# Netflix on Bolt: HEVC @ 1080p?



## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

I have a Roamio rather than a Bolt, so can't answer this for myself. I know the Bolt can decode streams encoded in the most advanced codec, HEVC (also known as h.265), which is what Netflix uses for all of their UHD 4K streams. But Netflix apparently also encodes at least some 1080p content in HEVC as well. According to this page testing Netflix on the Nvidia Shield (which, like the Bolt, can handle UHD video and HEVC encodes), Netflix replaces its normal top-quality 1080p stream, encoded in the older h.264 codec at 5.8 Mbps, with a 1080p stream encoded in HEVC at 5.16 Mbps. Additionally, they offer an even higher 1080p HEVC stream at 6.96 Mbps. Both of those streams would presumably look better than the normal top-quality 1080p h.264 5.8 Mbps stream available on most streaming boxes, including the Roamio. So, even if you don't own a UHD 4K TV and therefore can't access UHD streams from Netflix, your Bolt may be giving you higher-quality 1080p HD from Netflix than you'd otherwise get.

You can check out which kinds of streams Netflix is serving your Bolt using this test video: http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70297469
The test video is titled El Fuente: 60 Main10
As the video progresses, it changes the resolution, bitrate and possibly codec of the stream it serves you, with the information printed on-screen.

I'm curious whether Bolt owners see the 5.16 and 6.96 Mbps 1080p HEVC streams from Netflix. I'm also curious if seeing those streams is dependent on whether or not you're subscribed to Netflix's most expensive $12 premium plan (which is required for UHD 4K) or if you can access them with the $10 standard plan.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I just tried it on my Bolt. It settled on a stream with the following info....

Bitrate: 6960 kbps
Resolution: 1920x1080
PAR: 1:1
Bit Depth: 8
Frame Rate: 60.00

Also when it got to that final step it started showing two running time codes. The one in the lower left appears to be frame number and the one in the lower right seems to be video time code. 

It doesn't mention the codec at all but based on the bitrate I assume this is the H.265 version. It looks weirdly smooth and clear. Not sure I've ever seen a true 1080p/60 video before.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Looking at it more I'm pretty sure it's H.265. I see some of the tell tale signs of H.265 encoding. H.265 uses a different macroblock technique which creates a sort of blurring or smearing when the bitrate can't keep up, rather then the blocking we typically see with MPEG-2/H.264 video. I've seen a lot of H.265 in my line of work and that seems to be a distinguishing feature of that format and I'm seeing it a little when I play this video on my Bolt.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Dan203 said:


> Looking at it more I'm pretty sure it's H.265. I see some of the tell tale signs of H.265 encoding. H.265 uses a different macroblock technique which creates a sort of blurring or smearing when the bitrate can't keep up, rather then the blocking we typically see with MPEG-2/H.264 video. I've seen a lot of H.265 in my line of work and that seems to be a distinguishing feature of that format and I'm seeing it a little when I play this video on my Bolt.


Cool, thanks for running the "experiment" for me, Dan! So the video never progressed all the way up to 2160p? (I *think* it's supposed to if your TV and Netflix plan support UHD.) Do you subscribe to the top-level $12 Netflix plan or the standard $10 plan? And is your Bolt connected to a UHD television?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

My Bolt is not connected to a UHD TV. It's connected to a small 32" 1080p TV. I do have the top level $12 Netflix plan though. (for 4 streams, not UHD)


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

1080p/60 at 7mps is still pretty impressive. Their 1080p/24 movies typically run around 6mps when using H.264.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

So I wonder if you are routinely getting HEVC-encoded 1080p content from Netflix? Can you tell any difference in PQ when using Netflix on the Bolt versus on a different device?

And I wonder whether you could even access any HEVC encoded streams on the Bolt if you subscribed to the $10 Netflix plan. Perhaps someone else who has that plan will stream the test video I linked above and let us know what they find.


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## elwaylite (Apr 23, 2006)

I am using the bolt on 100 down UHD service from Netflix. I get 16,000kbps speed (best) on their test patterns and their 2160p/24 original content is the best I have seen, using the bolt. Many of the devices that will do UHD Netflix don't output 24hz, where the Bolt does and it looks great.

The app is a little buggy but works right most of the time.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> So I wonder if you are routinely getting HEVC-encoded 1080p content from Netflix? Can you tell any difference in PQ when using Netflix on the Bolt versus on a different device?
> 
> And I wonder whether you could even access any HEVC encoded streams on the Bolt if you subscribed to the $10 Netflix plan. Perhaps someone else who has that plan will stream the test video I linked above and let us know what they find.


For 1080P I seriously doubt it's using HEVC at around 7Mb/s. If Netflix were to use HEVC for 1080P, they would use a lower bitrate than what the H.264 encodes use. Not the same bitrate. Just like when they switched to DD+. It wasn't to give it higher quality audio, it was so they could lower the bitrate to achieve the same quality. And with audio you are only talking a minor savings in bitrate. Not like video where the savings are much higher.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

aaronwt said:


> For 1080P I seriously doubt it's using HEVC at around 7Mb/s. If Netflix were to use HEVC for 1080P, they would use a lower bitrate than what the H.264 encodes use. Not the same bitrate. Just like when they switched to DD+. It wasn't to give it higher quality audio, it was so they could lower the bitrate to achieve the same quality. And with audio you are only talking a minor savings in bitrate. Not like video where the savings are much higher.


