[ethbr1]

I'm curious if the root cause is more variable than usual latency.

Sample size 1, but...

I saw a ton of buffering and failure on an embedded Netflix app on a TV, including some infinite freezes.

Moved over to laptop, zero buffering.

I assume the web app runs with a lot bigger buffer than whatever is squeezed into the underpowered TV.

[YZF]

Likely these devices use different media formats and/or quality levels. And yes, it's possible one device buffers more than the other. Infinite freezes sounds like some routing issues or bugs.

[ethbr1]

When I was watching the behavior on the tv, was wondering if buffering sends some separate, non-business-as-usual requests, and that part of Netflix's delivery architecture was being overloaded.

E.g. "give me this previous chunk" vs "send me the current stream"

[YZF]

Buffering typically just consumes the same live stream until there's enough in the buffer. No difference other than the request rate being potentially higher. At least I can confidently say that for the standard players/video platforms. NetFlix could be doing something different. I'm not sure if they have their own protocols. But I'd be very surprised if the buffering used a completely different mechanism.