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Netflix's bet on advanced video encoding
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- paulryanrogers 2y agoWait, doesn't Netflix have a reputation for terrible encoding quality at 4K? (I don't recall being impressed when I last tried it)
- Havoc 2y agoI think flying close to the sun is precisely aim of the game here. So anyone sensitive to it is likely to conclude it is terrible.
- Omniusaspirer 2y agoNot just 4K- all resolutions and it's getting worse with plenty of comparisons available online for those who care to look. Streaming video quality has generally declined across all platforms in the last few years with the exception of Apple TV+ and contrary to this puff piece it's to the point it's very noticeable to the discerning end user. Enshittification continues relentlessly.
- SSLy 2y agoMovies Anywhere is consistently great quality.
- entropicdrifter 2y agoIt better be. I bought those movies.
- akira2501 2y ago> Enshittification continues relentlessly. It's just rampant monopolization. Enshittification makes it sound like it's a natural expected process, for companies to buy their way into dominance the market, destroy competition, then deceive and underserve customers while raking in undeserved profits. It also fails to lay the blame on Congress and the Administration's doorsteps, where it belongs.
- jfengel 2y agoYou mean, dinging them for false advertising? Or creating a standard?
- lukifer 2y agoI support your general thrust in spirit, but I think "monopoly" isn't a helpful frame here. Consumers have a glut of options in streaming services: Prime, Max, AppleTV, Hulu, even YouTube (contrast with one of the classic monopolies, AT&T, which for many was the only game in town, unless you consider "write a letter to your friend instead" to be a valid substitution good). I feel the correct frame is the general category of "market power" (including, but not limited to, the "anti-competitive practices" that forms the basis of current regulatory policy). In the case of streaming, the closest analogue to monopolization is vertical integration: the custom-produced content which is only accessible on a particular streaming platform (sometimes including no releases on physical media). On the one hand, Netflix could be considered to have a monopoly over the distribution of "Squid Game" (and Prime over "The Boys", Apple over "Silo", etc), meaning they can raise prices, not for the product itself, but for the "club goods" distribution platform, which the consumer may not be interested in otherwise. On the other hand, entertainment/culture are not the same kind of "inelastic demand" necessity as telephone service in the past, or internet service now. And when we look at actual outcomes, I'd say quality for vertically-integrated productions are better on average than older business models; and while prices are going up, I wouldn't call them ridiculous price-gouging either (in addition to competing with each other, the streaming services are also competing with piracy and password-sharing). Anyway, I think it's absolutely the case that enshittification isn't inevitable, and we should be wary of succumbing to learned helplessness in the face of capital consolidation. I would claim it's a "natural expected process" of the shareholder corporation, and the perverse incentives of short-term profits and stock prices, even when it comes at the expense of long-term brand equity. But solving that general problem is probably out of scope for "the bitrate is too damn low and the subscription fees are too damn high". I'd love to see more regulation in the space, but realistically it'd be tricky (I don't expect any Doctorow-approved abolition of DRM, or mandatory interoperability, anytime soon). One could perhaps establish streaming-quality standards, where a company couldn't advertise "4K" unless it hit some threshold. But when it comes to the issue of streaming quality in particular, I suspect the tragic reality is that the majority of users simply won't notice or care.
- jsheard 2y agoI recall several streaming services reducing their bitrates during the pandemic, ostensibly to offset the increased network load from everyone watching more while stuck at home, did those reductions ever actually get walked back or did they just become the new default?
- chgs 2y agoare torrents no longer available in a high bitrate capacity?
- TheWoolRug 2y agoAgreed, the data volume for Apple TV+ 4k is about 5x Netflix per my router and looks way better.
- shiroiushi 2y agoAnd I'm sure the content itself is far better too. I hate to admit it since normally I trash Apple, but they've been making some really great shows lately: Silo, Foundation, etc. What has Netflix produced? The Ark? (If you haven't seen it yet, spare yourself lifelong mental scarring and don't. It's hands-down the absolute worst sci-fi I've ever seen in my life, and that includes all the terrible stuff from the 70s I've seen.)
- SSLy 2y agoBaby Reindeer is the outstanding NF show this season. But yeah, ATV+ has much better SciFi repertoire.
- SSLy 2y agoNew 18Mb/s transfers are better than their back stock.
- tambourine_man 2y agoI haven’t watched them in many years but my experience was that compression sucked on dark scenes even in 1080p. On the other hand, you were able to watch on a 3G connection without any buffering bumps
- erikpukinskis 2y ago… and one of these things hurts engagement.
- malux85 2y agoIs it just me or has anyone else noticed a big increase in the number of encoding artifacts recently? Rapidly oscillating patches, blurry smears, it’s only Netflix (other video streaming services are fine) its getting quite annoying, a few times it’s been so severe I thought it was a problem with my projector
- noahtallen 2y agoDefinitely noticeable on Netflix, but I also have some specific issues with Amazon Prime, where certain scenes have these weird, thin horizontal artifacts.
