7 ms·

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, Ma

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, Intel's 7th generation Core CPU, and the latest Windows updates. Check with the manufacturer of your system to verify specifications. From: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 I really wish they'd just allow up to 4K streaming on all main browsers. The Windows 10 app is awful and very buggy for multi-monitor setups. The two main issues I run into with it are: 1. The video will stutter unless I set both my monitors to the same refresh rate. As you can imagine, it's somewhat annoying to have to lower the refresh rate of my main monitor from 144Hz to 60Hz whenever I want to watch Netflix. 2. When playing in fullscreen on one monitor, the video will randomly minimize if I interact with any applications on my second monitor! So if I want to look something up online or whatever as I'm watching, I have to switch to windowed mode or I risk having the video just minimize and mute itself.

ehsankia 7y ago
Wow, they should really make that clearer, especially since IIRC they charge for 4K streaming... This is probably how they get away with providing 4K without destroying their network: by making people think they are getting 4K when most are really are just watching 720p
- iso947 7y ago
  If you don’t realise it’s not 4K, maybe it’s not worth the extra cost
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    Yeah, that's why they should say something. I was not aware I was getting lower quality, I thought the movies look awful.
    - gowld 7y ago
      Why are you paying for it?
      - TomMarius 7y ago
        Exactly, I am not anymore. I wouldn't be at all if I knew it. I'm not watching much and most of the time it's Star Trek TNG or similarly aged stuff, so I didn't realize this might be the case. The girlfriend watches (way) more.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lawnchair_larry 7y ago
  Most people don't watch it on computer monitors, so most people actually are getting 4k. None of this applies to streaming boxes or smart TVs.
  - tripzilch 7y ago
    You know what Smart TVs do, right? (I'm just saying, because apparently there were people unaware they are paying to get screwed from all sides at once)
- tripzilch 7y ago
  "Wow" They have only been lying about this since the beginning and never stopped. So has Spotify. Were you also paying for gold-plated HDMI with built-in virus scanner? I thought people were voluntarily buying in to this bullshit, because they feel the obligation to financially support the content industry. I mean that's what everybody who thinks this is important is going on about all the time. None of them are seriously arguing you actually get a good deal out of it.
mikkelam 7y ago
This is really driving me nuts... Netflix is consistently giving me subpar resolution in firefox. It's quite rare that I even get 720p. Yet switching to microsoft edge, boom suddenly it's great. There used to be some extensions to switch the resolution up on chrome and firefox, but I do believe they're not working anymore. Another case for piracy I guess.
- SCHiM 7y ago
  This is because of DRM integrations. If any part of the chain between netflix and secure memory in your display cannot be verified, or does not meet some standard, you get the degraded experience.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Change user-agent to impersonate Edge. This is why I won't pay for premium resolution upgrades. It's too much of a hassle to ensure the entire video chain is providing what I paid for.
  - jdnenej 7y ago
    It's more than that, Edge has far more DRM in it.
- Fripplebubby 7y ago
  > Another case for piracy I guess. The notion here is, because of these annoying steps and gotchas, there will not be 4k rips of their content floating around. I don't keep up on the piracy scene these days but I have to imagine that it can still be done, as with the setup from the blog. So goes the story of DRM, it is a painful step that doesn't quite prevent piracy - but if you're netflix or other streaming services, you're working closely with the implementors of the DRM tech (microsoft, widevine, others) and you're not going to just throw in the towel given that it's always a work in progress. Sometimes there are also licensing requirements around having DRM attached, probably applies to Netflix in certain cases (although less and less these days).
- MaxBarraclough 7y ago
BenJong-Il 7y ago
That sounds awful. I'm on MacOS Mojave and the main issue I have with Netflix is that every few minutes there is a white flash for a few ms. In Safari and Chrome if i remember correctly. But I never investigated that as I don't stream a lot.
jandrese 7y ago
Note that if you pirate 1080p or 4k content you'll always get the full resolution you asked for.
- DavidVoid 7y ago
  Not always at a great bitrate though. I haven't really torrented anything in a while but I doubt there are many 20GB+ Blu-ray quality rips out there that you can download in a reasonable amount of time. EDIT: after reading the replies I stand corrected; it seems like there are some better quality uploads out there than I thought.
  - kodt 7y ago
    There are plenty, 30-40GB uncompressed BluRay remux rips are very common. Will download in under 15 minutes. You can also find uncompressed 60-70GB UHD rips.
  - fredoliveira 7y ago
    You'd be very surprised.
  - capableweb 7y ago
    > reasonable amount of time Depends very much on your own bandwidth. For someone with 400Mbps, 20GB+ doesn't take that long time to download in the end, especially popular torrents. But then again, not many have that kind of bandwidth available.
  - deno 7y ago
    Availability aside (bluray rips are a thing), most people can’t tell the difference between FullHD and 4K at all, at least in moving pictures[1]. I doubt bitrate will make much difference on top of that, as long as you start from some reasonable value. I seriously can’t tell the difference between a very low quality YIFY rip and a proper Bluray. If you freeze frame they both look bad, and when they’re moving they both look great. I’ve done this as an experiment multiple times and it’s like judging wine... There’s a threshold you need to pass but beyond that you quickly run into diminishing returns. [1] BTW most movies are still mastered or partially mastered (SFX) at 1080p still, and even if they’re true 4K you get high quality downscale to 1080p for free. But really most 4K movies are still upscaled from 1080p.
marzell 7y ago
Microsoft really wants users signed in to a Microsoft account on Windows. One of their main leverages for this is encouraging people to use the app store in Windows, which doesn't fully work if you're just logged in to a local account
- valvar 7y ago
  It doesn't? Seems to work fine for me...
MaxBarraclough 7y ago
Also, for 5.1 surround sound, no browser will do, you must use the Windows 10 app. (That's if you're playing from a PC, of course.) https://help.netflix.com/en/node/14163 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/14163 > I really wish they'd just allow up to 4K streaming on all main browsers Do all the major browsers support this?
- thirdsun 7y ago
  > Also, for 5.1 surround sound, no browser will do, you must use the Windows 10 app. Yep, and when you have done that don‘t forget to manually guess and set your video output refresh rate because the Netflix can‘t be bothered to switch and match the output to the frame rate of the content. For movies it’s very likely 24p and you don‘t want to have that interpolated to 60 Hz.
Zopieux 7y ago
These numbers seem to roughly map DRM "security levels" and allowed resolution levels. Basically, on platforms that support hardware Widevine (or some other DRM product) ie. "strongest security", 1080p+ is allowed, as there is a low risk of the warez Scene™ being able to tap the decrypted media – HDMI splitters that can strip HDCP 2.2 are hard to come by. On platforms with only software DRM (tl;dr an obfuscated binary blob distributed along your browser that does some form of AES decryption), only low resolution streams are available because there is a good chance some folks somewhere have tooling to intercept the decrypted media.
- notyourday 7y ago
  > HDMI splitters that can strip HDCP 2.2 are hard to come by. Ask B&H folks. They always have them.
nothrabannosir 7y ago
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?
- lawnchair_larry 7y ago
  Do you watch netflix on a computer in a web browser? If not, this isn't an issue.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    Yes, that's why I'm downgrading. I'm on FF. After diligent conditioning by Netflix, I've come to enjoy 720p, apparently. On the plus side it means I can pay them less.
- jiggawatts 7y ago
  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.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    There's a pandemic overwhelming the world right now. You're going to sue Netflix for maybe $1 in damages per user?
Kaze404 7y ago
> The video will stutter unless I set both my monitors to the same refresh rate. As you can imagine, it's somewhat annoying to have to lower the refresh rate of my main monitor from 144Hz to 60Hz whenever I want to watch Netflix. This is a Windows 10 bug. Even things like mouse movement in the 60Hz will make the 144Hz stutter. It's especially noticeable in games.

