Is your Roku Netflix Player stuck on one-dot streaming?

Call it coincidence or call it fate, but it seems something is afoot in the land of the Roku Netflix Player. Out of seemingly nowhere, a fair amount of users are finding that their once beautiful downloads have turned to pixelated iterations of their old selves, and to no fault of their internet connection. As the story goes, some users have found that their box is forcing streaming at "one-dot," or the lowest quality selection available, rather than the four-dot connection they were using just last week. As you'd expect, the quality of the one-dot stream is rather dreadful, and for those who've tried forcing a higher quality setting, they're stuck waiting eons for buffering and such. Have you too encountered this issue? Or are the internet elves looking out for you?

[Image courtesy of PreGameLobby, thanks Tyler]

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 13th 2008 10:40AM]

I used to get four dots but now I usually get two or 3. I have 6 Megabit DSL and don't do anything else on the connection while using the Roku. I have done speed tests and nothing seems to be an issue, I can only guess that maybe the streaming servers are just getting used more and more.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 15th 2008 3:16PM]

YES! We used to get at least 3 stars. Usually four. Lately, without any changes to my Roku device or anything else in my home, we are relegated to 1 or two dots of quality.

It is wirelessly connected, not hard Ethernet. While watching Hereos last night, we started at one, were upgraded to 2 in the middle, and then promptly downgraded to 1 again for the rest of the show.

This has been happening for at least a week now.

Are Netflix's servers getting overloaded? Are they selling more set-top boxes than expected? Are more people watching instantly on their PCs than ever before?

My dreams of HD content via the Roku device are dwindling fast.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 13th 2008 4:52PM]

I've been having the same problem streaming from my PC for months. It looks like the demand for Netflix streaming has grown faster than they can keep up with. They need to get their shit together if they want this whole streaming thing to be accepted by the average consumer.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 17th 2008 9:34AM]

I used to get 4 dots now get 2 as of early this week. I'm on a samsung blu-2500 player. Local connection is road runner cable.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 4th 2008 12:39PM]

I am having the same problem with my xbox 360. It worked great for about a week and now it is only letting me stream at the lowest level. I have Road Runner as well. I called Netflix and they said it seems to only happen to Cable customers, but I'm betting that once they moved to the Xbox they now have too much traffic and need a major upgrade on their servers for all of the new volume.