Perhaps, perhaps not. If someone is paying $12 and is entitled to UHD streams but isn't using a UHD TV, I could imagine Netflix offering 1080p at 6.96 Mbps in HEVC; that's a substantial bandwidth savings over UHD at 16 Mbps.

And even if they're only offering HEVC-capable clients 1080p at 5.16 Mbps HEVC, I would think that would be superior looking than the standard h.264 stream at 5.8.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Well one thing you have to consider is that this particular video is 60fps, but most HD content Netflix serves is only 24fps. So if they can get a great looking picture at 7mbps for 60fps then they should be able to lower the bitrate to around 3mbps for 24fps content and get the same picture quality. (it's pretty linear on frame rate) I assume this is their ultimate goal with HEVC so that they can both lower their bandwidth overhead and make the high quality 1080p streams accessible to more customers. (people with low speed DSL are typically limited to 720p content at the moment)

My Bolt is in my office connected to an antenna. I mainly use it to record a single OTA channel I can't get in HD from my cable company (The CW) and stream recordings from it to my Roamio or Mini. I never actually use it directly so I don't know how the Netflix app works on it, or if any other content is in HEVC.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> Well one thing you have to consider is that this particular video is 60fps, but most HD content Netflix serves is only 24fps.


Are you sure about that? I only see 30p on the overlay from "El Fuente" on Bolt and Netflix sends it to my Vizio 2014 P-Series at 30Hz (even though that's not even an output resolution that you can specify in TiVo's settings, only p60 and p24; with only those two selected, TiVo sends 60Hz for television, live and recorded and should send it for 30p streaming video).

AFAIK, Netflix only has video at 24p, 25p and 30p. I could be wrong .


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

I recently posted this in a thread at AVS Forum:


> Netflix used to have a fixed bit rate ladder like VUDU (which also doesn't appear to use variable bit rate), but lately have been analyzing titles and individual TV episodes to create custom bit rate ladders. Netflix talks about it in "Per-Title Encode Optimization", an article in their tech blog. In their old fixed ladder there were 1080p encodes at 4300- and 5800; now I see 1080p encodes at as low as 2000 Kbps and as high as 7500 Kbps. Sometimes the ladders feature as few as 6 encodes or as many as 11.
> 
> There was some discussion of this in the "Netflix streaming quality" thread; I posted the ladders I saw for a bunch of titles here.


I'm not sure if Netflix is using custom bit rate ladders for video encoded in HEVC. I thought that they only used HEVC for 2160p encodes, but it would seem strange for it to switch encodes in mid-stream, but maybe that works smoothly. It seems excessive for them to encode both HEVC for devices which can handle it and AVC for everyone else, but who knows?

Sadly you can't play 4K Netflix on PCs. The diag overlays available in the Windows Netflix app and the website players would be great to see for 4K.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mikeyts said:


> Are you sure about that? I only see 30p on the overlay from "El Fuente" on Bolt and Netflix sends it to my Vizio 2014 P-Series at 30Hz (even though that's not even an output resolution that you can specify in TiVo's settings, only p60 and p24; with only those two selected, TiVo sends 60Hz for television, live and recorded and should send it for 30p streaming video).
> 
> AFAIK, Netflix only has video at 24p, 25p and 30p. I could be wrong .


I'll double check but I'm pretty sure it said 60fps when it got to the max resolution. But for me the max resolution is 1080p, not 4k, so that could be the difference. I also have my TiVo set to a fixed resolution of 1080p/60, not native, so I was basing that on what the screen said not anything my TV was doing.


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## jth tv (Nov 15, 2014)

Maybe its time to ask TiVo for better tools for this also. If they want a competitive advantage in streaming, better tools might be one way to do that.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

mikeyts said:


> I recently posted this in a thread at AVS Forum:
> 
> I'm not sure if Netflix is using custom bit rate ladders for video encoded in HEVC. I thought that they only used HEVC for 2160p encodes, but it would seem strange for it to switch encodes in mid-stream, but maybe that works smoothly. It seems excessive for them to encode both HEVC for devices which can handle it and AVC for everyone else, but who knows?
> 
> Sadly you can't play 4K Netflix on PCs. The diag overlays available in the Windows Netflix app and the website players would be great to see for 4K.


Thanks for adding that. Yes, I'd read the article you referenced before and I tend to think that Netflix is using their per-title optimized bitrate encoding with HEVC too. The bitrates I reference above (e.g. 1080p h.264 @ 5.8 Mbps) are what I believe were the standard bitrates Netflix was using before shifting toward the new more efficient per-title scheme they use now. I broached this topic, though, out of curiosity as to whether Netflix subscribers with HEVC-capable hardware (e.g. TiVo Bolt, Nvidia Shield TV, Amazon Fire TV 2, etc.), but who aren't streaming in UHD 4K, are getting 1080p streams encoded in HEVC that look superior to the h.264-encoded 1080p Netflix streams available on other devices (e.g. TiVo Roamio, Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, etc.).

Without someone with the necessary hardware running a dedicated test that compares freeze-frames between the same programs streaming on different devices, it's probably impossible to know.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> Thanks for adding that. Yes, I'd read the article you referenced before and I tend to think that Netflix is using their per-title optimized bitrate encoding with HEVC too. The bitrates I reference above (e.g. 1080p h.264 @ 5.8 Mbps) are what I believe were the standard bitrates Netflix was using before shifting toward the new more efficient per-title scheme they use now. I broached this topic, though, out of curiosity as to whether Netflix subscribers with HEVC-capable hardware (e.g. TiVo Bolt, Nvidia Shield TV, Amazon Fire TV 2, etc.), but who aren't streaming in UHD 4K, are getting 1080p streams encoded in HEVC that look superior to the h.264-encoded 1080p Netflix streams available on other devices (e.g. TiVo Roamio, Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, etc.).
> 
> Without someone with the necessary hardware running a dedicated test that compares freeze-frames between the same programs streaming on different devices, it's probably impossible to know.


