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Amazon to Stream in 4K Starting in October
Back in April, Netflix started offering 4K TV streaming of a select catalog, delivered at a bitrate of 15.6 Mbps using the HEVC/h.265 codec. Not to be outdone, Amazon announced their original programming would be shot and eventually streamed in 4K -- though they didn't specify when. A Samsung press release spills the beans, noting they'll start supporting Amazon's Prime Instant Video UHD streaming on most Samsung 4K TVs starting in October. For now 4K content via Amazon appears to be an exclusive to Samsung, though it's unlikely to stay that way as adoption of the standard speeds up (and bandwidth caps everywhere begin to be trampled).
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buzz_4_20
join:2003-09-20
Dover, NH

buzz_4_20

Member

Call me Crazy...

But why not stream 1080p with this codec and bitrate?

I mean it would be much more beneficial to customers as a whole and it would give streaming a much better outcome in regards to quality?
davidhoffman
Premium Member
join:2009-11-19
Warner Robins, GA

davidhoffman

Premium Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

Someone has to push 4K television sales this winter holiday season. 1080p is old and sold.
existenz
join:2014-02-12

1 edit

existenz

Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

Google Fiber does 15M+ 1080p using MPEG4 and it looks better than OTA. If they (all of them) did 15M 1080p using h.265, it would look closer to top end Blueray. Would rather see that than 4K but yeah, can't sell 4K TVs w/out 4K content.

Hopefully Amazon/NF will offer streams larger than 15M for those of us on 300-Gbit.

karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
Premium Member
join:2008-05-20
Troy, MI

karpodiem

Premium Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

x264 is still more efficient than h.265 - I've yet to see any other codec that matches x264 at the same bitrate.
existenz
join:2014-02-12

existenz

Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

Here's a comparison...
»www.avsforum.com/forum/2 ··· 4-a.html

karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
Premium Member
join:2008-05-20
Troy, MI

karpodiem

Premium Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

tweaking h.264 values with x264 still yields a better result (w/Level 4.1 profile - long story short, just requires more processor power)

Dark Shikari is a lead x264 developer and works for Gaikai; he posted a pretty in-depth explanation technical explanation but unfortunately I can't find it right now.

kamm
join:2001-02-14
Brooklyn, NY

kamm

Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

said by karpodiem:

tweaking h.264 values with x264 still yields a better result (w/Level 4.1 profile - long story short, just requires more processor power)

That's hilarious - it's like saying "hey, this car is faster, it's just simply cost 5x more"... FYI any comparison only makes sense if you equalize ALL factors eg processing power...
...or perhaps you also think MPEG2 still yields a better value, it's just it requires 100Mbit/s codec?

karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
Premium Member
join:2008-05-20
Troy, MI

karpodiem

Premium Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

said by kamm:

FYI any comparison only makes sense if you equalize ALL factors eg processing power...

read the thread I posted in your other response.

kamm
join:2001-02-14
Brooklyn, NY

kamm to karpodiem

Member

to karpodiem
It's clearly not.

karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
Premium Member
join:2008-05-20
Troy, MI

karpodiem

Premium Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

said by kamm:

It's clearly not.

»forum.doom9.org/showthre ··· t=170986
davidhoffman
Premium Member
join:2009-11-19
Warner Robins, GA

davidhoffman to existenz

Premium Member

to existenz
Do you really want to start another fight between content providers and ISPs? Imagine 30 Mbps for each streaming movie. AT&T will declare that their pipes are going to crack from the the increased pressure of delivering such streams. That can be prevented by Amazon and NetFlix each delivering a 100 car railroad train of gold bars to AT&T each week, according to AT&T.
existenz
join:2014-02-12

existenz

Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

CDN. At least Google Fiber could handle it, and they offer free CDN for video providers.

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

TechyDad to davidhoffman

Premium Member

to davidhoffman
That's what caps (or "data thresholds" in Comcast-speak) are for. To limit what the consumers can do. If each streaming movie were 30Mbps, customers on Comcast would only be able to watch 80 seconds of a movie every month. Of course, Comcast's video offerings wouldn't count towards the caps so you could just pay Comcast and watch as much as you like.

math
@172.56.11.x

math

Anon

Re: Call me Crazy...

80 seconds in a month? That's 300MB for a 30mbps bitrate. Let's do that math again. Unless you're saying an ISP has a cap that low.
davidhoffman
Premium Member
join:2009-11-19
Warner Robins, GA

davidhoffman

Premium Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

80,000 seconds maybe?

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

TechyDad

Premium Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

Yup. I forgot to multiply 300 by 1,000 to turn 300GB into 300,000MB.
TechyDad

TechyDad to math

Premium Member

to math
Oops, you're right. I thought that sounded wrong. That would be 22.2 hours a month or under 45 minutes a day.
davidhoffman
Premium Member
join:2009-11-19
Warner Robins, GA

davidhoffman

Premium Member

Re: Call me Crazy...

The 45 minutes per day is proof that Cox will need to at least increase the cap by a factor of 8, thus giving 6 hours per day. Remember, these 4K movies will be director ultimate versions. Think Titanic with all the deleted scenes and the post production director and main actors commentary. Yep, 6 hours. Since we are talking about hard core movie fans, you can be assured they will be doing this every night of the month. So, Cox please increase the cap for Premier to 1800 GB per month so that Cox subscribers can enjoy the full glory of 4K movies. Please increase all other caps by the same factor of 8, so that the other subscribers can enjoy their meager ration of 4K also.
zod5000
join:2003-10-21
Victoria, BC

zod5000 to buzz_4_20

Member

to buzz_4_20
It's the same as SD digital cable. It looks like crap compared to a DVD. The cableco's (and now streaming services) seem to want to push the next thing, rather than offer a high quality version of the current thing.

