4 ms·

Maybe not directly related, but I dislike how Netflix obviously provides only 1080p HD on desktop-computer playback, while full 4k on TVs. Has anyone found an

Maybe not directly related, but I dislike how Netflix obviously provides only 1080p HD on desktop-computer playback, while full 4k on TVs. Has anyone found an easy hack to ensure playback happens in 4k on desktop as well (e.g. url parameter)?

bravetraveler 2y ago
From what I understand, they use DRM to support this segmentation. Applicable both to the state of affairs and the hack
- danpalmer 2y ago
  Netflix's over-segmentation is the reason I ultimately stopped subscribing. You have to pay substantially more to get any of many screens, no ads, or 4K. As a single user who wants 4K, I then feel like I'm paying for something I don't need when the plan has many screens. None of the other big players like Amazon, YouTube, or Apple do this, all provide 4K to all subscribers and as far as I know only really segment by number of users, if they segment at all.
  - Mindwipe 2y ago
    Amazon and Apple do not supply full HD or 4K to PCs at all. YouTube do not even supply anything more than SD to PCs for rented or purchased titles. Amazon lock Dolby Vision behind their ad free supplement. YouTube locks high bittrate 1080p behind YouTube Premium. Paramount lock 4K behind their upper tier. So do Disney. You are, bluntly, flat wrong here.
    - formerly_proven 2y ago
      Amazon also doesn’t do HDR on PCs any more.
    - danpalmer 2y ago
      Sorry if I wasn't clear, I don't use any of these services on PC, I'm just thinking of regular TV viewing. Apple, Amazon, and YouTube all provide 4K at all paying price points. > YouTube locks high bittrate 1080p behind YouTube Premium I'm discounting free tiers. I think it's fine to segment aggressively to get people into paying tiers, but nickle and diming paying users just sucks. > Paramount lock 4K behind their upper tier. So do Disney. I've never had either of these, but would be less likely to as a result. I know 4K streaming is substantially more expensive than 1080p, but honestly the delivery is such a small fraction of the price being paid that it does not need to be associated with an increased cost.
  - matt-p 2y ago
    I suspect almost everyone shares a netflix account with thier household and statistically there's few single person households. So this is life, everything is setup for the average even things like bin collections will assume multiple people in your house.
    - danpalmer 2y ago
      I shared Netflix with my family (parents, sister, brother) for 2 years and think I ran into the 2 screen limit twice. 4 screens seems just entirely unnecessary to me. That said, if Netflix decided 4K was the segmentation for the higher plan and gave 4 screens to the lower plan, that wouldn't suit me personally, but I would prefer the pricing. Honestly the screens concept seems outdated with their anti-password sharing stuff now. Just apply the same WiFi pinning to all viewing and don't limit screens at all.
      - Kye 2y ago
        The more typical use case involves background TV running in multiple rooms. Much of what Netflix licenses and produces is made for this. Recently: "Casual Viewing – Why Netflix looks like that" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42529756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42529756 It's easy to blow past four with a screen, not necessarily a TV, going in every room.
        formerly_proven 2y ago
        Are there that many people with deep-fried brains like that?
        datadrivenangel 2y ago
        It was a staple of the 90s/20s.
        Kye 2y ago
        Some people just do better with ignorable vibrations in their spaces.
Mindwipe 2y ago
They provide 4K playback via Microsoft Edge to PCs that have a HEVC codec pack installed, where all the connected monitors support HDCP 2.2 over that connection port and if the GPU supports Play ready SL3000. But those are enforced via hardware backed keys.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  Or you can download a torrent and 4k just works always.
  - NetOpWibby 2y ago
    Perfect time for Demonoid to return
    - lucideer 2y ago
      Multi-tracker search has become much more viable today with tools like Servarr/Prowlarr out there, so you there's less of an incentive for a "one to beat them all" style tracker.
      - NetOpWibby 2y ago
        Hehe, my ploy to get best info on how to do this worked.
        lucideer 2y ago
        Bonus: never mind Demonoid, this also means Usenet is back!
        NetOpWibby 2y ago
        Time is a flat circle. I'm not mad because I get to enjoy things I missed this time around.
_Algernon_ 2y ago
>Has anyone found an easy hack to ensure playback happens in 4k on desktop as well (e.g. url parameter)? Yes there is. It's called piracy.
- mentalgear 2y ago
  Well, users paying for Netflix, are not supposed to be subject to unasked quality downsampling just because you watch from a non-TV device. This sort of optimization might be fine with small laptop screens, but not 5k Computer screens, and I don't know if Netflix does it on purpose or just put `if not TV => send lowerRes` in their code (simplified of course).
  - arianvanp 2y ago
    The answer is piracy. There are no content providers that are confident enough in their DRM to send 4k streams to devices that are in control of their owners instead of cooperations. PCs are the scariest thing ever and they will do everything in their power to kill them. Pirate content and be free Or buy an apple tv and hook it up to your monitor.
    - buran77 2y ago
      Pirate sites obtain the high quality material as soon as it's launched anyway, so this kind of "protection" just adds friction for the paying user.
      - ruszki 2y ago
        These restrictions are never there to prevent piracy. It’s there for corporates to be able to say that “we did everything”. They are there for legal reasons. That’s true for every single security features. It’s a side effect if some security feature is really effective. Most of them are just annoyance, they don’t prevent anything.
        ThatMedicIsASpy 2y ago
captn3m0 2y ago
Even worse is Amazon Prime, which doesn't even provide 1080 on Linux systems, even with Widevine.
- IsTom 2y ago
  When I tried to watch some of their original shows I got blurry mess that looked about 360p. It was unwatchable. Tried to mess with widevine to no avail, so I'm no longer their customer. There's enough shows to watch elsewhere these days.
superasn 2y ago
Yes it's the only way to watch documentaries at 2x speed but the quality becomes crap
udev4096 2y ago
Nope. Build a ship and sail onto the thunderous oceans with the pirates!
jval43 2y ago
The resolution mostly isn't the issue, the extreme compression and the resulting artifacts are what ruin the experience for me. Take any movie with dark scenes, and it'll look horrible regardless of 720p vs 4k.