If they are using HEVC for 1080P streams I would be shocked if they look any better than the H.264 streams. Netflix has already shown the last few years that they want to reduce the bitrate as much as possible. Which makes sense because of the millions of streams they send out. So the less data sent can save them money. So if they use HEVC for 1080P, I would expect them to reduce the bitrate as much as they can to get the same quality they had with H264 at the higher bitrate


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

aaronwt said:


> If they are using HEVC for 1080P streams I would be shocked if they look any better than the H.264 streams. Netflix has already shown the last few years that they want to reduce the bitrate as much as possible. Which makes sense because of the millions of streams they send out. So the less data sent can save them money. So if they use HEVC for 1080P, I would expect them to reduce the bitrate as much as they can to get the same quality they had with H264 at the higher bitrate


Well, I wouldn't say Netflix is looking to reduce bitrates as much as possible. Based on what I see with my own two eyes plus what I read in blog posts from Netflix (like the link above), it appears to me that Netflix is serious about balancing picture quality against bandwidth efficiency, i.e. lower bitrates. The 1080p HD streams offered by Netflix have always looked superior to me (and lots of others, based on comments I've read around the interwebs) to the 1080i and 720p HD live linear channels available from the typical cable or satellite company (even better than DirecTV). So if Netflix *really* wanted to reduce bitrates, they could just cut them down to a level that produced HD picture quality on par with what Americans are already used to from their cable TV providers. (This is more or less what Hulu does.)


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> Well, I wouldn't say Netflix is looking to reduce bitrates as much as possible. Based on what I see with my own two eyes plus what I read in blog posts from Netflix (like the link above), it appears to me that Netflix is serious about balancing picture quality against bandwidth efficiency, i.e. lower bitrates. The 1080p HD streams offered by Netflix have always looked superior to me (and lots of others, based on comments I've read around the interwebs) to the 1080i and 720p HD live linear channels available from the typical cable or satellite company (even better than DirecTV). So if Netflix *really* wanted to reduce bitrates, they could just cut them down to a level that produced HD picture quality on par with what Americans are already used to from their cable TV providers. (This is more or less what Hulu does.)


Here on FiOS and OTA their 1080P streams typically didn't look better. Now their UHD streams(non HDR) do look similar to what a 1080P BD looks like. But those are using 16Mb/s bitrates with HEVC at 2160P.


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## jth tv (Nov 15, 2014)

Recently Netflix picture quality has Improved quite a bit for my Roamio using 3Mbps (3.5 speedtest) TWC internet. Per the Tivo info button, occasionally, I am getting "1080", whereas before it was never. No noticeable artifacts, been quite a while since I've seen them. "The Robot", "Cat Women", maybe 10% of Buffy episodes are 1080.

With 3Mbps, El Fuente: 60 Main10 maxes at:
3000 kbps 1280x720 par 1:1 8bpc 30.00 rps
Tivo info says 720.

I went back to it several times in the middle of shows that Tivo says were 1080. It seems El Fuente is just Not made to do whatever they do to get to "1080", its max is "720" at 3Mbps.


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## elwaylite (Apr 23, 2006)

jth tv said:


> Recently Netflix picture quality has Improved quite a bit for my Roamio using 3Mbps (3.5 speedtest) TWC internet. Per the Tivo info button, occasionally, I am getting "1080", whereas before it was never. No noticeable artifacts, been quite a while since I've seen them. "The Robot", "Cat Women", maybe 10% of Buffy episodes are 1080.
> 
> With 3Mbps, El Fuente: 60 Main10 maxes at:
> 3000 kbps 1280x720 par 1:1 8bpc 30.00 rps
> ...


Could be that your TWC is reaching that 4000 mark to make 1080p as well. Sometimes as connections run, they speed up because the provider sees it as a long term download. Others ramp up and then drop, to give you a false sense of speed.

My Mediacom 100 down service will hit around 50, and then 65, and so on as the longer download tests maintain.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

aaronwt said:


> Here on FiOS and OTA their 1080P streams typically didn't look better.


To my eyes, Netflix 1080p does look better than the average OTA HD source here. And it looks better than DirecTV did when I had it. I've never had FiOS but I've seen more than one person on various forums post that FiOS doesn't look quite as good as DirecTV. That said, two people with 20/20 vision may perceive picture quality differently from one another.


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## elwaylite (Apr 23, 2006)

I use Longmire as an example of something I can quantify, and it most definitely looks better than OTA and Directv on Netflix 1080p.

It also depends on the device streaming, granted the tivo's do a great job. I some devices can look softer than others, even though they report the same quality, which likely comes down to the chip the device is using.

I have an Xbox One S now, and it has some outstanding PQ from Amazon 1080p, which it is scaling to 2160p. It would be nice if the Amazon app on the Bolt was reliable so I could compare them, but I can't deal with the crashes. So Im using the Xbone for all my streaming duty because I even get some hangs from the Netflix app.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> To my eyes, Netflix 1080p does look better than the average OTA HD source here. And it looks better than DirecTV did when I had it. I've never had FiOS but I've seen more than one person on various forums post that FiOS doesn't look quite as good as DirecTV. That said, two people with 20/20 vision may perceive picture quality differently from one another.


