Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by marzell » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

DavidVoid wrote: post #152

BenJong-Il wrote: post #87

A few months ago there was blog post posted here from a guy making movie reviews. In the blog post he described how he managed to get 4k Netflix screenshots on his Chromecast. The effort he made was enormous and involved reverse engineering the Netflix data protocol (I probably worded this wrong). When doing that he found out that Netflix streaming in 4k isn't actually 4k. Again not exactly sure how this worked but t…

On a related note, if you watch Netflix in Chrome or Firefox then you're only getting a resolution of 720p. Google Chrome Up to 720p on Windows, Mac, and Linux Up to 1080p on Chrome OS Internet Explorer up to 1080p Microsoft Edge up to 4K* Mozilla Firefox up to 720p Opera up to 720p Safari up to 1080p on Mac OS X 10.10.3 or later *Streaming in 4K requires an HDCP 2.2 compliant connection to a 4K capable display, Inte…

Microsoft really wants users signed in to a Microsoft account on Windows. One of their main leverages for this is encouraging people to use the app store in Windows, which doesn't fully work if you're just logged in to a local account

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

#292

Post by JimmyAustin » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

Sosh101 wrote: post #288

amelius wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Maybe 10 years ago? I don't know anyone with a connection that badly asymmetrical.

My parents connection in Australia is 100/3.

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

#293

Post by DangerousPie » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

casefields wrote: post #236

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still bullshit.

All you need is a handful of small court claims to wake Netflix up. They'll spend a magnitude more on sending Netflix employees to represent them, than all these prorated refunds would cost.

Good luck with your small claims case for $3. Hope you brought your $25 filing fee!

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

#294

Post by op00to » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

rococode wrote: post #246

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…

The tech was full of shit. This happens literally all the time. You probably won’t get a “node split” unless more people loudly complain. It’s cheaper for them to roll a tech and hope you get fed up than it is to actually fix the problem.

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

#295

Post by Macha » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

Fiveplus wrote: post #230

axegon_ wrote: post #189

That explains a lot. Fair enough though > But it said viewers would still find the picture quality good. I beg to differ and I'm watching on my tablet in bed and it reminds me of the Avi files we used to watch on lan networks in the 90s.

Are you in Europe? I'd love to know how are services like Hulu or YouTube holding up?

Hulu is a US exclusive service.

YouTube is unfazed.

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

#296

Post by op00to » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

kitteh wrote: post #286

rococode wrote: post #246

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…

Comcast's last mile network in Seattle has been struggling in some areas from the morning until around 4 to 5 PM. It's not massive loss, but enough to disrupt video conference. Run a mtr towards an Internet dest and you'll see loss at the first hop and everything behind it.

Mtr isn’t a reliable measure of packet loss. Routers drop “extra” packets like ping before they drop “paying” packets.

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

#297

Post by martin_bech » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

cpitman wrote: post #289

martin_bech wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

Alternatively, load has gone up across the board in a short period of time, so that preventive scaling has fallen behind and are in recovery mode.

Yes it can, but why would it take several techs, to spot something like load, which is the first thing you would do, it should take no more than 10s to look it up in a tool.

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

#298

Post by op00to » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

martin_bech wrote: post #258

rococode wrote: post #246

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..

Not amateurs, liars.

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

#299

Post by LynxInLA » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

Sosh101 wrote: post #288

amelius wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Maybe 10 years ago? I don't know anyone with a connection that badly asymmetrical.

That's the standard ratio for Spectrum consumer internet. The ratio actually gets worse as you increase the upload speed. They cap out at 35 Mbps upload even with 940 Mbps download.

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

#300

Post by op00to » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

noodlesUK wrote: post #7

Are there any illustrations of the volumes of traffic that are being sent through core networks for netflix? I was under the impression the vast majority of traffic was served at the edge.

There aren’t, because this isn’t a problem with Netflix. It’s a problem with cheap ISPs that have gotten away with overselling service because most of their customers didn’t actually use it.