ehsankia 7y ago

Wow, they should really make that clearer, especially since IIRC they charge for 4K streaming... This is probably how they get away with providing 4K without destroying their network: by making people think they are getting 4K when most are really are just watching 720p

iso947 7y ago
If you don’t realise it’s not 4K, maybe it’s not worth the extra cost
- TomMarius 7y ago
  Yeah, that's why they should say something. I was not aware I was getting lower quality, I thought the movies look awful.
  - gowld 7y ago
    Why are you paying for it?
    - TomMarius 7y ago
      Exactly, I am not anymore. I wouldn't be at all if I knew it. I'm not watching much and most of the time it's Star Trek TNG or similarly aged stuff, so I didn't realize this might be the case. The girlfriend watches (way) more.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lawnchair_larry 7y ago
Most people don't watch it on computer monitors, so most people actually are getting 4k. None of this applies to streaming boxes or smart TVs.
- tripzilch 7y ago
  You know what Smart TVs do, right? (I'm just saying, because apparently there were people unaware they are paying to get screwed from all sides at once)
tripzilch 7y ago
"Wow" They have only been lying about this since the beginning and never stopped. So has Spotify. Were you also paying for gold-plated HDMI with built-in virus scanner? I thought people were voluntarily buying in to this bullshit, because they feel the obligation to financially support the content industry. I mean that's what everybody who thinks this is important is going on about all the time. None of them are seriously arguing you actually get a good deal out of it.

mikkelam 7y ago

This is really driving me nuts... Netflix is consistently giving me subpar resolution in firefox. It's quite rare that I even get 720p. Yet switching to microsoft edge, boom suddenly it's great. There used to be some extensions to switch the resolution up on chrome and firefox, but I do believe they're not working anymore. Another case for piracy I guess.