It isn't surprising given the difference between live encoding and Netflix being able to use a server farm to do offline encoding.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

rainwater said:


> It isn't surprising given the difference between live encoding and Netflix being able to use a server farm to do offline encoding.


That's absolutely true. It's not really a fair fight. When a TV network is doing live on-the-fly single-pass encoding, they just can't produce as good a picture at the same codec and bitrate that Netflix can produce with the benefit of optimized multi-pass encoding.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> That's absolutely true. It's not really a fair fight. When a TV network is doing live on-the-fly single-pass encoding, they just can't produce as good a picture at the same codec and bitrate that Netflix can produce with the benefit of optimized multi-pass encoding.


Some of my hd recordings from 15 years ago put anything from OTA now to shame.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

aaronwt said:


> Some of my hd recordings from 15 years ago put anything from OTA now to shame.


Yeah, blame all those subchannels for the decrease in picture quality on the main HD channels. My local CBS channel still has pretty amazing 1080i -- it looks about on par to my eye with Netflix -- but the others aren't as good. I think NBC is the worst (saw some really ugly pixelation during the Olympic swimming events), although I think at least part of the problem there is with the compression applied by NBC before sending it out to the affiliates.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Dan203 said:


> I'll double check but I'm pretty sure it said 60fps when it got to the max resolution. But for me the max resolution is 1080p, not 4k, so that could be the difference. I also have my TiVo set to a fixed resolution of 1080p/60, not native, so I was basing that on what the screen said not anything my TV was doing.


I double checked and it's definitely 60fps for 1080p.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

On both my Apple TV (3rd gen) and my TiVo Roamio, the video topped out at 1080p 30fps at 5.8 Mbps. I have the standard $10 Netflix subscription. I'm pretty sure my Samsung TV is capable of 1080p60 but the stream never reached that frame rate.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

NashGuy said:


> On both my Apple TV (3rd gen) and my TiVo Roamio, the video topped out at 1080p 30fps at 5.8 Mbps. I have the standard $10 Netflix subscription. I'm pretty sure my Samsung TV is capable of 1080p60 but the stream never reached that frame rate.


My Netflix for 2 streams was 5.7 Mbps, now its down to 3 Mbps, My Netflix account information also shows a max of 3 Mbps unless I up my plan to 4 screens, then the max, goes to 7 Mbps. Most of the Netflix movies are 1024/24 so 3 Mbps may be all I need as I don't have a UHTV or a Bolt.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I do have the 4 stream plan, so maybe that makes a difference.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I do have the 4 stream plan, so maybe that makes a difference.


The four stream plan is the only way to get UHD content. Otherwise it should be the same for 1080P content.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Don't know if the difference is the plan (perhaps the top plan provides access not only to UHD but also better 1080p) or if it's the hardware (Bolt vs. Roamio), or if both conditions are required. Since the Bolt can handle HEVC but the Roamio can't, it could mean that the 1080p60 stream Dan received (but I didn't) was in HEVC, something he already suspected based on its appearance (see post 3 above).


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> I double checked and it's definitely 60fps for 1080p.


That's bizarre. Can you post a shot of the screen where the overlay says "60 fps"?

The bizarre-ness here is that it would imply that there are two versions of that clip and the player is dynamically choosing which to use based on some criteria. I cannot believe that they have both 60 fps and 30 fps encodes in the same set of files.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

elwaylite said:


> Could be that your TWC is reaching that 4000 mark to make 1080p as well. Sometimes as connections run, they speed up because the provider sees it as a long term download. Others ramp up and then drop, to give you a false sense of speed.
> 
> My Mediacom 100 down service will hit around 50, and then 65, and so on as the longer download tests maintain.


As I posted above, Netflix has been re-encoding things with per-title custom bit rate ladders. Many titles have 1080p encodes at less than 2000 Kbps.

There are two available LANs where I live; the one my landlord pays for, a 2 Mbps connection from AT&T, wireless-only and the 150 Mbps service that I pay the cable company for. My cable service experienced a 24 hour + interruption a month or two back and when I streamed using the house wireless I was able to get 720p for what I was watching. With Netflix's old fixed bit rate ladder 2350 Kbps was the bit rate of the lower quality 720p encode; on the house wireless I'd be lucky to get the 1750 Kbps 702x480p encode.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

So more evidence that Netflix is doing everything they can to lower the bitrate. While keeping the quality similar. With the amount of bandwidth they are using streaming to tens of millions of people, even a minor reduction in bitrates can be a huge savings.

Of course I'm still holding out from coming back to Netflix. I'm trying to hold out until the start of the next quarter. But I'm still not sure if I will make it. Although their lack if UHD content in HDR is certainly helping.

EDIT: One thing I know for sure though. Netflix will never see anywhere close to the amount of money I used to pay them on a yearly basis. It will now be no more than one third of what i used to give them each year.

I used to pay them around $330 a year between disc rentals and streaming. Once I return, they will get less than $100 a year from me. I'll only subscribe to the UHD plan for six to eight months out of the year. And I won't be coming back to their disc rental business. They pissed me off too much after screwing with my streaming plan.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mikeyts said:


> That's bizarre. Can you post a shot of the screen where the overlay says "60 fps"?
> 
> The bizarre-ness here is that it would imply that there are two versions of that clip and the player is dynamically choosing which to use based on some criteria. I cannot believe that they have both 60 fps and 30 fps encodes in the same set of files.