bravetraveler 2y ago

From what I understand, they use DRM to support this segmentation. Applicable both to the state of affairs and the hack

danpalmer 2y ago
Netflix's over-segmentation is the reason I ultimately stopped subscribing. You have to pay substantially more to get any of many screens, no ads, or 4K. As a single user who wants 4K, I then feel like I'm paying for something I don't need when the plan has many screens. None of the other big players like Amazon, YouTube, or Apple do this, all provide 4K to all subscribers and as far as I know only really segment by number of users, if they segment at all.
- Mindwipe 2y ago
  Amazon and Apple do not supply full HD or 4K to PCs at all. YouTube do not even supply anything more than SD to PCs for rented or purchased titles. Amazon lock Dolby Vision behind their ad free supplement. YouTube locks high bittrate 1080p behind YouTube Premium. Paramount lock 4K behind their upper tier. So do Disney. You are, bluntly, flat wrong here.
  - formerly_proven 2y ago
    Amazon also doesn’t do HDR on PCs any more.
  - danpalmer 2y ago
    Sorry if I wasn't clear, I don't use any of these services on PC, I'm just thinking of regular TV viewing. Apple, Amazon, and YouTube all provide 4K at all paying price points. > YouTube locks high bittrate 1080p behind YouTube Premium I'm discounting free tiers. I think it's fine to segment aggressively to get people into paying tiers, but nickle and diming paying users just sucks. > Paramount lock 4K behind their upper tier. So do Disney. I've never had either of these, but would be less likely to as a result. I know 4K streaming is substantially more expensive than 1080p, but honestly the delivery is such a small fraction of the price being paid that it does not need to be associated with an increased cost.
- matt-p 2y ago
  I suspect almost everyone shares a netflix account with thier household and statistically there's few single person households. So this is life, everything is setup for the average even things like bin collections will assume multiple people in your house.
  - danpalmer 2y ago
    I shared Netflix with my family (parents, sister, brother) for 2 years and think I ran into the 2 screen limit twice. 4 screens seems just entirely unnecessary to me. That said, if Netflix decided 4K was the segmentation for the higher plan and gave 4 screens to the lower plan, that wouldn't suit me personally, but I would prefer the pricing. Honestly the screens concept seems outdated with their anti-password sharing stuff now. Just apply the same WiFi pinning to all viewing and don't limit screens at all.
    - Kye 2y ago
      The more typical use case involves background TV running in multiple rooms. Much of what Netflix licenses and produces is made for this. Recently: "Casual Viewing – Why Netflix looks like that" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42529756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42529756 It's easy to blow past four with a screen, not necessarily a TV, going in every room.
      - formerly_proven 2y ago
        Are there that many people with deep-fried brains like that?
        datadrivenangel 2y ago
        It was a staple of the 90s/20s.
        Kye 2y ago
        Some people just do better with ignorable vibrations in their spaces.

