6 ms·

> Sometimes we ingest a title that would need more bits at the highest end of the quality spectrum — even higher than the 16 Mbps limit of the fixed-bitrate lad

by radley 6y ago

> Sometimes we ingest a title that would need more bits at the highest end of the quality spectrum — even higher than the 16 Mbps limit of the fixed-bitrate ladder. From just a cursory inspection using my Apple TV 4K, 12 Mbps is their target bitrate but their ceiling was ~16 Mbps. That's still only a third of what AppleTV+ offers (36/48) and only 2/3 of Disney+ (18/24). Netflix is still higher than Prime Video (10/14). HBO Max was the lowest quality, allowing only 8/10 Mbps for their HD streams (which generously doubled HBO Now's infamously low 4/5 Mbps bitrate).

fock 6y ago
I just stopped caring, bought a Blu-Ray drive, which works fine under Linux nowadays and can enjoy 30Mbps FHD-encodings where I can just hit pause and have a photo-like still (everything sharp, no blocky shadows). Oh and yes, I also can buy 2 discs/per month of actual good movies I really want to watch (who has time for more than that anyway?) for what Netflix would like to charge me...
- notJim 6y ago
  You can also get Blu-rays from Netflix if you watch more. The real costly thing for this approach is tv though, isn't it?
  - fock 6y ago
    I'm in Europe, so I can get blu-rays from some alternative source, but not from Netflix.
- RandallBrown 6y ago
  I personally have way more than ~4 hours of movie watching time per month. I usually spend about an hour (often more) per day watching movies and TV shows on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc. I've never cared too much about the quality though. The old school dvd rips that were compressed to 700mb to fit on a CD were usually fine by me.
  - fock 6y ago
    yes, if you like to do that and find stuff, it's great. Especially if you're a fan of their comedy stuff (which is about the same level as public TV here... - just a little more international). If you'd like to watch a nice movie you get about 1 good one per 2 months.
notJim 6y ago
> From just a cursory inspection using my Apple TV 4K I'm confused, how are you getting this information? Does Apple TV have a way to display the bitrate ceiling? Also, do you find the bitrate differences noticeable? On my 4k tv, I find Netflix looks pretty good, but Amazon looks pretty bad and HBO Now is awful of course (no Max yet, since I use a Roku.) This might be enough to get me to check out AppleTV+.
- michaelt 6y ago
  > how are you getting this information? Does your router report its current throughput?
  - paxswill 6y ago
    Not Apple TV specific, but Netflix (and I think Prime) have test videos that also show the bitrate as it’s streaming. I used them a while back when setting up my network and access point location.
- radley 6y ago
  Apple TV has a Developer overlay with video metadata (requires XCode & dev account). Yeah, there's a clear difference, especially on Disney & Apple. Apple is very close to 4K blu-ray (there's some YouTube vids comparing them). I'm using a low end 4K projector, so it's more apparent.
- ponker 6y ago
  Most routers can log enough information to calculate the bit rate. You’ll need enterprise equipment to show a real time feed per MAC but getting a “total bytes transferred” now and an hour from now is very easy.
ProfessorLayton 6y ago
I've noticed that ATV+ looks the best, which is much appreciated. However, what has been driving me insane with all these services is how the bitrate is completely inconsistent throughout, depending on network congestion. Every service I subscribe to will "automagically" lower the bitrate if the network can't handle it. Which is fine, I get it. The thing is, it's the only way to watch anything, and depending on the content, it can absolutely ruin it. I'm on Comcast, and Netflix will constantly ping pong between 480p and 1080p, and is very unpleasant to watch. It's ok for some shows, but certain ones like Planet Earth 2 become unwatchable (to me). I really wish there was a setting to add a bit of wait time before playing to avoid this. ATV+ buffers a bit more than the rest, but has the same issues. Edit: To clarify, this issue happens both wired and wireless. The main contributor to the inconsistency is the time of day I decide to watch.
- chiph 6y ago
  And this is why I still get discs by mail. No dropouts, no unexplained drops in resolution, and it has a deeper catalog.
  - baggy_trough 6y ago
    Scratched discs.
    - ddingus 6y ago
      That almost always play nicely. I still use optical media myself.
    - tomc1985 6y ago
      You'd be surprised just how resilient optical media can be. Damage to the metallic substrate is usually a bigger problem than most scratches Plus, with optical media you can easily make bitperfect copies!
    - chiph 6y ago
      Actually, hasn't happened all that often. I've had more of a problem with discs arriving broken.
kroeckx 6y ago
As far as I know, with netflix the quality depends on things like the platform you're watching. Even with the highest subscription plan, if you watch it in Firefox or Chrome you're limited to 720p and you now get about 500 kbit/s, which looks awful. The older content seems to be at 1 or 2 mbit/s, and the 2 mbit/s looks good. But as you can see in the figures, they no longer seem to offer good quality 720p.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Seems to be the case on Linux for both Netflix and Amazon Prime video for me, I’d cancel both but my mum uses the hell out of them and I watch an iPad in bed occasionally. It’s kinda annoying though I get the business reasons and all that. It’s just that it did used to be better and it’s gotten worse over time that really annoys me.
ehsankia 6y ago
I'm assuming that when you're at as large of a scale as Netflix, if you were to provide bitrates like Apple does, it would probably collapse most of the internet backbone. I think Netflix and Youtube already use something like half of the internet's bandwidth. Now imagine if they just tripled that overnight. Though I guess there's a difference between allowing the user to switch to it vs making it default. Youtube lowered the default to 480 to help with congestion during the pandemic, but you can still manually still. I assume 99% of users use the default which is why they can get away with it. But it would be kinda silly for Netflix to provide 48mbps but only to those who know to enable it.
- ponker 6y ago
  Why not provide it for people who will pay for it? I know I would.
bscphil 6y ago
> only a third of what AppleTV+ offers (36/48) and only 2/3 of Disney+ (18/24) I'm very suspicious of these numbers, I think they might be the maximum transient bitrate and not the average bitrate. Do you have an example of an AppleTV movie or show that actually has an average bitrate that high?
- radley 6y ago
  I didn't do anything fancy. I simply turned on the Developer overlay in my Apple TV 4K and played a few 4K movies (if available) in each service. The bitrates were consistent within each platform. I was very surprised by Apple's numbers (and HBO), so I did some Googling to confirm.
- leokennis 6y ago
  I know this is very unscientific, but I regularly watch a part of a 4K movie on the Apple TV app on my 4K Samsung, and then in 4K on Netflix as well. Netflix is superior in every regard (easy to browse, quick to buffer, if I rewind it’s instant) but even to a naked eye Apple’s quality is way higher. Less smudgy, more definition.
jquery 6y ago
I watch a lot of anime, and Netflix consistently looks the worst. Recently, Devilman Crybaby in particular looked so bad I thought I was experiencing a technical issue but nope, I was watching the anime at Netflix’s top quality. The banding artifacts in many scenes were intolerable. It’s hard to get excited about Netflix saving bandwidth when their top bitrates consistently have huge artifacting problems. It’s so bad that I will pay Apple $3 per episode than watch whatever garbage bitrate Netflix has decided is suitable for anime. To my eyes, Apple TV+ consistently offers the highest quality images, with a 23 minute anime episode using 700MB+ total instead of 70-170MB I see on Netflix. Even Amazon is a huge drop in quality compared to Apple TV+, although it is better than Netflix.
- Philip-J-Fry 6y ago
  Is crunchyroll even higher quality than Apple TV? It seems like every episode is 1.3GB at 1080p.
  - jquery 6y ago
    Wow, you may be right. I haven’t run any tests personally, but subjectively I’ve always been satisfied with Crunchyroll quality. Funimation, too.
ksec 6y ago
I often wonder why. Both Apple and Netflix have their own Edge Cache. Which is just an Appliance sitting inside the ISP network. Bandwidth is essentially cheap / free.

