Netflix is now doing per-shot encoding for UHD content • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by ponker » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 6:25 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #149

ponker wrote: post #127

Any idea why none of these services supports queueing some movies you’d like to watch, downloading them in the middle of the night in astounding bitrates, and allowing you to watch on your TV? As far as I can tell only the mobile apps support this, not the “streaming boxes.”

The streaming boxes probably don't have enough storage to hold much. There's Kaleidescape but it's very expensive.

Why not give them enough storage? 32 GB of flash is more than enough and now you get to sell a whole new generation of boxes.

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

#152

Post by cheeze » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 6:39 AM UTC

milleramp wrote: post #145

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…

Yes unless you have a new tv that supports eARC it won’t pass Dolby Atmos to your receiver from the tv. There is a solution to this which is currently in preorder. https://www.hdfury.com/product/4k-arcana-18gbps/

Of course it's an HDFury product <3

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

#153

Post by hinkley » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 6:39 AM UTC

The best (worst?) example I know of this going horribly wrong is the title sequence for the Big Bang Theory, which speeds up as it goes along and then cuts to the cast.

Math, science, history, unraveling the mystery , it all started with a Big Bang. BANG (Bang, your Screen is a riot of random pixels. Oh wait, here’s the cast instead!)

Then I caught an episode on another service, maybe Netflix? The transition wasn’t awesome, but it wasn’t awful either. It only glitched for a frame or two instead of a few seconds. Clearly better heuristics were in play.

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

#154

Post by eisa01 » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 6:51 AM UTC

Now they only need to offer the 4K streams on an affordable plan for single household customers. It’s unfair to pay for the 4-stream family plan to get 4K for double the price of the single stream plan!

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

#155

Post by exikyut » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 6:53 AM UTC

saxonww wrote: post #140

rblatz wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am shocked at how many people watch Netflix in their browser. I have multiple different ways (AppleTV, Xbox, TV Smart App) to watch Netflix on my tv, and at least 2 of them support 4k.

I don't have a TV, so if I watch Netflix it's in a browser. Most people don't realize this but you can only watch Netflix in 4K in a browser if you're using Microsoft Edge on Windows or Safari in macOS 11. In fact, you can only get 1080p if you're running Chrome in Chrome OS, or IE, or Safari. All other browsers, including Chrome and FF on macOS, Linux, and Windows, are stuck at 720p. Their blog post[0] from 2017 sou…

What differentiates Edge from Chromium on Windows?

Edge hasn't been around as long as Netflix has provided in-browser service, I'd have thought Chrome w/ Widevine would have been part of Netflix' success.

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

#156

Post by namibj » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 7:15 AM UTC

bscphil wrote: post #121

zbobet2012 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reread my original post carefully - my point is that if you're stuck with 1080p as the maximum resolution, than the quality you can get with the revised ladder is strictly worse, because Netflix will want to jump up to UHD resolutions, but your device won't support it. These are for their HEVC encodes. Apple (and most others) require H264 to have a separate ladder which will be 1080p limited and will be generated o…

> These are for their HEVC encodes. Really? I wasn't aware Netflix even offered anything other than H.264 at > VMAF does correlate pretty tightly with subjective metrics. This is a very detailed subject, I summed up many of my thoughts on the differences in my demuxed talk last year here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCUsXhSPyyw Thanks, I'll check that out when I have the time. I'd still emphasize that it's quite…

Youtube offers various codecs, also including VP8 at all resolution/framerate settings H.264 is offered on (not all formats will always be available). For example, here's the youtube-dl format list for a well-known video:

