Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

netflixtechblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 200 posts

Re: Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

#31

Post by notJim »

radley wrote: post #20

> Sometimes we ingest a title that would need more bits at the highest end of the quality spectrum — even higher than the 16 Mbps limit of the fixed-bitrate ladder. From just a cursory inspection using my Apple TV 4K, 12 Mbps is their target bitrate but their ceiling was ~16 Mbps. That's still only a third of what AppleTV+ offers (36/48) and only 2/3 of Disney+ (18/24). Netflix is still higher than Prime Video (10/14…

> From just a cursory inspection using my Apple TV 4K

I'm confused, how are you getting this information? Does Apple TV have a way to display the bitrate ceiling?

Also, do you find the bitrate differences noticeable? On my 4k tv, I find Netflix looks pretty good, but Amazon looks pretty bad and HBO Now is awful of course (no Max yet, since I use a Roku.) This might be enough to get me to check out AppleTV+.

Re: Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

#32

Post by charrondev »

hn_check wrote: post #28
charrondev wrote: post #5

That seems like a pretty impressive achievement! Question for anyone here: What do you use to play 4K/HDR? I have an Apple TV 4K, which can do 4K Dolby Vision playback and looks ok, but the Apple TV tends to have some jittering when streaming certain shows (very noticeable in panning shots of animation). The sound quality is also noticeably worse on my set with it (it doesn’t seem to be able to do direct pass through…

"I have an Apple TV 4K, which can do 4K Dolby Vision playback and looks ok, but the Apple TV tends to have some jittering when streaming certain shows (very noticeable in panning shots of animation)." How don't more people complain about this? I avoid streaming on the Apple TV because it does some sort of bizarre framerate thunking that is just brutal for panning. Do so few people use the product that it just goes un…

I also have a 4K LG TV and “frame rate thunking” is the perfect term to describe it.

I wish it would just give the direct output to the TV and receiver (video audio). No idea why they the need to process it all on device.

Re: Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

#33

Post by notJim »

fock wrote: post #30
radley wrote: post #20

> Sometimes we ingest a title that would need more bits at the highest end of the quality spectrum — even higher than the 16 Mbps limit of the fixed-bitrate ladder. From just a cursory inspection using my Apple TV 4K, 12 Mbps is their target bitrate but their ceiling was ~16 Mbps. That's still only a third of what AppleTV+ offers (36/48) and only 2/3 of Disney+ (18/24). Netflix is still higher than Prime Video (10/14…

I just stopped caring, bought a Blu-Ray drive, which works fine under Linux nowadays and can enjoy 30Mbps FHD-encodings where I can just hit pause and have a photo-like still (everything sharp, no blocky shadows). Oh and yes, I also can buy 2 discs/per month of actual good movies I really want to watch (who has time for more than that anyway?) for what Netflix would like to charge me...

You can also get Blu-rays from Netflix if you watch more. The real costly thing for this approach is tv though, isn't it?

Re: Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

#34

Post by wtallis »

hn_check wrote: post #25
wtallis wrote: post #14

A lot of those graphs seem to show that video quality at 1920x1080 is going down significantly. Does that mean you now need to be on their most expensive plan and using one of their approved devices/platforms to continue receiving the same video quality, now only obtainable with 2560x1440 and higher resolutions?

The chart does not see to show every bitrate for every target resolution, but rather is show where the 4K stream would have to drop to a lower resolution given insufficient bandwidth.

https://miro.medium.com/max/2000/1*c28F7YXjNo-GpmB9bBmbrA.pn...

This chart clearly shows multiple data points per resolution under the old fixed-ladder scheme, and under the new scheme the new data point for 1080p is lower on the video quality scale than any of the old 720p encodes. That's a pretty significant difference, and my question about where these new encodes fit into their existing price structure remains valid.

Re: Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

#35

Post by MrMorden »

dexterdog wrote: post #13
purerandomness wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds so intuitive that I want to follow up with the question: Why isn't this the default? Is detecting a cut particularly difficult?

Even if you have to pay somebody to tag the scene changes manually that cost would be pretty insignificant to Netflix.

Netflix should be able to get the EDL, which would probably take care of most of the work.

