: (eg. Roku 3, Apple TV)
Stable Bitrate: (eg. 1750kbps)
Peak Bitrate: (eg. 2350kbps)

Here’s a HowToGeek write-up about the video and the maximum bitrates you could expect to get.

tldr: Copy and paste the template, look for a video called "Example Short 23.976" on Netflix. Post results here.
 
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I'll get started with the tests I did.

ISP/Product: VOX Fatpipe
Line Speed: 10mbps
DNS Provider: Unotelly
Streaming Hardware: Roku 3
Stable Bitrate: 2350kbps
Peak Bitrate: 3000kbps

ISP/Product: Afrihost Capped 1GB Free
Line Speed: 10mbps
DNS Provider: Unotelly
Streaming Hardware: Roku 3
Stable Bitrate: 1750kbps
Peak Bitrate: 2350kbps (only momentarily, then dropped to 1050kbps)

Interestingly, both Afrihost and VOX achieved the same Speedtest.net rating of 8.52mbps down / 0.86mbps up.
 
Why not do this in a Google Drive Forms document? Then you can graph and compare products easily :)
 
Very covert OP. ;)

How did you measure that stable bitrate figure? (I've yet to see anyone provide a solid answer to that...so here is your chance)
 
ISP/Product: Bitco
Line Speed: 5mbps
DNS Provider: Hola
Streaming Hardware: PC
Stable Bitrate: 750kbps
Peak Bitrate: 1750kbps


1241241242rt3 v.PNG
 
ISP/Product: Bitco
Line Speed: 5mbps
DNS Provider: Hola
Streaming Hardware: PC
Stable Bitrate: 750kbps
Peak Bitrate: 1750kbps


View attachment 165183

Those numbers don't make sense.

Graph has a peak of 593kBps = 4744kbps.

1750kbps = 218.75kBps.

I would assume you're downloading while flixing, not a fair comparison.
 
Those numbers don't make sense.

Graph has a peak of 593kBps = 4744kbps.

1750kbps = 218.75kBps.

I would assume you're downloading while flixing, not a fair comparison.

nope, my gpu is shot tho so stuff lags every now and then and sound gets distorted.
 
nope, my gpu is shot tho so stuff lags every now and then and sound gets distorted.

Then don't bother posting as it's meaningless.

My stats:

ISP/Product: WebAfrica Business Uncapped 10mbps
Line Speed: 10mbps
DNS Provider: Unotelly
Streaming Hardware: PC
Stable Bitrate: 3000kbps
Peak Bitrate: 3000kps

Note I had another user watching Netflix at the same time.
 
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ISP/Product: Crystalweb
Line Speed: 4mbps
DNS Provider: unodns
Streaming Hardware: PC
Stable Bitrate: 750kbps
Peak Bitrate: 3000kbps
 
How did you measure that stable bitrate figure? (I've yet to see anyone provide a solid answer to that...so here is your chance)

Great question, I suppose stable shout be a bitrate which your connection is able to get to and maintain for a significant portion of the video. It should achieve it and very rarely drop below it.
 
My stats:

ISP/Product: VOX Fatpipe
Line Speed: 20Mbps VDSL
DNS Provider: Unblock-us
Streaming Hardware: PC
Stable Bitrate: 3000kbps (1280x720)
Peak Bitrate: 5800kps (1920x1080) :wtf:

If VOX keeps this up after the October issues, I'll be staying with them.

It's not always that good though, Saturday morning not a true reflection. Some evenings it's half at best.
 
My stats:

ISP/Product: Afrihost :wtf::wtf:
Line Speed: 20Mbps VDSL
DNS Provider: Unblock-us
Streaming Hardware: PC
Stable Bitrate: 5800kbps (1920x1080)
Peak Bitrate: 5800kps (1920x1080)

Afrihost outperforming my VOX this morning and last night. That's a pleasant surprise.
 
ISP/Product: IS PLUG
Line Speed: 20Mbps VDSL ACCOUNT 10 MB UNCAPPED
DNS Provider: Unblock-us
Streaming Hardware: PC
Stable Bitrate: 3850 Kbps
Peak Bitrate: 4300 Kbps
 
Was watching some Breaking Bad this evening and noticed the quality was all over the place, came back and tested again, results not as good as before on VOX unfortunately.

ISP/Product: VOX Fatpipe
Line Speed: 10mbps
DNS Provider: Unotelly
Streaming Hardware: Roku 3
Stable Bitrate: Can't really call anything stable - went for a while on 1050, then to 1750, then dropped to 750, then 560 then paused while it buffered, then 235 then back to 750 where it stayed for most of the rest of the video.
Peak Bitrate: 1750kbps

The experience wasn't great at all - based on what I've seen above, it seems like the only way to get a stable experience is to be on VDSL.
 
Was watching some Breaking Bad this evening and noticed the quality was all over the place, came back and tested again, results not as good as before on VOX unfortunately.

ISP/Product: VOX Fatpipe
Line Speed: 10mbps
DNS Provider: Unotelly
Streaming Hardware: Roku 3
Stable Bitrate: Can't really call anything stable - went for a while on 1050, then to 1750, then dropped to 750, then 560 then paused while it buffered, then 235 then back to 750 where it stayed for most of the rest of the video.
Peak Bitrate: 1750kbps

The experience wasn't great at all - based on what I've seen above, it seems like the only way to get a stable experience is to be on VDSL.

Try the Web Africa trial account. Even on 2Meg you'll get speeds.
 
ISP/Product: Telkom Softcap
Speed: 40Mbps
DNS Provider: Unotelly
Streaming Hardware: Roku 3
Stable Bitrate: 5800Kbps
Peak Bitrate: 5800Kbps
 
The sound of fountains running, Shakespeare?... white noise and flashing light to numb your senses

iburst 1mb
235kpbs
res 320x240
par 4:3

560 kbps
res 512x384

know someone who'd like "example short 23.976" ....recommend to a friend :wtf:
 
The sound of fountains running, Shakespeare?... white noise and flashing light to numb your senses

iburst 1mb
235kpbs
res 320x240
par 4:3

560 kbps
res 512x384

know someone who'd like "example short 23.976" ....recommend to a friend :wtf:

You must also make sure that you turn your receiver down really soft on 5.1 systems otherwise you will summon the entire neighbourhood's dog population.
 
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