Netflix , Amazon HD streaming not quite there yet

[phill1978]

I recently subscribed to netflix (after leaving lovefilm when they switched to prime) and I am watching HD movies fairly fuss free which is nice. Now I do like the convenience and the HD quality isn’t bad but its more like 'upper medium' quality. There is some overall detail and the colour is also ok but its not the vibrant etched look a good Blueray gives nor does it seem as good as broadcast HD?

Also Netflix UHD is around the corner but the required 15mpbs on netflix doesn’t sound like much for a 8.3million pixel 30fps video stream? Even with the newer codecs im sure if you were to take a 1080p blueray and compare the blueray would look better or at the very best 4k would look like blueray. Perhaps by this point we will be at diminishing returns?

But for most that's all they ever need as a lot of people don't even own blueray player but all new TV's coming out do have streaming and 4k ability and it will most certainly look better than current 1080p streams people watch.

Also as an aside even though I have an adequate stable internet connection for the job, there are many times especially on a weekend when the network must be busy that the HD drops for 20 seconds or so to SD and its jarringly obvious and for me and others watching, it does spoils things and takes us out of the experience. Also when starting a movie it is exactly like youtube when you switch to HD, it starts for 20 to 30 seconds in terrible compressed SD and then moves to HD. Even with an 80mbps never dropping stable, average 8-9ms ping on games connection on ethernet, watching movies in HD is determined by network congestion and contention further down the line which for me stops it being a true stable service for now.

I wont mention the archaic 16bit Dolby surround channel audio extracted from 2.0 channels or the limited 5.1 dolby digital quality as having a smaller dynamic range makes it actually a bit easier for most to hear vs the massive 7.1 24bit dynamic range a studio master Blueray offers, so the audio is good enough I guess?


I was wondering though given that this is the AV section what anyone else thinks about the quality, is that enough for you? Discs may seem a bit old hat to some and ultimately streaming is the future but even if '4k' netflix gets hyped surely the same SD/HD/4K swapping is going to happen and happen more on increasingly congested networks? It is here to stay and discs are going but will ISP's ever be able to 100% or even 90% guarantee your 4k stream end to end without bitrate swapping in the foreseeable future?

 

[NexusK]

I can't vouch for other people's TV's but i have noticed that quite a lot of the picture options on my TV are disabled when watching the likes of Netflix (through a WDTV). Play a local file on it and all the options are enabled, play something on Netflix and a lot are greyed out. I'm guessing because of how it's streamed.

The bitrate on them isn't great in the first place but i imagine this contributes some to the perceived picture quality.

Personally i stick to TV shows with streaming and opt for Bluray with movies.

 

[:(Rhodri:)]

What are you streaming through? I seem to get better quality streams through my PS3/4 than the Samsung TV app, could just be a placebo though as I've not really looked into it.

 

[phill1978]

What are you streaming through? I seem to get better quality streams through my PS3/4 than the Samsung TV app, could just be a placebo though as I've not really looked into it.

Im using a PS3 via HDMi to a fairly small 84" projector screen. The image is merely 'good' but the switching of rates is horrible where as blueray is clearly much better as the image is always the about the same bitrate. Also with 4k they are stating you need a 65" or above but if 4k streaming only equals blueray quality (which is to be expected given the like for like bitrates) then im back at square one ... sort of, 4k streaming should bring 1080p blueray quality in theory.

Don't get hooked up on the projector though its also totally noticeable on my small 32" TV !


here is an example of what i see, obviously in motion details can get further smeared by compression.

When the switching occurs (even when my bandwidth outstrips the stream over x9 times) at peak time for my ISP it looks more like the DVD quality only worse. perhaps not the best example as its an old movie

 

[Raymond Lin]

Am I think only one who thinks it's fine? I watch it with the Roku and I can't really tell between it and broadcast. I can tell from a Bluray easily though, mostly in the sound department when it is a DTS track.