Here you go...


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Here you go...


That bitrate is only a little higher than the 24fps, 1080P, encoded titles used to be at.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> Here you go...


Okay--thanks for that. Now I see 60 fps displayed while I play it; perhaps I was hallucinating the 30 fps.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mikeyts said:


> Okay--thanks for that. Now I see 60 fps displayed while I play it; perhaps I was hallucinating the 30 fps.


there is a 30fps version too isn't there?


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> That bitrate is only a little higher than the 24fps, 1080P, encoded titles used to be at.


It's 20% higher than the 5800 Kbps of the old fixed rate ladder; I don't know that I'd consider that to be "a little bit" on the scale of streaming video bit rates.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mikeyts said:


> It's 20% higher than the 5800 Kbps of the old fixed rate ladder; I don't know that I'd consider that to be "a little bit" on the scale of streaming video bit rates.


But that 5.8Mbps content is 24fps, so this isn't really an apples to apples comparison. Even with H.265 7Mbps for a 1080p/60 encode is a little low. Which is probably why I'm seeing a bit of the telltale H.265 smearing. However if it were 24fps instead they could probably get away with 3.5-4Mbps* while retaining the same visual quality as the current 5.8Mbps H.264 encodes. That would still be a significant savings given the amount of data they're pushing.

* H.265 only reaches it's peak 50% bitrate reduction advantage when encoding 4K content. At 1080p it's only got a 35-40% bitrate reduction compared to H.264.


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## chrisplbalboa (Jun 6, 2016)

Excuse my ignorance, but how do I display this test video on my bolt/tv? I searched for it in the netflix search (on the bolt app) but can't find it. Is there a browser on the bolt that I don't know about?


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

mikeyts said:


> That's bizarre. Can you post a shot of the screen where the overlay says "60 fps"?
> 
> The bizarre-ness here is that it would imply that there are two versions of that clip and the player is dynamically choosing which to use based on some criteria. I cannot believe that they have both 60 fps and 30 fps encodes in the same set of files.


Yes, the player is *definitely* dynamically choosing which encoded version to stream based on the quality/speed of your internet connection, the capabilities of your hardware/the version of the app you're running, and the plan you're subscribed to. That's normal. Netflix has lots of different encodes for each of the titles they have available and will dynamically switch between them if necessary (for instance, if network congestions causes your internet speed to fall).

I don't know how common it is for Netflix to have a given title available at both 30 and 60 fps but they clearly do in the case of this test video.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> there is a 30fps version too isn't there?


Yeah, but only "El Fuente: 60 main10" has that info overlay on its constituent encodes and that one is the only one in my My List. If it can see that your television is incapable of [email protected] and selects a version with 30 fps encodes I'm impressed. It really seems unlikely to me that there'd be both 30 and 60 fps encodes in the same file set, but maybe there are.

The weird thing about when I saw 30 fps displayed, according to my television TiVo was giving it a [email protected] signal, which isn't even among the enable-able resolutions in TiVo's settings. But the Netflix app on Bolt is pretty wacky.

I'm beginning to think that at least titles with 4K video have all HEVC encodes. On non-4K devices the overlay that you see for encodes of 720p or above is completely different in style, being one line of small text justified to the upper right-hand corner.

I just tried playing it again and got 30 fps, and the bit rate displayed was identical for 1080p. It marched marched up to 16000 Kbps 2160p encode whose overlay also displayed 30 fps. I give up .


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

mikeyts said:


> As I posted above, Netflix has been re-encoding things with per-title custom bit rate ladders. Many titles have 1080p encodes at less than 2000 Kbps.


I seem to have noticed a slight decrease in 1080p HD picture quality on Netflix this year and I wonder if it's because of the switch from a standard 5.8 Mbps h.264 encoding to per-title custom bitrates. Seems like I notice more noise/macroblocking in shadowy areas, as well as gradient banding, in the second season of Bloodline than I noticed in season one last year. I see it elsewhere too. Things still look very good in general (I wish Hulu, Showtime, HBO, PBS, etc. looked as good) but there were scenes in Netflix original content (which is shot and mastered in UHD) last year when I could have mistaken it for Blu-ray. It didn't consistently have that kind of wow factor but it almost never seems to lately.

I dunno, maybe it's just me...


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> Yes, the player is *definitely* dynamically choosing which encoded version to stream based on the quality/speed of your internet connection...


That part is a given; it uses adaptive bit rate tech, MPEG DASH. What I've never heard of it doing is choosing an encode based on hardware capabilities such as 30/60 Hz display capability. I suppose that it's not surprising that it might choose a different set of encodes for 4K-capable players; as stated, I now think that it might be choosing an all-HEVC set for titles with 4K video being displayed on 4K-capable equipment.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> I seem to have noticed a slight decrease in 1080p HD picture quality on Netflix this year and I wonder if it's because of the switch from a standard 5.8 Mbps h.264 encoding to per-title custom bitrates.


Note that, as well as there being some titles with 1080p video at low bit rates, some other titles are getting 1080p encodes at up to 7500 Kbps (the highest I saw--there could be higher).


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

chrisplbalboa said:


> Excuse my ignorance, but how do I display this test video on my bolt/tv? I searched for it in the netflix search (on the bolt app) but can't find it. Is there a browser on the bolt that I don't know about?