SCHiM 7y ago
This is because of DRM integrations. If any part of the chain between netflix and secure memory in your display cannot be verified, or does not meet some standard, you get the degraded experience.
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
Change user-agent to impersonate Edge. This is why I won't pay for premium resolution upgrades. It's too much of a hassle to ensure the entire video chain is providing what I paid for.
- jdnenej 7y ago
  It's more than that, Edge has far more DRM in it.
Fripplebubby 7y ago
> Another case for piracy I guess. The notion here is, because of these annoying steps and gotchas, there will not be 4k rips of their content floating around. I don't keep up on the piracy scene these days but I have to imagine that it can still be done, as with the setup from the blog. So goes the story of DRM, it is a painful step that doesn't quite prevent piracy - but if you're netflix or other streaming services, you're working closely with the implementors of the DRM tech (microsoft, widevine, others) and you're not going to just throw in the towel given that it's always a work in progress. Sometimes there are also licensing requirements around having DRM attached, probably applies to Netflix in certain cases (although less and less these days).
MaxBarraclough 7y ago

BenJong-Il 7y ago

That sounds awful. I'm on MacOS Mojave and the main issue I have with Netflix is that every few minutes there is a white flash for a few ms. In Safari and Chrome if i remember correctly. But I never investigated that as I don't stream a lot.

jandrese 7y ago

Note that if you pirate 1080p or 4k content you'll always get the full resolution you asked for.

DavidVoid 7y ago
Not always at a great bitrate though. I haven't really torrented anything in a while but I doubt there are many 20GB+ Blu-ray quality rips out there that you can download in a reasonable amount of time. EDIT: after reading the replies I stand corrected; it seems like there are some better quality uploads out there than I thought.
- kodt 7y ago
  There are plenty, 30-40GB uncompressed BluRay remux rips are very common. Will download in under 15 minutes. You can also find uncompressed 60-70GB UHD rips.
- fredoliveira 7y ago
  You'd be very surprised.
- capableweb 7y ago
  > reasonable amount of time Depends very much on your own bandwidth. For someone with 400Mbps, 20GB+ doesn't take that long time to download in the end, especially popular torrents. But then again, not many have that kind of bandwidth available.
- deno 7y ago
  Availability aside (bluray rips are a thing), most people can’t tell the difference between FullHD and 4K at all, at least in moving pictures[1]. I doubt bitrate will make much difference on top of that, as long as you start from some reasonable value. I seriously can’t tell the difference between a very low quality YIFY rip and a proper Bluray. If you freeze frame they both look bad, and when they’re moving they both look great. I’ve done this as an experiment multiple times and it’s like judging wine... There’s a threshold you need to pass but beyond that you quickly run into diminishing returns. [1] BTW most movies are still mastered or partially mastered (SFX) at 1080p still, and even if they’re true 4K you get high quality downscale to 1080p for free. But really most 4K movies are still upscaled from 1080p.

marzell 7y ago

Microsoft really wants users signed in to a Microsoft account on Windows. One of their main leverages for this is encouraging people to use the app store in Windows, which doesn't fully work if you're just logged in to a local account

valvar 7y ago
It doesn't? Seems to work fine for me...

MaxBarraclough 7y ago

Also, for 5.1 surround sound, no browser will do, you must use the Windows 10 app. (That's if you're playing from a PC, of course.) https://help.netflix.com/en/node/14163 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/14163 > I really wish they'd just allow up to 4K streaming on all main browsers Do all the major browsers support this?

thirdsun 7y ago
> Also, for 5.1 surround sound, no browser will do, you must use the Windows 10 app. Yep, and when you have done that don‘t forget to manually guess and set your video output refresh rate because the Netflix can‘t be bothered to switch and match the output to the frame rate of the content. For movies it’s very likely 24p and you don‘t want to have that interpolated to 60 Hz.

Zopieux 7y ago

These numbers seem to roughly map DRM "security levels" and allowed resolution levels. Basically, on platforms that support hardware Widevine (or some other DRM product) ie. "strongest security", 1080p+ is allowed, as there is a low risk of the warez Scene™ being able to tap the decrypted media – HDMI splitters that can strip HDCP 2.2 are hard to come by. On platforms with only software DRM (tl;dr an obfuscated binary blob distributed along your browser that does some form of AES decryption), only low resolution streams are available because there is a good chance some folks somewhere have tooling to intercept the decrypted media.

notyourday 7y ago
> HDMI splitters that can strip HDCP 2.2 are hard to come by. Ask B&H folks. They always have them.

nothrabannosir 7y ago

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?

lawnchair_larry 7y ago
Do you watch netflix on a computer in a web browser? If not, this isn't an issue.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  Yes, that's why I'm downgrading. I'm on FF. After diligent conditioning by Netflix, I've come to enjoy 720p, apparently. On the plus side it means I can pay them less.
jiggawatts 7y ago
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.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  There's a pandemic overwhelming the world right now. You're going to sue Netflix for maybe $1 in damages per user?

Kaze404 7y ago

> The video will stutter unless I set both my monitors to the same refresh rate. As you can imagine, it's somewhat annoying to have to lower the refresh rate of my main monitor from 144Hz to 60Hz whenever I want to watch Netflix. This is a Windows 10 bug. Even things like mouse movement in the 60Hz will make the 144Hz stutter. It's especially noticeable in games.