 

[phill1978]

Am I think only one who thinks it's fine? I watch it with the Roku and I can't really tell between it and broadcast. I can tell from a Bluray easily though, mostly in the sound department when it is a DTS track.

No i think its 'fine' as I said. on the best quality its upper-medium but blueray is better,I think most can accept that blueray is better and HD streaming is getting closer (4k will match blueray im sure) but what’s bothering me is that even on the best net connection at 80mbps If the ISP's network is busy at peak im an occasionally experiencing a switch to SD which is really not very good especially when it takes you back in time on picture quality.

How is this avoided? A temporary download service like xboxlive is probably better streaming just seems to not offer the stable platform needed for a movie experience at the moment.

 

[Raymond Lin]

No i think its 'fine' as I said. on the best quality its upper-medium but blueray is better,I think most can accept that blueray is better and HD streaming is getting closer (4k will match blueray im sure) but what’s bothering me is that even on the best net connection at 80mbps If the ISP's network is busy at peak im an occasionally experiencing a switch to SD which is really not very good especially when it takes you back in time on picture quality.

How is this avoided? A temporary download service like xboxlive is probably better streaming just seems to not offer the stable platform needed for a movie experience at the moment.

I found another bug, may be it is a Netflix thing or a Roku thing.

Sometimes when I play a content, the first press it is SD. If i exit the app and go back to it, it is back to HD. Slightly annoying.

I don't think they will offer download as these media boxes like ATV and Roku dont have any local storage...unless it is set up as an option.

 

[Glaucus]

Am I think only one who thinks it's fine? I watch it with the Roku and I can't really tell between it and broadcast. I can tell from a Bluray easily though, mostly in the sound department when it is a DTS track.

I think it's fine, I would be bankrupt if I had to buy blue ray. Probably watch a film at least every other night on Netflix.
However only certain devices can get superHD, or at least that used to be the case.
Lots of people will be able to stream it fine, all depends on your local exchange. What's virgin fastest package now? 150mb? And as long as you aren't in a student congested area, you usually get around that all the time, and the speeds are always increasing.

 

[phill1978]

I think it's fine, I would be bankrupt if I had to buy blue ray. Probably watch a film at least every other night on Netflix.
However only certain devices can get superHD, or at least that used to be the case.
Lots of people will be able to stream it fine, all depends on your local exchange. What's virgin fastest package now? 150mb? And as long as you aren't in a student congested area, you usually get around that all the time, and the speeds are always increasing.

im in a normal sized village, so i think im a fairly standard use case. I agree however the cost of discs would be a lot if you are a movie addict and watch one every other night.

Hopefully the UHD/4k downloads will become an option. I think Sony are on with this but if the movie industry wants to protect itself & its quality it will finally have to offer some sort of 1 month rental for cheap or permanent store for downloads at 2x the best quality of UHD streaming and half the cost of blueray discs ( 20gb file is no hardship to download on a fast connection)

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Ps4 is better than TiVo or my smart tv when it comes to Netflix, it loads HD instantly whereas the others look horrible whilst it loads the HD stream.

Obviously through blu ray is superior but Netflix on my solid 100MB connection is very good quality

 

[beachBOYken]

Ps4 is better than TiVo or my smart tv when it comes to Netflix, it loads HD instantly whereas the others look horrible whilst it loads the HD stream.

Obviously through blu ray is superior but Netflix on my solid 100MB connection is very good quality

yeah I have tried netflix on a few devices its horribly slow to load on my panny bluray player, a lot quicker on my Sony TV and on my PS4 its also very quick.

I also have 100mb bb but have never hit anywhere near that on my ps4, although I have my ps4 wireless, checking connection gives me about 27mb or around that.

I must say I'm watching a lot more on netflix lately but I still prefer bluray

 

[Richdog]

Am I think only one who thinks it's fine? I watch it with the Roku and I can't really tell between it and broadcast. I can tell from a Bluray easily though, mostly in the sound department when it is a DTS track.