by radley 6y ago

fock 6y ago

I just stopped caring, bought a Blu-Ray drive, which works fine under Linux nowadays and can enjoy 30Mbps FHD-encodings where I can just hit pause and have a photo-like still (everything sharp, no blocky shadows). Oh and yes, I also can buy 2 discs/per month of actual good movies I really want to watch (who has time for more than that anyway?) for what Netflix would like to charge me...

notJim 6y ago
You can also get Blu-rays from Netflix if you watch more. The real costly thing for this approach is tv though, isn't it?
- fock 6y ago
  I'm in Europe, so I can get blu-rays from some alternative source, but not from Netflix.
RandallBrown 6y ago
I personally have way more than ~4 hours of movie watching time per month. I usually spend about an hour (often more) per day watching movies and TV shows on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc. I've never cared too much about the quality though. The old school dvd rips that were compressed to 700mb to fit on a CD were usually fine by me.
- fock 6y ago
  yes, if you like to do that and find stuff, it's great. Especially if you're a fan of their comedy stuff (which is about the same level as public TV here... - just a little more international). If you'd like to watch a nice movie you get about 1 good one per 2 months.

notJim 6y ago

> From just a cursory inspection using my Apple TV 4K I'm confused, how are you getting this information? Does Apple TV have a way to display the bitrate ceiling? Also, do you find the bitrate differences noticeable? On my 4k tv, I find Netflix looks pretty good, but Amazon looks pretty bad and HBO Now is awful of course (no Max yet, since I use a Roku.) This might be enough to get me to check out AppleTV+.

michaelt 6y ago
> how are you getting this information? Does your router report its current throughput?
- paxswill 6y ago
  Not Apple TV specific, but Netflix (and I think Prime) have test videos that also show the bitrate as it’s streaming. I used them a while back when setting up my network and access point location.
radley 6y ago
Apple TV has a Developer overlay with video metadata (requires XCode & dev account). Yeah, there's a clear difference, especially on Disney & Apple. Apple is very close to 4K blu-ray (there's some YouTube vids comparing them). I'm using a low end 4K projector, so it's more apparent.
ponker 6y ago
Most routers can log enough information to calculate the bit rate. You’ll need enterprise equipment to show a real time feed per MAC but getting a “total bytes transferred” now and an hour from now is very easy.