Most of the test clips can't be found in a search anymore. Here's a link to it: "El Fuente: 60 main10".


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

chrisplbalboa said:


> Excuse my ignorance, but how do I display this test video on my bolt/tv? I searched for it in the netflix search (on the bolt app) but can't find it. Is there a browser on the bolt that I don't know about?


I couldn't find it on the TiVo directly. I had to add it to my list via the website and then it showed up in the my list of the TiVo app.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

mikeyts said:


> That part is a given; it uses adaptive bit rate tech, MPEG DASH. What I've never heard of it doing is choosing an encode based on hardware capabilities such as 30/60 Hz display capability. I suppose that it's not surprising that it might choose a different set of encodes for 4K-capable players; as stated, I now think that it might be choosing an all-HEVC set for titles with 4K video being displayed on 4K-capable equipment.


Just a guess, but I doubt Netflix is bothering to encode anything under 1080p in HEVC. But for hardware that supports HEVC, both 1080p and 2160p UHD would be offered in HEVC. If one's internet speed were too low, then you'd get served a 720p or even 480p stream in h.264.

As far as the El Fuento test video, I would imagine that you and Dan saw the same progression of encodes until the final version you were each presented. You got 2160p30 since you're connected to a UHD TV and Dan got 1080p60 since he is not. (I'm pretty sure no major streaming service, except maybe YouTube, yet offers UHD at 60 fps -- 2160p60. I don't think any current streamers out now can handle it other than the Nvidia Shield Android TV.)

I'd be interested in hearing what someone with a Bolt that's connected to a 1080p (not UHD) TV with the standard $10 Netflix plan tops out at. Does he get the 1080p60 stream or does he top out at 1080p30 like I did on my Roamio?


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

NashGuy said:


> I'd be interested in hearing what someone with a Bolt that's connected to a 1080p (not UHD) TV with the standard $10 Netflix plan tops out at. Does he get the 1080p60 stream or does he top out at 1080p30 like I did on my Roamio?


Just tried that and toped out at 3K Mbps 1080x30 (I have the two stream Netflix plan)


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Search on the website app won't match "El Fuente" for me, or "Example Short". Apparently they don't want people playing these (and using them to complain to phone CSRs about the resolution they're getting ). You can search "test" and find "Test Patterns", a multi-season, multi-episode "series" with useful though very static test clips.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mikeyts said:


> Search on the website app won't match "El Fuente" for me, or "Example Short". Apparently they don't want people playing these (and using them to complain to phone CSRs about the resolution they're getting ). You can search "test" and find "Test Patterns", a multi-season, multi-episode "series" with useful though very static test clips.


I can't find it any more either. I guess they don't want people messing with these.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

lessd said:


> Just tried that and toped out at 3K Mbps 1080x30 (I have the two stream Netflix plan)


Thanks, Les. Maybe you topped out at 3 Mbps while I topped out at 5.8K Mbps because of differences in our internet speed? My download speed from Comcast is rated at 25 Mbps (but typically tests anywhere from 18 to 32 Mbps). And my Roamio is connected via ethernet, not wifi. How about you?


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> As far as the El Fuento test video, I would imagine that you and Dan saw the same progression of encodes until the final version you were each presented. You got 2160p30 since you're connected to a UHD TV and Dan got 1080p60 since he is not.


It's inconsistent. I tried it just after Dan posted that image and got video marked 60p on the overlay, delivered that 60Hz by TiVo. Since then I've only gotten 30p on the overlay, output at a should-not-be-possible 30Hz by TiVo, all the way up to and including the 16000 Kbps 2160p encode. Another thing is that the overlay information when played on TiVo says that the color is 10-bit; other devices that I've tried (Roku 3, Fire TV Stick, Chromecast) report 8-bit color.



> (I'm pretty sure no major streaming service, except maybe YouTube, yet offers UHD at 60 fps -- 2160p60. I don't think any current streamers out now can handle it other than the Nvidia Shield Android TV.)


When I view 4K video on YouTube on Bolt I get either 24p output at 24Hz or what's presumably 60p video output at a should-not-be-possible-from-TiVo 30Hz.


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## chrisplbalboa (Jun 6, 2016)

Thanks for the help on playing this.

Here's my info on a Samsung 2015 4K tv. Bitrate 16000kbps, res 3840x2160, PAR 1:1, bit depth 10, frame rate 30. It displayed this from start to finish.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Tried on my Roamio and only got 30fps. Also all the info was in a single line along the top right corner, rather then down the middle like on the bolt.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

mikeyts said:


> It's inconsistent. I tried it just after Dan posted that image and got video marked 60p on the overlay, delivered that 60Hz by TiVo. Since then I've only gotten 30p on the overlay, output at a should-not-be-possible 30Hz by TiVo, all the way up to and including the 16000 Kbps 2160p encode. Another thing is that the overlay information when played on TiVo says that the color is 10-bit; other devices that I've tried (Roku 3, Fire TV Stick, Chromecast) report 8-bit color.
> 
> When I view 4K video on YouTube on Bolt I get either 24p output at 24Hz or what's presumably 60p video output at a should-not-be-possible-from-TiVo 30Hz.


I'm pretty sure the Bolt cannot handle an output of 2160p60. The highest frame rate it can do at 2160p resolution is 30 fps. So even if you have your TiVo's output set to force 60Hz, it will drop to 30 when it streams UHD. When you say you first got 60p, it was 1080p60, right? And then when you got 30p, it was 2160p30.