- MaxikCZ 2y agoRarrr, no issues here
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoI wonder if the issue is the fact that these artifacts are layered on top of processing artifacts from TVs, receivers, streaming devices, and all of that. Does Netflix test their encoding in isolation or in these real life setups?
- misiek08 2y agoSeeing how pirate groups have to steal materials from before the pipeline - I think it’s not related to TV or other devices. They just went full „we know better” approach and made just awful bad encoders.
- Havoc 2y agoI'm a little surprised that we haven't seen something more AI driven yet. (yes yes buzzword I know) i.e. slice it not just into scenes but also into objects and do bitrate on that level. i.e. Face and objects in foreground get more. It seems we now have pretty small models that can do that sort of stuff (see Apple & MS ones recently) so should be feasible at scale. I'd imagine you can also train an LLM on patterns that encoders choke on...chequered patterns etc.
- cornstalks 2y ago> i.e. Face and objects in foreground get more. Encoders have been doing that for decades at this point. AI-related models are actively being researched for multiple applications in video encoding. From generating predicted frames, to generating fine details, choosing tools and parameters for each frame, narrowing the search space, etc.
- Havoc 2y agoI know they do all sorts of clever predictive sorcery but I meant specifically what this image shows: https://deeplobe.ai/exploring-object-detection-applications-and-benefits/ https://deeplobe.ai/exploring-object-detection-applications-... Literally getting closer to understanding the context of the scene and what matters to a human rather than understanding the pixels
- BoredPositron 2y agoYou mean transformer/diffuser based when you are talking about AI in this context? Because there are a lot of ml papers out there for encoding video. Stadia (RIP), Parsecs, Epic (Unreal Pixel streaming), META, Apple and Nvidia doing amazing stuff for their streaming services/VR/AR plays.
- Havoc 2y agoYeah. This essentially https://deeplobe.ai/exploring-object-detection-applications-and-benefits/ https://deeplobe.ai/exploring-object-detection-applications-... If the model can figure out the key objects in the scene on a bit more deeper level then that can drive what parts the encoder needs to spend more bits on
- coretx 2y agoDecreasing the gamut before encoding is not my definition of "advanced video encoding". I"d like to call it "ghetto video encoding" instead. What bothers me most about it, is that many people are slowly getting used to it. It also makes me feel sorry for the people who worked hard on the production. Very few people will ever see the true quality of their work.
- 999900000999 2y agoMaybe Netflix will lower its standards for production as well. Right now if you want to create content for Netflix you need to buy like a $30,000 camera . What's the point of all that, if I can shoot 4K on a $2,000 camera and it's going to get compressed heavily anyway. I actually think streaming would be best for lower budget productions, I'm not fully engaged when I watch something on Netflix anyway. It's kind of strange to see them spend $200 million or so on a movie knowing that I'm doing a million other things while it's on.
- kranke155 2y agoNetflix standards are so dumb. They asked for a 4K camera before Alexa had widely available 4K outside of the huge Alexa 65, and they got a bunch of shows that look terrible for it since the whole industry had standardized around Alexa pipes and people were forced to use other cameras.
- adrianparsons 2y ago> Right now if you want to create content for Netflix you need to buy like a $30,000 camera . Just noting that the official guide[0] lists a number of cheaper cameras, including one that retails for $2k (the Panasonic BGH1). 0: https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000579527-Cameras-Image-Capture-Requirements-and-Best-Practices https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/360...
- 999900000999 2y agoGood catch, you're probably still out closer to 3 or 4k with a lens, but it's definitely obtainable. I'm more disappointed my cheaper Canon isn't eligible. When I think about it, there's no reason every single streaming movie even needs to be in 4K. It's going to be compressed heavily anyway .
- kmeisthax 2y agoPer-shot encoding sounds like something that should be handled by multipass encoding. Presumably it isn't - so I'm wondering what is failing in those encoders to make it necessary to tweak settings that much. Or are they just aggressively searching for corners to cut to save bits?
- refulgentis 2y agoYou're 100% right, the first instinct a programmer would have as a codec dev is "gee we def don't need that many bits to encode pure black frames" I can't wrap my mind around this article and exactly what's going on because AFAIK VBR has been default ~forever. You don't even need multipass for that because you just have to look ahead N frames, it was received wisdom, statistically backed, as far back as 2007 that multipass was a waste of time because it was extremely marginally, like .0001%, better than just doing VBR, and using CBR was really dumb and wrong unless you had very specific edge case technical needs. I can't even remember what, maybe poorly designed initial H.264 decoders or people feeding into legacy broadcast system Little more context here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40770734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40770734
- gyudin 2y agoWonder how much has Netflix payed for this article to the Verge.
