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The End of Video Coding?

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Re: The End of Video Coding?

#41

Post by 8xde0wcNwpslOw »

c2h5oh wrote: post #21
dingo_bat wrote: post #4

It seems to me that despite the tech, Netflix video quality is really horrible. Youtube is consistently much higher quality, even though Netflix's own "fast.com" tells me my connection is capable of 75Mbps downstream. Which should be enough for crisp 1080p. Multiple times I've been so frustrated with Netflix's quality that I've started a movie, stopped it because it looked like something out of a VCR, torrented the t…

Most likely you're watching in 720p. In Chrome, Firefox and Opera you're getting 720p max. To get 1080p you need to be watching in Internet Explorer, Safari or on a Chromebook. To get 4k you need to be watching in Edge and have a 7xxx or 8xxx Intel CPU and HDCP 2.2 enabled display. Source: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742

It could also be a lot worse than 720p. At least for me, most bigger (not netflix-original) titles are limited to 480p with maximum bitrates even below 1000 kbps when using a "partially" supported browser like Chrome.

But even using Edge is not a silver bullet for all content, as some seems to be limited to that low bitrate 480p on all browsers, even if higher quality is available on a TV app.

Re: The End of Video Coding?

#42

Post by derf_ »

zellyn wrote: post #10

I see this: In the ITU-T VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG standardization world, the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) was formed in October 2017 to develop a new video standard that has capabilities beyond HEVC. The recently-concluded Call for Proposals attracted an impressive number of 32 institutions from industry and academia, with a combined 22 submissions. The new standard, which will be called Versatile Video Coding (VVC),…

I have some industry knowledge. You are exactly correct.

Re: The End of Video Coding?

#43

Post by jakobegger »

shawn wrote: post #38
CyberDildonics wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually watch 8k video off of youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn24cQLqAE4

Wow! Even at my monitor's 1024x768, the 8k video looks amazing! So much better than 1080p! Something something nyquist something

There is already an 8k display on the market.

Re: The End of Video Coding?

#44

Post by martincmartin »

lostcolony wrote: post #6
carbonatedmilk wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes entire sense to me: When you're going to stream the episode of Stranger things to 15million people, who really cares what the one-time cost to encode is? Surely you'd take algorithmic complexity that was 100x or even 1000x the baseline if it provided you with even a few kB of bandwidth savings?

You still care, since at some point the cost of the extra encoder-hours used is going to outpace the bandwidth savings. I'm guessing she mentally assumed 'at no bandwidth savings, how much margin do we have?', since the amount saved wasn't ever quantified.

It's not bandwidth savings. It's growing the user base. There are lots of people on low bandwidth connections. Maybe now they don't find Netflix watchable, because the video quality is to crappy. But if you can fit higher quality video into the same bandwidth, they'd become users.

I agree with your overall point though, that at some point the extra cost for encode isn't worth it.

Re: The End of Video Coding?

#45

Post by dooglius »

SirHound wrote: post #8
dingo_bat wrote: post #4

It seems to me that despite the tech, Netflix video quality is really horrible. Youtube is consistently much higher quality, even though Netflix's own "fast.com" tells me my connection is capable of 75Mbps downstream. Which should be enough for crisp 1080p. Multiple times I've been so frustrated with Netflix's quality that I've started a movie, stopped it because it looked like something out of a VCR, torrented the t…

Could it be your ISP is targeting and throttling Netflix? There's probably a way to verify this. I tend to find the quality of HD Netflix streams pretty great over my PS4. Certainly never a cause to download a torrent instead.

You can do a pretty direct test with https://www.netflix.com/title/70136810

Re: The End of Video Coding?

#46

Post by c2h5oh »

8xde0wcNwpslOw wrote: post #41
c2h5oh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely you're watching in 720p. In Chrome, Firefox and Opera you're getting 720p max. To get 1080p you need to be watching in Internet Explorer, Safari or on a Chromebook. To get 4k you need to be watching in Edge and have a 7xxx or 8xxx Intel CPU and HDCP 2.2 enabled display. Source: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742

It could also be a lot worse than 720p. At least for me, most bigger (not netflix-original) titles are limited to 480p with maximum bitrates even below 1000 kbps when using a "partially" supported browser like Chrome. But even using Edge is not a silver bullet for all content, as some seems to be limited to that low bitrate 480p on all browsers, even if higher quality is available on a TV app.