Mindwipe 2y ago

They provide 4K playback via Microsoft Edge to PCs that have a HEVC codec pack installed, where all the connected monitors support HDCP 2.2 over that connection port and if the GPU supports Play ready SL3000. But those are enforced via hardware backed keys.

bboygravity 2y ago
Or you can download a torrent and 4k just works always.
- NetOpWibby 2y ago
  Perfect time for Demonoid to return
  - lucideer 2y ago
    Multi-tracker search has become much more viable today with tools like Servarr/Prowlarr out there, so you there's less of an incentive for a "one to beat them all" style tracker.
    - NetOpWibby 2y ago
      Hehe, my ploy to get best info on how to do this worked.
      - lucideer 2y ago
        Bonus: never mind Demonoid, this also means Usenet is back!
        NetOpWibby 2y ago
        Time is a flat circle. I'm not mad because I get to enjoy things I missed this time around.

_Algernon_ 2y ago

>Has anyone found an easy hack to ensure playback happens in 4k on desktop as well (e.g. url parameter)? Yes there is. It's called piracy.

mentalgear 2y ago
Well, users paying for Netflix, are not supposed to be subject to unasked quality downsampling just because you watch from a non-TV device. This sort of optimization might be fine with small laptop screens, but not 5k Computer screens, and I don't know if Netflix does it on purpose or just put `if not TV => send lowerRes` in their code (simplified of course).
- arianvanp 2y ago
  The answer is piracy. There are no content providers that are confident enough in their DRM to send 4k streams to devices that are in control of their owners instead of cooperations. PCs are the scariest thing ever and they will do everything in their power to kill them. Pirate content and be free Or buy an apple tv and hook it up to your monitor.
  - buran77 2y ago
    Pirate sites obtain the high quality material as soon as it's launched anyway, so this kind of "protection" just adds friction for the paying user.
    - ruszki 2y ago
      These restrictions are never there to prevent piracy. It’s there for corporates to be able to say that “we did everything”. They are there for legal reasons. That’s true for every single security features. It’s a side effect if some security feature is really effective. Most of them are just annoyance, they don’t prevent anything.
      - ThatMedicIsASpy 2y ago

captn3m0 2y ago

Even worse is Amazon Prime, which doesn't even provide 1080 on Linux systems, even with Widevine.

IsTom 2y ago
When I tried to watch some of their original shows I got blurry mess that looked about 360p. It was unwatchable. Tried to mess with widevine to no avail, so I'm no longer their customer. There's enough shows to watch elsewhere these days.

superasn 2y ago

Yes it's the only way to watch documentaries at 2x speed but the quality becomes crap

udev4096 2y ago

Nope. Build a ship and sail onto the thunderous oceans with the pirates!

jval43 2y ago

The resolution mostly isn't the issue, the extreme compression and the resulting artifacts are what ruin the experience for me. Take any movie with dark scenes, and it'll look horrible regardless of 720p vs 4k.