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Confirmed: Only Microsoft Edge Will Play Netflix Content at 1080p on PC
- Piskvorrr 10y agoWhat I'm missing is this: will MS Edge play that because it's the only one capable, or because Netflix sniffs the browser and only allows sending 1080p to Edge? The tiniest bit of a difference...brings back the memories of User-Agent switching, because everyone and their dog was looking for the string "Trident" :-/
- lucideer 10y agoThis seems to be more about the DRM plugin used: Google Widevine (720p) -vs- Windows PMP (1080p) -vs- Apple Fairplay (presumably also 1080p?) IE seems to also get 1080p so their linking this to Edge performance seems like fallacious marketing. Seems like an OS feature, not a browser feature. also, I don't think the string "Trident" was introduced into the UA until relatively recently
- Piskvorrr 10y agoHa, good catch! Great to know that my UA-sniffing skills have rusted (as there's rarely a need for them). Seems to be, indeed. That's why I'm unsure this has anything to do with Browser-Which-Is-Not-IE-Notatall-Noooosir.
- tinus_hn 10y agoThere is no way it's a performance thing if it doesn't matter what kind of hardware it runs on. It's just a marketing deal of a company desparately trying to remain relevant.
- lucideer 10y agoIn fairness to MS, if you read the referenced blog post (instead of the PCWorld OP), it doesn't actually link the 1080p serving to Edge or to performance. Their implication is that Netflix are serving lower quality content to Widevine because they believe the DRM is inferior and are afraid of their premium 1080p streams being copied.
- Piskvorrr 10y agoSo, a marketing trick, as I suspected. "Let's explicitly deny other browsers the capability - and claim them inferior for it." Circular reasoning at its worst.
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