I don't know what you mean by "two dots." Is this something to do with the Roku box?

I have heard that if you are watching streaming Netflix during peak hours, the quality of the picture suffers, because Netflix just can't handle that many viewers at once and still provide HD.

I have Netflix and I get both it and Amazon streaming video thorugh the Wii. There is the occasional pause for reloading, say once a month or so, usually during a period of peak demand. But the picture quality is just the same as with Amazon. I do occasionally get a few seconds of a pixilated picture, but it's about 3-4 seconds in an hour and a half movie, which is acceptable to me. But again, this doesn't happen often.

The dots must be a Roku thing - kind of like the signal bars on a cell phone. Four dots is the highest quality short of HD. If the video is HD then it shows four dots plus the letters HD.

Interesting to know that about quality vs peak times. DH did say it was good once but that was early on a Sunday morning vs prime time.&

I had a free trial of Netflix last year. I had no trouble with the video quality, but I probably wasn't watching during peak hours. The reason I cancelled was because the selection for streaming was way too limited. I am interested in newly released digital movies and television shows and none of them were available for streaming.

We have Netflix and Amazon and our experience with both is generally very good, stable streaming but once in a while a stutter or pause. It hasn't been enough of a problem that we've looked for reasons or remedies. I'm in the camp that still thinks the whole process is too cool and too convenient to complain much! What can I say, I'm easy.

Hmmm.....I wonder why ours is so bad. Amazon is so good that there's no way I would use Netflix under the current circumstances.

Can you stream Amazon through a Smart tv? We've thought of getting Amazon Prime so we could have more movie options.

You can IF the particular smart tv has that capability. Amazon has a list posted of which tvs are compatible.

I've never used Netflix because I refuse to sign up for another recurring monthly charge.

gibby: could it be your internet provider is crap? Mine is, so my streaming ability is pretty limited.

I would try streaming netflix to a laptop or computer and see if you get better quality-- that will tell you whether it's NF or something in your system. I stream both netflix and amazon with great quality.

I have thought about ditching netflix but I do enjoy their selection of older movies, tv series (esp BBC) and documentaries. I also enjoyed watching Orange is the New Black. I really balked at the bf's suggestion to watch "just another women in prison show".. but I quite enjoyed it. I enjoyed it enough to say "you were right.. I was wrong" lol!

I have Amazon Prime and despite the fact that both of our TVs are not that old, neither is compatible with Amazon! However, we do have Netflix - I have never had a problem streaming Netflix on our TVs. One streams through our DVD player and the other through our Wii. I have had issues though when I stream on my iPad but only when I'm upstairs, which is probably b/c I'm farther away from my wifi. Today I watched an old PBS program on my ipad in my family room (for some reason, it does not appear on the Netflix library on my TV but does on my iPad!). I had no problems at all most likely b/c I was near my wifi signal. I actually like the selection of Netflix programming but I like a lot of foreign programming and don't care as much about new releases. Could it be that your TV is not getting a strong enough signal from your wifi?

I get Netflix and I just watch it on my laptop. I am thinking of getting a Roku box, though. I am one of those people who is not terribly fussy about picture quality, although I get frustrated when things download slowly, freeze or pixilate frequently.

I am totally immersed in House of Cards. I watch it in bed on my laptop.

I have Netflix streaming but can't hear it on my laptop, so I end up watching Amazon instead. I have complained to Netflix about the low volume and they blame it on my laptop, but I have no trouble with Amazon episodes or YouTube, History Channel or CBS online, so the problem is NETFLIX.

fourkids4us--if you have a Wii, you should be able to stream Amazon through the Wii, just like you do Netflix. Go to the Wii shop channel and look for Amazon Prime streaming. It's a free download. I have an older Wii and stream both Netflix and Amazon through it.

Camlan, thanks for the tip about the Wii! I'll have to check that out. I never noticed as the wii is on our basement tv where the kids watch movies but I'll see if I can figure out how to set up amazon down there. It does annoy me though that our tvs are not compatible. Our basement tv is only a few years old!

Netflix, by default, sets the video quality to "Auto" for everyone's account. You need to go into "Your Account," choose "Playback Settings," and change your "Data Usage" setting to "High." It needs to be high to stream HD video.

Netflix requires way more bandwidth than Amazon, so you need to check your speed. There are several websites that will check your bandwidth, just google. You need at least 7mbps to stream HD video.

Leafy, have you turned up the volume on both your laptop and on Netflix? I have to do that sometimes.

thanks Kelly - I made that change and we'll try it again.

I have excellent internet service so bandwidth requirements shouldn't be a problem.

We have the same problem with Netflix when watching shows in the evening. I'll check our "data usage" to see if it's set to high. It's not our Uverse--I upped our speed just to be sure and we checked it and it's running correctly. Amazon streaming works fine--it's just Netflix that freezes up and it's really annoying. Sometimes it just makes the whole show unwatchable.

Thank you, Kellyeng, for the setting suggestion. Maybe there is hope.

I just recently experienced the same problem. When I contacted the cable company they ran a test on my signal and determined my cable modem (it's the box that the cable is connected to from the wall) was out of date and couldn't keep up to the signal. I had to buy a new one and everything runs so much faster. My download speeds increased noticeably to the point now it's just a blink to load a webpage.

I would suggest having your cable provider check your download speed they did it remotely while I was on the phone with them.

I would also say check your cable provider. We got a new box with much faster download speeds. Previously, we could not have the laptops running if someone was watching streaming Netflix, but now we have enough bandwidth to run everything.

We have Amazon Prime now, but we dropped Netflix streaming awhile ago because a lot of the series we wanted to watch were not available. No HBO programming is available streaming. SInce we got Prime, we suspended the Netflix. DH has had the account forever and just deactivates and reactivates it when he wants to.

Dang, I thought changing that setting was going to be the answer but alas no improvement. I did some googling and it seems a number of people have started having Netflix streaming quality problems over the last couple weeks on a variety of devices. I'll stay cancelled for now and maybe try it again at some point. I was interested as there are some series that are pay per episode on Amazon that would have been a much better deal on Netflix. But once I've had HD I'm not willing to watch a blurry pixilated picture even if it is a good deal.

Have you tried netflix on your laptop, desktop or tablet? That will give you an indication if it is your box or netflix. I needed to change my wireless router settings to watch netflix via roku. (Roku customer service walked us through this)

I agree, I'd hate to pay per episode on amazon.

We had a Sony box we used to stream through and replaced it with a Roku box and it fixed our Netflix problem. Not sure why we didn't have the same problem with streaming Amazon but it was indeed a bad box. We can even stream on two different tvs now and don't have any problems with it stopping or hesitating.