- brokenmachine 2y ago*paid
- purple-leafy 2y ago*paided
- ilrwbwrkhv 2y agoNetflix video quality is decreasing. I don't know what they are doing, but it is not working.
- aeturnum 2y agoI don't really know what people "generally" think of Netflix encoding, but my experience is that it's Very Bad. It's a combination of factors: - Netflix will only send you "high quality" (over 720p) streams on certain browsers (IE on windows, Safari on OSX, ???? on Linux) that support Encrypted Media Extensions. - Netflix also auto-scales the quality they are sending based on their understanding of your connection. - Also apparently they do per-title re-encoding passes. This all combines, in my experience, to on average the worst streaming quality overall and also the most opaque. There are debug modes you can enable to see some of this, but generally it's very hard to tell what quality you are looking at and what is preventing you from getting a nicer quality. I also find that Netflix's "low profile" content (i.e. not max quality) looks bad - i.e. the 720p stream looks quite bad in addition to being low resolution.
- vosper 2y ago> Netflix also auto-scales the quality they are sending based on their understanding of your connection. Netflix dropping to potato quality after a few minutes is infuriating. Refresh the browser and quality goes back up for a few minutes before it drops again. My wife often doesn’t notice it; it drives me nuts. My theory is that they try to save bandwidth by dropping quality after some time and hoping you don’t notice.
- charlie0 2y agoProbably because there's a significant number of people who just stream stuff constantly as background noise. The tyranny of the minority.
- LegitShady 2y ago100% agree with all of your points
- Retr0id 2y ago> Netflix will only send you "high quality" streams on certain browsers [...] that support Encrypted Media Extensions. They won't send you anything at all unless you have EME, coupled to a supported DRM engine. Getting >1080p requires a "more secure" DRM engine (e.g. Widevine L1, PlayReady SL3000)
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoRelated? German Court Fines Netflix €7.05 Million for Continued Infringement of Broadcom HEVC Patent (2023) https://www.broadcom.com/company/news/product-releases/61711 https://www.broadcom.com/company/news/product-releases/61711
- kasabali 2y ago> ... German court ... Are we surprised?
- metadat 2y agoI wonder how Anne Aaron came to be the leader for this aspect of the business. Netflix is really only doing re-encoding, which is essentially what all first-tier media pirate groups specialize in. It's interesting the pirate groups deliver much higher quality releases in very bandwidth efficient formats (x265 is incredible), yet Netflix still consistently looks blocky on my 4k LG with 1Gbit Internet. Also, every dark scene looks doubly atrocious. You'd think netflix could do better than the ad-hoc groups of individuals who do it for free in their spare time.
- brokenmachine 2y agoNetflix has to support older devices that can only do h264. Pirate groups don't need to. I would have thought Netflix could add an x265, VP9 or AV1 stream for the best quality streams though, like youtube does.
- Mindwipe 2y agoThey do. Netflix has never streamed 4K content in h264 for example.
- brokenmachine 2y agoI stand corrected. Then they have no excuse.
- shiroiushi 2y agoPirate groups normally create both x265 and x264 releases, and in different resolutions (720/1080/4k).
- yftsui 2y agoWhat I observed is pirate groups either rip BD, or WEB-DL from Amazon Prime video, unless it is some Netflix / Hulu original content they don't pirate from Netflix due to poor quality. Netflix is not focusing on quality but saving their delivery cost on bandwidth, which may hurt them later surprisingly.
- 2y ago
- refulgentis 2y agoThis is some really glorified PR that's either dumbed down or extremely excessive in attributing basic insights and algorithms to Netflix itself I got into programming/software by encoding my cough well-sourced cough movies/TV shows to MP4 for my iPod video. Far be it from me, maybe it's insufferably geeky detail, but the slow decade-long march described as "gee each movie is different" and "gee each scene is different" followed by Herculean work of FAANGers insufficiently appreciated by creative types was solved by VBR years upon years earlier. (VBR = variable bit rate) Once you're getting to "we'll use ML as a VBR algorithm!", that's original, but the problems described and solution was understandable and solvable by a 18 year old non-programmer in 2007 with free software. VBR wasn't some niche thing either, it's a very very obvious optimization I've never seen a codec miss, from MP3 audio to MP4 video. There's no caveats here or haughtiness or flippant "Dropbox is rsync + my weekend" dismissiveness on my part. It wasn't news to _anyone_, it's a very obvious optimization that was applied by everyone I'd be veeeeery curious if there was much contribution here beyond using x264, occasionally with patches, and then engineering a pipeline around it
- mannyv 2y agoI have the HD plan, and generally watch upscaled on an ATV 4k. Haven't noticed anything with their encoding at all. When people say "refreshing their browser" it sounds like they're watching on a PC. That's probably the worst platform to watch on these days, from a market share point of view. Just saying.
