Neflix set-top box, part 2
So I sat down before dinner to watch a TV show with my son on our new Roku Netflix player. There was some network activity going on, so quality came in at one "dot" out of four. That was noticeable, but not terrible. I was thinking it improved while I was watching it the night before, and it seemed to today as well. But about half-an-hour in, the screen blanked and I got a "loading" bar, indicating that the buffer was empty and it was rebuffering... quality was two dots.
So the question is, did it decide my connection had improved, but couldn't switch quality on the fly, so it dumped the buffer and started buffering again at a higher quality? Or had it already switched quality on the fly and something happened to cause my network buffer to completely empty, but then fill up fairly smoothly.
I find the former unlikely. I'm thinking network connectivity may have been flaky.
Later in the show, the screen froze and a few seconds later, the Roku rebooted. That was unexpected. It picked up exactly where I had been when it froze, but it does take awhile for the box to reboot, load my queue so I can select my show again, and then rebuffer the first few minutes. That may have been the Roku reacting badly to a network problem. Time will tell, I suppose.