I use the Netflix app on my Samsung TV and think it is absolutely ****ing awesome. Of course it's not as a good as a BR rip, but it IS damn good enough that I do not notice a lack of quality when watching all of my shizz. I also do not get any switching back to SD, it stays in HD while streaming until I stop and start it again.

If anyone epects it it to rival Blu-Ray, I think that is just a tad unrealistic and unfair at this point.

 

[beachBOYken]

I use the Netflix app on my Samsung TV and think it is absolutely ****ing awesome. Of course it's not as a good as a BR rip, but it IS damn good enough that I do not notice a lack of quality when watching all of my shizz. I also do not get any switching back to SD, it stays in HD while streaming until I stop and start it again.

If anyone epects it it to rival Blu-Ray, I think that is just a tad unrealistic and unfair at this point.

I used to get sd/hd switching while watching films a lot, not had that for a while now, not sure if its my BB improved or Netflix has improved something there end.

 

[spudbynight]

I bought a PS3 recently, really just to use for streaming services. I had considered a Roku but discovered that the PS3 could get Amazon, Netflix and Now TV whereas the Roku couldn't.

I find picture quality for HD content to be very good. I know it isn't Blu-Ray, but it is very good. The picture quality from Amazon is on a par but they seem to have less HD content. Picture quality with Now TV is noticeably poorer - only 720p and much of it is just SD.

Sound is really where these services fall down. Lots of Netflix stuff is Dolby Digital+ on the PS3. (Only Dolby Digital or even 2.0 with pro-logic on some devices). Hardly anything has 5.1 audio on Amazon, even recent stuff.

Now TV has no 5.1 audio full stop. Most stuff is 2.0 without even a pro-logic track.

 

[9designs2]

Sound is really where these services fall down. Lots of Netflix stuff is Dolby Digital+ on the PS3. (Only Dolby Digital or even 2.0 with pro-logic on some devices). Hardly anything has 5.1 audio on Amazon, even recent stuff.

Now TV has no 5.1 audio full stop. Most stuff is 2.0 without even a pro-logic track.

Interesting and confirmed my fears, that the service is of no use or point for me.
Why take a major step backwards.... Industry one minute is trying to convince everyone they need Master Audio, then next they push out pro-logic and what think people won't notice/care ?
Not everyone can get fibre to property either..... I only just now being able to get fibre to cabinet.

I do the 2 discs a month rental service through the post and only choose BluRay.

 

[phill1978]

Interesting and confirmed my fears, that the service is of no use or point for me.
Why take a major step backwards.... Industry one minute is trying to convince everyone they need Master Audio, then next they push out pro-logic and what think people won't notice/care ?
Not everyone can get fibre to property either..... I only just now being able to get fibre to cabinet.

I do the 2 discs a month rental service through the post and only choose BluRay.

the audio is passable, its limited range makes it easier to hear voices, it is sub DVD level though and usually only 16bit 44khz 2.0 where as some expect the new 4k Blueray standard to be ultra highend and even surpass the current studio master TrueHD 7.1 because HDMI 2.0 will also support 32 audio channels and upto to 1,536 kHz audio sample frequency ,we could see Dolby Atmos featured too and it will make BD or at least the downloadable version a true ultra high definition audio system too

btw 8k is on the horizon

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Dolby Atmos is going to be a thing at home, it'll be a 7.4.1 setup, with the .4 being the overhead speakers

All of these platforms receive the exact same file from the studios, complete with uncompressed 5.1 theatrical audio (although the broadcasters have a mix with reduced dynamic range but still fairly similar to the theatrical). Just depends how the platforms handle the encodes on their end but considering they all hold the uncompressed audio they can easily re-encode to a higher quality in the future once they are confident they can up the overall bit rate as generally with adaptive streaming only the video bit rates change and the audio stays the same to avoid sound disruption when changing video bit rates.