- brokenmachine 2y agoI believe they only provide a low-quality 720p stream to browsers because of DRM.
- garyclarke27 2y agoI detest Netflix and other streamers recent fashion for using letterbox format - completely wasting a significant chunk of my precious screen real estate. Why do idiot directors think this is a good thing? These will never be shown in cinemas and even there the best format is Imax which has even more vertical space than 16:9 TVs
- dusted 2y ago4:3 > *.
- 3836293648 2y agoNah, 3:2 > 16:10 > 4:3 > 16:9
- dusted 2y agoeventually, i hope the entire wall can be a high resolution screen so that whatever aspect the artist chose, can be represented in sufficient size, we shouldn't have to care about "wasted screen real estate", creators should be free to record their work in whatever aspect they feel conveys their idea the best.
- tracker1 2y agoHonestly, on a 65" screen at around 10' away I rarely notice the black bars for letterbox or even 4:3 content.
- dusted 2y agopersonally, on my 16:9 55" at home, I don't care about the bars either, not for 4:3, for 21:9 it's still a bit annoying .
- xgkickt 2y agoThen it gets fun. "It'll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed. How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-TV put in? It's only two thousand dollars." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
- dusted 2y agoI wonder if these giant companies constantly trying to squeeze extra microcents out of everything is why pretty much all online video now looks horrible, despite us having the sharpest displays, fastest processors and fastest Internet in the history of mankind..
- notRobot 2y agoYes, yes it is. I personally have just started to torrent stuff even if it is on the streaming services I am a subscriber to because the quality is just so much better even though both are called 1080p.
- readyman 2y ago[dead]
- graynk 2y agoIf it’s a TV show - I’d expect it to be the same quality, because most of those are WEB-DL from those same services, no?
- kranke155 2y agoNo, because as others said, there are a bunch of checks that Netflix does to check whether your internet is fast enough etc. even if you get 1080p you will likely get a fairly compressed image. It’s possible that Netflix over filters for internet speed leaving you with inferior quality. Or you could use a 4K stream from Netflix (only available to premium premium subs) and encode it down to HD and likely get a better image.
- entropicdrifter 2y agoLikewise, for shows that are on more than one service, or available on e.g. Paramount+ on Prime in addition to just on Paramount+, torrenting groups pick the highest bitrate/quality sources.
- 2y ago
- misiek08 2y agoFunny how they care about encoding quality only by sponsoring such articles, but not by really improving the encoding quality <3 Dark scenes are just awful, rest gets awful only in 4k. In 1080p it’s just bad. Even better they „researched” better metrics like pVMAF so they can again show how good they are, in theory.
- VeejayRampay 2y agoabsolutely crazy how people are trying to convince us that Netflix is doing incredible feats of engineering when the bottom line is to make their streams as cheap as feasibly possible we've already crossed the line where it creates a garbage viewing experience for the end users, with pixel porridge everywhere and absolutely horrendous visuals in the darks and shadows for every movie and series netflix engineers are failing (on purpose) to create a decent viewing experience for their users
- jovial_cavalier 2y agoNetflix's video encoding is really bad, and the showrunners don't seem to know. Every Netflix show I've seen in the past year (n=3) has had these crazy panning drone shots of forests in winter, with really high f#'s, graphics of a million particles exploding, shots of ocean waves at dusk... basically, they are shooting video encoding stress tests and then encoding them very poorly. The result looks like dogshit.
- buck746 2y agoThe people making content generally have no idea about video compression. Or they only understand it at a cursory level. It's a safe bet that set designers and decorators have no idea about video compression. Early productions seemed to understand that aspect but that was mostly in the days of 56K modems and ISDN lines. It was a small enough niche that only technical minded people were doing it.
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[dead]
- charlie0 2y agoThis is the main reason why I don't use Netflix or other services. It sucks when I'm in the middle of watching a movie and the quality drops significantly. Maybe things have changed, but I really wished there was an option to control buffering and force certain resolutions. I'm willing to wait longer for a movie to start playing if that means higher quality. The fact they remove that choice is why I prefer to obtain media by other means.
- sitkack 2y agoSolving a largely a non-problem. Download the whole video and watch it. Our connections are fast, just not consistent.
- spaceywilly 2y agoMaybe it’s just me, but I would much rather watch a higher bitrate 1080p copy of a movie than a horribly encoded 4k copy. I also wish that we had made 1080p60 commonplace for sports before trying to make the jump to 4k. Seems like the industry has just focused on “big number better” instead of making a product that actually looks better.
- brisketbbq 2y agoYeah, the industry focused on 4k (and soon to be 8k) for some reason. I guess the same reason there's a decrease in good acting and an increase in special effects.