  [youtube] dQw4w9WgXcQ: Downloading webpage
  [info] Available formats for dQw4w9WgXcQ:
  format code  extension  resolution note
  249          webm       audio only tiny   49k , opus @ 50k (48000Hz), 1.18MiB
  250          webm       audio only tiny   65k , opus @ 70k (48000Hz), 1.55MiB
  140          m4a        audio only tiny  130k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k (44100Hz), 3.27MiB
  251          webm       audio only tiny  136k , opus @160k (48000Hz), 3.28MiB
  394          mp4        256x144    144p   73k , av01.0.00M.08, 25fps, video only, 1.72MiB
  278          webm       256x144    144p   97k , webm container, vp9, 25fps, video only, 2.25MiB
  160          mp4        256x144    144p  107k , avc1.4d400c, 25fps, video only, 2.05MiB
  395          mp4        426x240    240p  159k , av01.0.00M.08, 25fps, video only, 3.42MiB
  242          webm       426x240    240p  217k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 4.04MiB
  133          mp4        426x240    240p  290k , avc1.4d4015, 25fps, video only, 4.48MiB
  396          mp4        640x360    360p  340k , av01.0.01M.08, 25fps, video only, 6.68MiB
  243          webm       640x360    360p  396k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 6.96MiB
  134          mp4        640x360    360p  484k , avc1.4d401e, 25fps, video only, 8.27MiB
  244          webm       854x480    480p  586k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 10.03MiB
  397          mp4        854x480    480p  603k , av01.0.04M.08, 25fps, video only, 11.37MiB
  135          mp4        854x480    480p  741k , avc1.4d401e, 25fps, video only, 11.56MiB
  247          webm       1280x720   720p 1035k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 17.67MiB
  136          mp4        1280x720   720p 1077k , avc1.4d401f, 25fps, video only, 16.72MiB
  398          mp4        1280x720   720p 1133k , av01.0.05M.08, 25fps, video only, 22.07MiB
  399          mp4        1920x1080  1080p 2106k , av01.0.08M.08, 25fps, video only, 40.74MiB
  248          webm       1920x1080  1080p 2666k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 58.46MiB
  137          mp4        1920x1080  1080p 4640k , avc1.640028, 25fps, video only, 78.96MiB
  18           mp4        640x360    360p  601k , avc1.42001E, 25fps, mp4a.40.2@ 96k (44100Hz), 15.19MiB (best)

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

#157

Post by namibj » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 7:19 AM UTC

laurencerowe wrote: post #76

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

In case you are using Google/Cloudflare DNS try switching back to Comcast's DNS servers so you get directed to a Netflix Open Connect box within their network.

Google DNS supports EDNS-subnet info, and should work just as well as Comcast's DNS for Netflix. Cloudflare won't, though.

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

#158

Post by saxonww » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 7:36 AM UTC

exikyut wrote: post #155

saxonww wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a TV, so if I watch Netflix it's in a browser. Most people don't realize this but you can only watch Netflix in 4K in a browser if you're using Microsoft Edge on Windows or Safari in macOS 11. In fact, you can only get 1080p if you're running Chrome in Chrome OS, or IE, or Safari. All other browsers, including Chrome and FF on macOS, Linux, and Windows, are stuck at 720p. Their blog post[0] from 2017 sou…

What differentiates Edge from Chromium on Windows? Edge hasn't been around as long as Netflix has provided in-browser service, I'd have thought Chrome w/ Widevine would have been part of Netflix' success.

Edge supports PlayReady in addition to Widevine. PlayReady is what gates the higher quality stream. No idea what the technical reason is for this.

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

#159

Post by zerocrates » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 7:37 AM UTC

bscphil wrote: post #88

It's really too bad that they haven't rolled this out for 1080p too. Their 1080p video quality is god-awful compared to Amazon. They may even have made it worse: from the "ladder" comparisons, it looks like they jump to higher resolutions at lower average bitrates now, so if you're stuck at 1080p you're going to be getting worse quality after these changes than before. Also, something that's kind of weird about all t…

This post is more or less all about them extending things they already do for lower resolutions to 4K.

And the graph you posted isn't quite showing what you're saying it is: these show the "4K" curves. When you're on a 1080-max device but have a strong connection, there are higher-bitrate 1080 streams available; they're just not on this chart because that's not what it's showing.

In other words, what the curves are showing is just that they're switching to higher resolutions at lower bitrates than before, when your device supports them. Really the way to read it would be drawing lines vertically: given a fixed bandwidth, the "optimized" encode is always giving higher quality and often higher resolution.

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

#160

Post by rblatz » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 7:50 AM UTC

saxonww wrote: post #158

exikyut wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What differentiates Edge from Chromium on Windows? Edge hasn't been around as long as Netflix has provided in-browser service, I'd have thought Chrome w/ Widevine would have been part of Netflix' success.

Edge supports PlayReady in addition to Widevine. PlayReady is what gates the higher quality stream. No idea what the technical reason is for this.

Honestly the whole thing is stupid. 4k videos of everything on Netflix are available on the high seas. What’s the point?