I may be missing some possible steps here, but I think the encode ladder for this test video goes like this:

480p30 @ 1.75 Mbps (I'm assuming it's 30 fps; frame rate is actually not reported on screen.)
720p30 @ 3.0 Mbps
1080p30 @ 4.3 Mbps
1080p30 @ 5.8 Mbps
1080p60 @ 6.96 Mbps
2160p30 @ 16 Mbps

I saw all of the first four steps either on my Roamio or in Chrome on my Mac and they must be in h.264. The last two steps are as reported by you and Dan and I assume to be in HEVC.



Dan203 said:


> Tried on my Roamio and only got 30fps. Also all the info was in a single line along the top right corner, rather then down the middle like on the bolt.


Just like what I got.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> I'm pretty sure the Bolt cannot handle an output of 2160p60. The highest frame rate it can do at 2160p resolution is 30 fps. So even if you have your TiVo's output set to force 60Hz, it will drop to 30 when it streams UHD. When you say you first got 60p, it was 1080p60, right? And then when you got 30p, it was 2160p30.


I'm pretty much certain that it started at 1080p60 @60Hz and went up through four 2160p60 encodes to end at 60p; I know that it didn't switch hardware resolution while I was watching it. I haven't been able to get it to do 60p again. I'm completely certain that I've also seen it display 1080p 30fps with a bit rate of 6960 Kbps.

(EDIT: I just saw it display an overlay claiming 1080p30, 6960 Kbps displayed at 30Hz; then it switched resolution to [email protected] and climbed through the first couple of 2160p encodes--which don't have framerate in their info overlays--and then it died, displaying one of those UI-xxx errors . I'm rebooting it with only [email protected] selected in the settings in the hope of getting it to start with the "[email protected] (auto)" resolution setting, which can't be chosen (you can choose [email protected] as the only enabled resolution, but you don't get the "(auto)" displayed; maybe there's something special about that since Netflix is most stable at that setting).


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

mikeyts said:


> I'm pretty much certain that it started at 1080p60 @60Hz and went up through four 2160p60 encodes to end at 60p; I know that it didn't switch hardware resolution while I was watching it. I haven't been able to get it to do 60p again. I'm completely certain that I've also seen it display 1080p 30fps with a bit rate of 6960 Kbps.


Hmm. Perhaps the Bolt can output 2160p60? For some reason, I was under the impression that it couldn't. I know the current Amazon Fire TV can't, although I think maybe the Roku 4 can.

Odd that it would give you a 2160p60 stream once and then every other time only top out at 2160p30. Maybe your connection speed slowed a bit?

In actual Netflix usage, it probably doesn't matter though because I don't think they really offer anything at 60 fps. Per an interview w/ Netflix back in 2014: "We have test content up to 60fps, just not real-world content. But we can stream at 60fps."


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> Hmm. Perhaps the Bolt can output 2160p60? For some reason, I was under the impression that it couldn't. I know the current Amazon Fire TV can't, although I think maybe the Roku 4 can.


Oh, it can _output_ that. There are two 2160p resolution settings, one for 60Hz and one for 24Hz pass through (you can't set that one without the 60Hz). With one or both of those being the only enabled resolution(s), normal television and recording playback is output upscaled to [email protected] My question would be if it can decode a 2160p60 encoding. (I know that many UHD televisions can't accept a 2160 res signal at 60Hz--my 2014 Vizio P602ui-B3 can only do it on one HDMI input--so maybe for those it outputs upscaled to [email protected] I'd try it on one of the other HDMI inputs but that one, HDMI 5, is the only one with HDMI 2.0/HDCP 2.2 capability, so I'm sure that TiVo wouldn't see the others as being 4K at all and wouldn't allow the 2160 res settings. The 2016 Vizio P-Series monitors--no tuners so not technically "televisions"--have that capability on all of the first four HDMI inputs).



> Odd that it would give you a 2160p60 stream once and then every other time only top out at 2160p30. Maybe your connection speed slowed a bit?


My nominal network service bandwidth is 150 Mbps and the TiVo app's speed test (Settings->Get Help->Check Your Network) consistently reports 50-70 Mbps after a 20 second test. Anything is possible, of course.

Having rebooted the machine I got [email protected] only without the "(auto)" annotation, which is what I had set when I asked it to reboot. Whatever. I just tried playing "El Fuente" and got a 5160- and 6960 Kbps 1080p30 encodes, 9600-, 12000-, 14400- and 16000 Kbps 2160p encodes; only the last of the 2160p encodes displayed a framerate, which was 30 fps. All of these were output by TiVo @60Hz. Earlier, [email protected] and [email protected] (pass-through) were both enabled and I always got a 30Hz signal; maybe 24Hz (pass-through) implies 30Hz as well.

I just tried playing "El Fuente: 60 main10" in the Win10 Netflix app and got 2350- and 3000 Kbps 720p30 encodes and 4300- and 5800 Kbps 1080p30 encodes, the classic fixed bit rate ladder. I really think that non-4K equipment gets a completely different set of encodes for this file, which makes me suspect that the 4K one is entirely encoded in HEVC. How smoothly can players on most hardware switch from decoding AVC into decoding HEVC and vice-versa? It might not be feasible for them to use AVC for any of the encodes if it might be switching to HEVC. I dunno.

