Does Netflix come straight from router or does it travel through itunes

Question

and the mac too?
I cannot figure out why streaming netflex stops all the time and freezes on my ATV but NEVER does this on my imac, MBP or either ipad in our house...but every single netflix move stops and and goes all through the video.
Obviously this is buffering but why. My Air Extreme is updated as is the ATV and all have been rebooted. No issues streaming audio or video from my imac but again...netflix boo.
So I'm curious if the ATV grabs straight from the internet via airport extreme or does it take and extra path through itunes and thus introduce other variables. very frustrated.

Answer 1

We'll you do bring up some interesting opinions on the matter but your comments that explain Netflix streaming as a function of ISP speed (which approaches a consistent 20mbps) seem to fall short if you include my initial comment that two macs and two ipads NEVER have this issue.
I proposed that as a possible explanation in response to your question, but it's certainly not the only possibility. However, it is a fact that Netflix uses a variable bit rate technique in order to minimize the need for buffering, which is the opposite of what the iTunes store does, which is to attempt to send a constant data stream for caching. The difference in streaming techniques, which are affected by network speed, might account for the reports from various users that videos from the iTunes store play well when Netflix videos don't.
The Netflix iPad app does not support HD video, whereas the ATV does. Netflix also uses Microsoft's Silverlight for the embedded players in the Xbox and the PS3 and the Silverlight plugin for browsers. It's unlikely that the ATV supports Silverlight, however, so I suspect its player is using either HTML5 or Quicktime, and that could also be related to the problem.
In either case, or whatever the actual case may be, I doubt that the problem is resolvable by the end user. I expect it will take a software update from Apple to resolve the Netflix streaming issues.