ProfessorLayton 6y ago

I've noticed that ATV+ looks the best, which is much appreciated. However, what has been driving me insane with all these services is how the bitrate is completely inconsistent throughout, depending on network congestion. Every service I subscribe to will "automagically" lower the bitrate if the network can't handle it. Which is fine, I get it. The thing is, it's the only way to watch anything, and depending on the content, it can absolutely ruin it. I'm on Comcast, and Netflix will constantly ping pong between 480p and 1080p, and is very unpleasant to watch. It's ok for some shows, but certain ones like Planet Earth 2 become unwatchable (to me). I really wish there was a setting to add a bit of wait time before playing to avoid this. ATV+ buffers a bit more than the rest, but has the same issues. Edit: To clarify, this issue happens both wired and wireless. The main contributor to the inconsistency is the time of day I decide to watch.

chiph 6y ago
And this is why I still get discs by mail. No dropouts, no unexplained drops in resolution, and it has a deeper catalog.
- baggy_trough 6y ago
  Scratched discs.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    That almost always play nicely. I still use optical media myself.
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    You'd be surprised just how resilient optical media can be. Damage to the metallic substrate is usually a bigger problem than most scratches Plus, with optical media you can easily make bitperfect copies!
  - chiph 6y ago
    Actually, hasn't happened all that often. I've had more of a problem with discs arriving broken.

kroeckx 6y ago

As far as I know, with netflix the quality depends on things like the platform you're watching. Even with the highest subscription plan, if you watch it in Firefox or Chrome you're limited to 720p and you now get about 500 kbit/s, which looks awful. The older content seems to be at 1 or 2 mbit/s, and the 2 mbit/s looks good. But as you can see in the figures, they no longer seem to offer good quality 720p.

noir_lord 6y ago
Seems to be the case on Linux for both Netflix and Amazon Prime video for me, I’d cancel both but my mum uses the hell out of them and I watch an iPad in bed occasionally. It’s kinda annoying though I get the business reasons and all that. It’s just that it did used to be better and it’s gotten worse over time that really annoys me.

ehsankia 6y ago

I'm assuming that when you're at as large of a scale as Netflix, if you were to provide bitrates like Apple does, it would probably collapse most of the internet backbone. I think Netflix and Youtube already use something like half of the internet's bandwidth. Now imagine if they just tripled that overnight. Though I guess there's a difference between allowing the user to switch to it vs making it default. Youtube lowered the default to 480 to help with congestion during the pandemic, but you can still manually still. I assume 99% of users use the default which is why they can get away with it. But it would be kinda silly for Netflix to provide 48mbps but only to those who know to enable it.

ponker 6y ago
Why not provide it for people who will pay for it? I know I would.

bscphil 6y ago

> only a third of what AppleTV+ offers (36/48) and only 2/3 of Disney+ (18/24) I'm very suspicious of these numbers, I think they might be the maximum transient bitrate and not the average bitrate. Do you have an example of an AppleTV movie or show that actually has an average bitrate that high?

radley 6y ago
I didn't do anything fancy. I simply turned on the Developer overlay in my Apple TV 4K and played a few 4K movies (if available) in each service. The bitrates were consistent within each platform. I was very surprised by Apple's numbers (and HBO), so I did some Googling to confirm.
leokennis 6y ago
I know this is very unscientific, but I regularly watch a part of a 4K movie on the Apple TV app on my 4K Samsung, and then in 4K on Netflix as well. Netflix is superior in every regard (easy to browse, quick to buffer, if I rewind it’s instant) but even to a naked eye Apple’s quality is way higher. Less smudgy, more definition.

jquery 6y ago

I watch a lot of anime, and Netflix consistently looks the worst. Recently, Devilman Crybaby in particular looked so bad I thought I was experiencing a technical issue but nope, I was watching the anime at Netflix’s top quality. The banding artifacts in many scenes were intolerable. It’s hard to get excited about Netflix saving bandwidth when their top bitrates consistently have huge artifacting problems. It’s so bad that I will pay Apple $3 per episode than watch whatever garbage bitrate Netflix has decided is suitable for anime. To my eyes, Apple TV+ consistently offers the highest quality images, with a 23 minute anime episode using 700MB+ total instead of 70-170MB I see on Netflix. Even Amazon is a huge drop in quality compared to Apple TV+, although it is better than Netflix.

Philip-J-Fry 6y ago
Is crunchyroll even higher quality than Apple TV? It seems like every episode is 1.3GB at 1080p.
- jquery 6y ago
  Wow, you may be right. I haven’t run any tests personally, but subjectively I’ve always been satisfied with Crunchyroll quality. Funimation, too.

ksec 6y ago

I often wonder why. Both Apple and Netflix have their own Edge Cache. Which is just an Appliance sitting inside the ISP network. Bandwidth is essentially cheap / free.