Re: Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

#36

Post by sjwright »

charrondev wrote: post #5

That seems like a pretty impressive achievement! Question for anyone here: What do you use to play 4K/HDR? I have an Apple TV 4K, which can do 4K Dolby Vision playback and looks ok, but the Apple TV tends to have some jittering when streaming certain shows (very noticeable in panning shots of animation). The sound quality is also noticeably worse on my set with it (it doesn’t seem to be able to do direct pass through…

The jittering is caused by the Apple TV defaulting to 60p frame rate for all content. But if you turn on “match frame rate” the jittering goes away.

Re: Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

#37

Post by sjwright »

charrondev wrote: post #32
hn_check wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have an Apple TV 4K, which can do 4K Dolby Vision playback and looks ok, but the Apple TV tends to have some jittering when streaming certain shows (very noticeable in panning shots of animation)." How don't more people complain about this? I avoid streaming on the Apple TV because it does some sort of bizarre framerate thunking that is just brutal for panning. Do so few people use the product that it just goes un…

I also have a 4K LG TV and “frame rate thunking” is the perfect term to describe it. I wish it would just give the direct output to the TV and receiver (video audio). No idea why they the need to process it all on device.

Have you tried turning “match frame rate” on?

Re: Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

#38

Post by wtallis »

charrondev wrote: post #29
wtallis wrote: post #14

A lot of those graphs seem to show that video quality at 1920x1080 is going down significantly. Does that mean you now need to be on their most expensive plan and using one of their approved devices/platforms to continue receiving the same video quality, now only obtainable with 2560x1440 and higher resolutions?

How’d you get that out of the article? I read it as scores the board, you’re getting better quality at a lower bit-rate. They talked about being able to serve 1080p at the same bitrate they were serving 720p (where they talked about mobile devices).

There are two dimensions to these graphs. Yes, they've drastically decreased bitrates, but if the cheaper plans still cut off those curves at 720p or 1080p, then you're not necessarily gaining video quality.

Re: Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

#39

Post by ProfessorLayton »

radley wrote: post #20

> Sometimes we ingest a title that would need more bits at the highest end of the quality spectrum — even higher than the 16 Mbps limit of the fixed-bitrate ladder. From just a cursory inspection using my Apple TV 4K, 12 Mbps is their target bitrate but their ceiling was ~16 Mbps. That's still only a third of what AppleTV+ offers (36/48) and only 2/3 of Disney+ (18/24). Netflix is still higher than Prime Video (10/14…

I've noticed that ATV+ looks the best, which is much appreciated.

However, what has been driving me insane with all these services is how the bitrate is completely inconsistent throughout, depending on network congestion. Every service I subscribe to will "automagically" lower the bitrate if the network can't handle it.

Which is fine, I get it. The thing is, it's the only way to watch anything, and depending on the content, it can absolutely ruin it. I'm on Comcast, and Netflix will constantly ping pong between 480p and 1080p, and is very unpleasant to watch. It's ok for some shows, but certain ones like Planet Earth 2 become unwatchable (to me).

I really wish there was a setting to add a bit of wait time before playing to avoid this. ATV+ buffers a bit more than the rest, but has the same issues.

Edit: To clarify, this issue happens both wired and wireless. The main contributor to the inconsistency is the time of day I decide to watch.

Re: Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content

#40

Post by RandallBrown »

fock wrote: post #30
radley wrote: post #20

> Sometimes we ingest a title that would need more bits at the highest end of the quality spectrum — even higher than the 16 Mbps limit of the fixed-bitrate ladder. From just a cursory inspection using my Apple TV 4K, 12 Mbps is their target bitrate but their ceiling was ~16 Mbps. That's still only a third of what AppleTV+ offers (36/48) and only 2/3 of Disney+ (18/24). Netflix is still higher than Prime Video (10/14…

I just stopped caring, bought a Blu-Ray drive, which works fine under Linux nowadays and can enjoy 30Mbps FHD-encodings where I can just hit pause and have a photo-like still (everything sharp, no blocky shadows). Oh and yes, I also can buy 2 discs/per month of actual good movies I really want to watch (who has time for more than that anyway?) for what Netflix would like to charge me...

I personally have way more than ~4 hours of movie watching time per month. I usually spend about an hour (often more) per day watching movies and TV shows on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc.

I've never cared too much about the quality though. The old school dvd rips that were compressed to 700mb to fit on a CD were usually fine by me.

Post reply on HN