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As more video moves to higher resolutions (such as 4K) the amount of bandwidth wasted by inefficient encoding increases exponentially. While consumers only car
by grandalf 11y ago
As more video moves to higher resolutions (such as 4K) the amount of bandwidth wasted by inefficient encoding increases exponentially.
While consumers only care if the quality is "acceptable", it's pretty easy to tell the difference between a crisp 4K picture and a 1080p picture, and also easier to see encoding or bitrate artifacts.
So I think this is probably an attempt to improve the margins a bit on content delivery costs without sacrificing quality.
Netflix has also embraced 4K content with its original series, so it is in a unique position to leverage the shift to higher resolution content for maximum profitability.
- lern_too_spel 11y agoI see it more as an attempt to offer better quality to people with crappy ISPs as they expand to more countries. Previously, they would have seen a low-res Bojack, but now that Netflix can decide that a full HD encode of Bojack can fit in a smaller bitrate, those people will see a high-res Bojack. It might even be related to the T-Mobile announcement that allows people to watch Netflix without eating into their data caps as long as the bitrate is capped.
- hondo77 11y ago...it's pretty easy to tell the difference between a crisp 4K picture and a 1080p picture... Or not: http://www.cnet.com/news/why-ultra-hd-4k-tvs-are-still-stupid/ http://www.cnet.com/news/why-ultra-hd-4k-tvs-are-still-stupi...
- dogma1138 11y ago1080p bluray looks better than Netflix/Amazon Prime at 4K, when all things are even bitrate matters the 1080p quality of Netflix is close to 720p HDTV rips at this point.