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Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#251
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's what they are relieving...edge traffic volumes. If the local ISP cache box lowers it's maximum quality, the ISPs get relief. The ISPs oversubscribed, and can't deal with this many people being at home all at once.

Citation needed. In the UK... "UK broadband companies say they can cope with increased demand as many more people stay at home during the coronavirus crisis." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51870732

Log onto the internet at 1900hrs in central London on any normal day and be in for a shock

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but not this kind of bullshit. How is COVID stopping Netflix from lowering their rates accordingly?

Taking actions like changing billing code requires time and effort. COVID-19 requires spending time and effort on lots of things. Everything has an opportunity cost. Spend time and attention on things that matter.

Considering how often Netflix has jacked up my plan prices, I imagine they already have the billing code in place.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#253
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's what they are relieving...edge traffic volumes. If the local ISP cache box lowers it's maximum quality, the ISPs get relief. The ISPs oversubscribed, and can't deal with this many people being at home all at once.

Citation needed. In the UK... "UK broadband companies say they can cope with increased demand as many more people stay at home during the coronavirus crisis." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51870732

Well if the companies say so

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#254
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A broadband company as referred to in the parent comment is an internet service provider.

1. This is EU-wide, just because one or two broadband companies in a specific country said so doesn't mean they all can handle it. 2. I have doubt that any broadband company would openly admit to not being able to handle the extra load.

> 2. I have doubt that any broadband company would openly admit to not being able to handle the extra load.

Thank you! Found this entire thread very odd.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that if you pirate 1080p or 4k content you'll always get the full resolution you asked for.

What a joke. We're punished for being paying customers. It's like the oppressive DRM that hurts actual paying customers of games rather than the pirates who circumvent it.

This is generally how the media industry works. Paying for content (online at least) is almost always more complex, less flexible and lower quality.

Add to that the various geographical restrictions (have the audacity to live outside of the US? No content for you!) and piracy becomes quite attractive.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#256
Maybe if we had kept using bittorrent for TV distribution we wouldn't have so much global traffic downloading "The Avengers" for the millionth time, you would just download it from the nearest host (also the way the internet worked before HTTPS, there used to be way more local caching of content being downloaded over and over again)

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that if you pirate 1080p or 4k content you'll always get the full resolution you asked for.

What a joke. We're punished for being paying customers. It's like the oppressive DRM that hurts actual paying customers of games rather than the pirates who circumvent it.

This started with DVDs that had unskippable anti piracy messages that piracy tools would either bypass or automatically enable skippability.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#258

I've been having major internet issues lately (Seattle area), have had 4 techs come try to figure it out. Yesterday's tech finally correctly diagnosed the problem as happening before the connection reaches our home but was unsure of the cause. He called his supervisor to investigate, and they found that the capacity for our neighborhood's node was nearly at 100%, while ideally it should always be under 80%. Fortunate…

I’ve worked at a major ISP, for a decade, and spotting something like this should be so easy to spot. There are tools on monitoring of load all the time, and areas are routibely getting split etc. to improve bandwith, so I think your ISP are basicly amateurs..

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that if you pirate 1080p or 4k content you'll always get the full resolution you asked for.

Not always at a great bitrate though. I haven't really torrented anything in a while but I doubt there are many 20GB+ Blu-ray quality rips out there that you can download in a reasonable amount of time. EDIT: after reading the replies I stand corrected; it seems like there are some better quality uploads out there than I thought.

At least it will be the same bitrate every time :)

The keyword you should be searching for is "remux", as in identical video/audio streams to a BD but in a new container (probably MKV).

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#260

Maybe if we had kept using bittorrent for TV distribution we wouldn't have so much global traffic downloading "The Avengers" for the millionth time, you would just download it from the nearest host (also the way the internet worked before HTTPS, there used to be way more local caching of content being downloaded over and over again)

Except residential upload speeds are usually only 1/10th of the corresponding download speed.
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