Control+Alt+Shift+S and override bitrate used.

Re: The End of Video Coding?

#47

Post by isostatic »

dingo_bat wrote: post #4

It seems to me that despite the tech, Netflix video quality is really horrible. Youtube is consistently much higher quality, even though Netflix's own "fast.com" tells me my connection is capable of 75Mbps downstream. Which should be enough for crisp 1080p. Multiple times I've been so frustrated with Netflix's quality that I've started a movie, stopped it because it looked like something out of a VCR, torrented the t…

On a PC you can apparently choose a higher bitrate [1], but it's still pretty ropey from what I can see. I get 66mbit on fast.com, but look at how poor this still [0] from civil war is. Perhaps it's just because it's firefox on linux [2] - are these values in kbits? I normally watch netflix on my LG tv and it tends to average 10mbit, which is still far less than a blueray, but it's "good enough".

[0] https://i.imgur.com/cC2DJgN.png

[1] https://www.addictivetips.com/web/force-netflix-to-stream-in...

[2] https://i.imgur.com/LFPWR54.png

Re: The End of Video Coding?

#48

Post by Yetanfou »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #40
carbonatedmilk wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes entire sense to me: When you're going to stream the episode of Stranger things to 15million people, who really cares what the one-time cost to encode is? Surely you'd take algorithmic complexity that was 100x or even 1000x the baseline if it provided you with even a few kB of bandwidth savings?

Bandwidth is extremely cheap, so 15 million by a few kB is just 15+ GB, which costs pennies in terms of bandwidth. That doesn't buy you that much encoding compute time.

Bandwidth can be cheap, all depending on the connection you're using. It can also be extremely expensive:

[ Dutch ] https://www.telegraaf.nl/vrij/2167192/zoontje-duitsers-kijkt...

If your Dutch isn't up to this let me summarise: A German family took a boat trip from Kiel to Oslo. Their 12yo son watched a few movies (or clips, no idea) while on board. Total data consumption was 470 MB. They got a bill for €12.000,- which comes down to just over €25 per MB.

Bandwidth can be very expensive as well. Of course this is an extreme case but any byte shaved off an encoded stream can end up saving some people a lot of money.

Re: The End of Video Coding?

#49

Post by phlakaton »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #40
carbonatedmilk wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes entire sense to me: When you're going to stream the episode of Stranger things to 15million people, who really cares what the one-time cost to encode is? Surely you'd take algorithmic complexity that was 100x or even 1000x the baseline if it provided you with even a few kB of bandwidth savings?

Bandwidth is extremely cheap, so 15 million by a few kB is just 15+ GB, which costs pennies in terms of bandwidth. That doesn't buy you that much encoding compute time.

For you, perhaps, it's cheap. For the use cases they are talking about, it's expensive and limited.

Agreed that, if all they can do is shave a "few kB" off a video, it's probably not worth the investment. But what if they can buy a 5–10% bandwidth improvement that actually looks better on the device they're targeting?

Re: The End of Video Coding?

#50

Post by mfrw »

graedus wrote: post #31
dingo_bat wrote: post #4

It seems to me that despite the tech, Netflix video quality is really horrible. Youtube is consistently much higher quality, even though Netflix's own "fast.com" tells me my connection is capable of 75Mbps downstream. Which should be enough for crisp 1080p. Multiple times I've been so frustrated with Netflix's quality that I've started a movie, stopped it because it looked like something out of a VCR, torrented the t…

Control+Alt+Shift+D in netflix to see information like the resolution of your video stream, bitrate, etc. As sibling comments mention, the max resolution can depend on your browser. On youtube, you can right click > stats for nerds for some similar info.

Thanks for this. [TIL]
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