I'm with you. I think 4k is overkill. Most people don't have and don't want to have TV's big enough to benefit from 4k. I'd rather see streaming/cable adopt high quality 1080p feeds.

v6movement
@206.51.28.x

v6movement

Anon

Re: Call me Crazy...

said by zod5000:

It's the same as SD digital cable. It looks like crap compared to a DVD. The cableco's (and now streaming services) seem to want to push the next thing, rather than offer a high quality version of the current thing.
[/bquote

That is not true. Way to exaggerate.

said by zod5000:

I'm with you. I think 4k is overkill. Most people don't have and don't want to have TV's big enough to benefit from 4k. I'd rather see streaming/cable adopt high quality 1080p feeds.

Except it isn't overkill. 8K is overkill for consumers, 4K is not.

With caps it doesn't matter whether streaming 720p, 2K (1080p), or 4K.. users are screwed. This cap nonsense needs to be resolved for this to really matter.

Hazy Arc
join:2006-04-10
Greenwood, SC

Hazy Arc

Member

15.6Mbps?

Meanwhile, most of us on aging copper are struggling to maintain 5Mbps.
Austinwj
join:2014-08-28
Houston, TX

Austinwj

Member

Re: 15.6Mbps?

At some point down the line everyone is on copper
shpatb
join:2013-07-16

shpatb

Member

Re: 15.6Mbps?

Mind blown.

davidc502
join:2002-03-06
Mount Juliet, TN

davidc502

Member

Re: 15.6Mbps?

lol

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

TechyDad to Hazy Arc

Premium Member

to Hazy Arc
I feel your pain. I'm on Time Warner Cable and I struggle to maintain 5Mbps too.

If the Comcast merger goes through, I might get a speed bump, but then I'd also get a cap and would have to deal with Comcast. I think I'll keep the 5Mbps.

karpodiem
Hail to The Victors
Premium Member
join:2008-05-20
Troy, MI

karpodiem

Premium Member

4K will kill copper, finally

For the vast majority of DSL users (those not on U-Verse / VDSL) 4K will finally kill copper. I'm guessing at&t will tell those users to get Direct TV or fixed LTE service if they don't like it.

IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

IPPlanMan

Member

All the ISP's are like $$$$

The ISP's with usage based billing couldn't be happier...

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536

Premium Member

15mbit

What a joke. thats not even blu-ray 1080P quality
Expand your moderator at work

v6movement
@206.51.28.x

v6movement to dvd536

Anon

to dvd536

Re: 15mbit

said by dvd536:

What a joke. thats not even blu-ray 1080P quality

Most of your posts are a joke.
AmericanMan
Premium Member
join:2013-12-28
united state

AmericanMan

Premium Member

Maybe we'll get a video quality option?

Well if they've got time to start making everything 4K, maybe they can take the time to finally implement a video quality setting (a la Netflix) instead of just pushing down whatever they determine the connection is capable of streaming at the moment.

v6movement
@206.51.28.x

v6movement

Anon

Re: Maybe we'll get a video quality option?

said by AmericanMan:

Well if they've got time to start making everything 4K, maybe they can take the time to finally implement a video quality setting (a la Netflix) instead of just pushing down whatever they determine the connection is capable of streaming at the moment.

Most people don't like their content looking like garbage.
AmericanMan
Premium Member
join:2013-12-28
united state

AmericanMan

Premium Member

Re: Maybe we'll get a video quality option?

I don't think that Netflix at its lowest quality constitutes as "garbage" by any means.

It's .3 GB/hour, that's still a pretty high bitrate, and it's fine for streaming, heck even on the 46-inch TV I've mistaken it for DVD quality (for older shows, that were filmed circa 2000).

And the idea behind a video quality setting is that it can help our limited bandwidth last longer, for those of us on data caps.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

$$

4k video content is vastly upsampled. Until expensive 4k cameras create more content and prices come down, this is a small niche market.

v6movement
@206.51.28.x

v6movement

Anon

Re: $$

said by tmc8080:

4k video content is vastly upsampled. Until expensive 4k cameras create more content and prices come down, this is a small niche market.

Everything I have seen that is 4K is NOT upsampled. professional 4K cameras have been around for a few years from a few different vendors. When I can go out and buy a handful of different smartphones that support 4K that is beyond niche. By the middle of next year it'll be the norm for mid range smartphones and 4K consumer video cameras will be sold by all the major manufacturers.
Kamus
join:2011-01-27
El Paso, TX

Kamus

Member

People didn't believe me...

When i said that the transition from 1080p to "4k" was going to be the fastest and most seamless one yet.

It's simple, this time we don't have to wait for content creators to come up with a standard like bluray, and then wait years for them to actually push it out and for studios to adopt it.
This time around, all we need is for streaming companies to actually start streaming in 4k, which they are already doing.

Add to that, that 4k TV prices are dropping like a rock and the fact that pretty soon you won't be able to buy a 1080p set because all the mass production facilities will be churning out 4k displays almost exclusively, and that even people that feel they don't want or "need" 4k will have no opinion in the matter, since it will be the only thing available at any price point.

I personally want a 4k Display. The difference in detail is night and day, and you actually WANT to sit closer to see the detail. Now all we need is those newly announced LG 4k OLED televisions to drop in price, and in as little as two years we will have awesome contrast to go along with the resolution.

And for those worried (justifiably) about the bitrate on 4k content. Remember that all it takes for streaming companies is to offer higher bitrate streaming options in the future and at the same time we'll have more mature encoders.