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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

#481

Post by cercatrova »

orcasauce wrote: post #472
Retric wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if you’re streaming from a neighbor who turns off their computer? The default is to download 100% from a CDN somewhere, and P2P that default to the same behavior can’t be a net negative outside of sub 0.1% extra communication overhead. Don’t want to use your upload bandwidth? That’s fine your simply stuck using the same CDN network that’s currently overloaded. So none of the above are actual issues, a device d…

You're grossly oversimplifying the complexity involved with "streaming" a video. Specifically in the context of a service like Disney+ or Netflix. Additionally how do you "find" that content near you? How do you ensure it is available? How do you ensure it is correct? Who owns it? How do you ensure copyright/drm/licenses are respected? What do you do when it disappears? The gains are incredibly slim, if at all, for t…

I don't understand your first paragraph. If I torrent a movie, how does the torrent client know any of the things you mentioned as well? The answer is that the protocol does, along with some tags as to what the movie the file represents, like Radarr and Sonarr do. This would be the same, just on a locked down streaming client.

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

#482

Post by [deleted] »

onedr0p wrote: post #453
anonymouswacker wrote: post #440

Paying isn't enough to get what you paid for, so... https://github.com/SickChill/SickChill - automatically download TV episodes (about Linux) https://github.com/CouchPotato/CouchPotatoServer - automatically download Movies (about Linux) https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent - torrent client for downloading your Linux tv/movies...

Sonarr and Radarr are 10x better.

[deleted]

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

#483

Post by golergka »

tazjin wrote: post #255
kingo55 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not with music though.

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

#484

Post by BLKNSLVR »

anonymouswacker wrote: post #440

Paying isn't enough to get what you paid for, so... https://github.com/SickChill/SickChill - automatically download TV episodes (about Linux) https://github.com/CouchPotato/CouchPotatoServer - automatically download Movies (about Linux) https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent - torrent client for downloading your Linux tv/movies...

Linux administration skills are going to be in abundance once the COVID-19 threat has passed.

Might also be a good opportunity for trying out some community and mesh network software.

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

#485

Post by Retric »

orcasauce wrote: post #472
Retric wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if you’re streaming from a neighbor who turns off their computer? The default is to download 100% from a CDN somewhere, and P2P that default to the same behavior can’t be a net negative outside of sub 0.1% extra communication overhead. Don’t want to use your upload bandwidth? That’s fine your simply stuck using the same CDN network that’s currently overloaded. So none of the above are actual issues, a device d…

You're grossly oversimplifying the complexity involved with "streaming" a video. Specifically in the context of a service like Disney+ or Netflix. Additionally how do you "find" that content near you? How do you ensure it is available? How do you ensure it is correct? Who owns it? How do you ensure copyright/drm/licenses are respected? What do you do when it disappears? The gains are incredibly slim, if at all, for t…

First, OpenConnect is just a CDN run by Netflix, they could call it bunny protocol it’s just a name. But, they don’t have unlimited boxes at every ISP, in almost every case you can get P2P connections between specific users with lower network overhead than those users connecting to one of the ISP’s data centers.

Anyway, the CDN knows the connections that are on the network because they are what are connecting to it. Segregating based on large scale network architecture is a solved problem, if you’re confused read up on how CDN’s work. What happens inside each ISP can then be managed either via automation based on ping times etc, or ISP specific rules.

In terms of P2P it’s trivial to include 99% of the data for a movie, but not enough data to actually play the movie. It’s codec specific, but that’s not a problem when you’re designing the service. Ensuring the correct users are part of the network is the basic authentication at the CDN node. That’s what’s keeping the list of active users.

As to data validation, the basic BitTorrent protocol handles most of what your concerned about. Clients have long been able to stream movies with minimal buffering by simply prioritizing traffic. Improving on that baseline is possible as you’re running the service not just accepting random connections and you want to be able to switch resolutions on the fly, but that’s really not a big deal.

PS: And yes, some Netflix content deals would create issues. But, that’s irrelevant to their own content and it’s just another negotiation when negotiating licensing, much like allowing content on a CDN in the first place.

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

#486

Post by laurencerowe »

codyb wrote: post #261
jazzyjackson wrote: post #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)

Wasn’t Netflix originally p2p in some manner? I can’t remember the exact details (and I may be wrong), but I could have sworn their original architecture was distributed in one way or the other.

Netflix was never p2p, but BBC iPlayer was when it first launched.

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

#487

Post by rkeene2 »

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…

FWIW, the reason nodes typically don't get to 100% is due to something called WRED (Weighted Random Early Detection). As the outbound/inbound queue on your "node" approaches fullness, it randomly selects packets to drop. This signals TCP on the sender to back-off. The closer to full-ness it gets, the higher the probability (weight), so the sender knows to slow down to the slowest link's speed.

I've written more about this problem here [0].

[0] https://rkeene.org/projects/info/wiki/176

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

#488

Post by kryptokommunist »

With Netflix having content caches this seems like incompetency from the EU commissioner paired with an openness to virtue signaling in this time from Netflix. Isn’t it the job of the ISP to shape the traffic accordingly if they overprovisioned and are now failing their customers due to that?

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

#489

Post by jiggawatts »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #388
DavidVoid wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a joke. They charge me for "Full HD" and don't deliver it? I just downgraded to the cheaper plan with lower definition. If that's what I'm getting, anyway... I mean how is this even legal?

I'm not a lawyer, but this sounds like valid grounds for a class-action lawsuit.

Their advertising touts their 4K streaming and HDR quality, but then in practice they silently downgrade most non-television devices to HD resolutions and SDR. There's a footnote in some tech support article if you know where to look, that's it.

Under Australian consumer protection law, for example, this kind of deceptive or false advertising is flat-out illegal, and comes with eye-watering fines. Telecommunications companies have had huge fines for saying their Internet is "broadband" when it wasn't qualifying, for example.

If it wasn't such an enormous pain in the arse, I would love to get the ball rolling on a lawsuit, because flagrantly anti-consumer behaviour like this needs to stop.

Look at this this way: If you ask NetFlix about why they insist on DRM, particularly when most of their content is available in glorious 4K on certain pirate-themed bays, they mumble some excuse about contracts with their content providers. However, a huge chunk of their content is made by Netflix!

That's like a self-employed person saying "Sorry, this is company policy. My boss told me I have to do this nonsensical bad thing."

It's just absurd.

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

#490

Post by salazryl »

onedr0p wrote: post #453
anonymouswacker wrote: post #440

Paying isn't enough to get what you paid for, so... https://github.com/SickChill/SickChill - automatically download TV episodes (about Linux) https://github.com/CouchPotato/CouchPotatoServer - automatically download Movies (about Linux) https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent - torrent client for downloading your Linux tv/movies...

Sonarr and Radarr are 10x better.

New here. What's the difference between these two?
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