Not particularly amusingly, attempts to play that file consistently crashes my television's internal app, ending with it stuck in the Yahoo TV system with no app running, a blank screen with no apparent escape. Pressing the remote button to bring up Amazon gives me a way back out.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> In actual Netflix usage, it probably doesn't matter though because I don't think they really offer anything at 60 fps. Per an interview w/ Netflix back in 2014: "We have test content up to 60fps, just not real-world content. But we can stream at 60fps."


That's what I thought. The vast majority of their content is encoded at 24p, with some early US television encoded at 30p ("The Dick Van **** Show", for example) and British television encoded at 25p ("Black Mirror", etc). 25p and 30p used to both be output by TiVo as [email protected], but Bolt is outputting 25p as 24Hz now if you only enable the 2160 output resolutions (you get still get [email protected] for those with only the 1080 output resolutions selected).

It's interesting that with only [email protected] and [email protected] (pass-through) enabled it still climbs up through the 2160p encodes, displayed as a [email protected] signal.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

NashGuy said:


> Thanks, Les. Maybe you topped out at 3 Mbps while I topped out at 5.8K Mbps because of differences in our internet speed? My download speed from Comcast is rated at 25 Mbps (but typically tests anywhere from 18 to 32 Mbps). And my Roamio is connected via ethernet, not wifi. How about you?


I have Comcast Blast and I have download speed of over 150Mbps, at one time I did get 5.7K, on Netflix, but I have not tested this for a long time, and my Netflix account now tells me my max. speed (for my 2 stream plan) is now 3Mbps, if I up to 4 screens I can get 7 Mbps speed. My HDTV tells me what I am receiving and all Netflix movies come in at 1080P 24F/s.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

lessd said:


> I have Comcast Blast and I have download speed of over 150Mbps, at one time I did get 5.7K, on Netflix, but I have not tested this for a long time, and my Netflix account now tells me my max. speed (for my 2 stream plan) is now 3Mbps, if I up to 4 screens I can get 7 Mbps speed. My HDTV tells me what I am receiving and all Netflix movies come in at 1080P 24F/s.


Where does it say that? Could/would you post a picture, please? I've never heard of an account being bandwidth limited and if I look at the available plans in the account page at their website it doesn't mention any bandwidth usage limits. If they're doing that it deserves its own discussion.

Could you try the Netflix app's speed test (Settings->Get Help->Check Your Network) on Bolt and tell us what you see?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> Hmm. Perhaps the Bolt can output 2160p60? For some reason, I was under the impression that it couldn't. I know the current Amazon Fire TV can't, although I think maybe the Roku 4 can.
> 
> Odd that it would give you a 2160p60 stream once and then every other time only top out at 2160p30. Maybe your connection speed slowed a bit?
> 
> In actual Netflix usage, it probably doesn't matter though because I don't think they really offer anything at 60 fps. Per an interview w/ Netflix back in 2014: "We have test content up to 60fps, just not real-world content. But we can stream at 60fps."


Yes it can. If you don't select 2160P24/pass through then it will output 2160P60. No idea about the specific stream, but I've definitely had my Bolts output a signal at 2160P60 at some point.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

mikeyts said:


> EDIT: I just saw it display an overlay claiming 1080p30, 6960 Kbps displayed at 30Hz; then it switched resolution to [email protected] and climbed through the first couple of 2160p encodes--which don't have framerate in their info overlays--and then it died, displaying one of those UI-xxx errors .


I just played with this some more with only [email protected] and [email protected] (pass-through) enabled and it _always_ switches from 30Hz to 60Hz during the 9600-, 12000- and 14400 Kbps 2160p encodes and back to 30Hz for the 16000 Kbps encode. The app's a little iffy at continuing playback after the 2 second pause while my TV switches resolutions so it's hit or miss whether it will survive that transition to and from 60Hz, but it works most of the time. I really think that it only has those three encodes at 60 fps and it switches to 60Hz to display them.

Thus far I've not seen it display a lower-than-1080 res encode but that might just be that available bandwidth never requires that it do so. It's possible that the title doesn't have any sub-1080p encodes.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

mikeyts said:


> Thus far I've not seen it display a lower-than-1080 res encode but that might just be that available bandwidth never requires that it do so. It's possible that the title doesn't have any sub-1080p encodes.


Yes, there are definitely 480p and 720p encodes for this title. See my post #59. But there may not be any sub-1080p encodes in HEVC.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

mikeyts said:


> Where does it say that? Could/would you post a picture, please? I've never heard of an account being bandwidth limited and if I look at the available plans in the account page at their website it doesn't mention any bandwidth usage limits. If they're doing that it deserves its own discussion.
> 
> Could you try the Netflix app's speed test (Settings->Get Help->Check Your Network) on Bolt and tell us what you see?


Just go to your Netflix account on your computer then go to Playback Settings and you will see what I am talking about: In my Netflix account this is what I see, I check 3 Mbps.

*Playback Settings

Data Usage per Screen

Auto

Default video quality and data usage

Low

Basic video quality, up to 0.3 GB per hour

Medium

Standard video quality, up to 0.7 GB per hour

High

Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD, 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD

Auto-Play

Play next episode automatically

SaveCancel

*


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Ah--you're just misreading that. 3G_Bytes_-per-hour = 24Gbits = 25769.8 Mbits-per-hour / 3600 seconds-per-hour = 7.158 Mbits-per-second, aka 7158 Kbps. That's plenty for 5800 Kbps 1080p video + 192 Kbps DD+ 5.1 sound. Of course, with custom bit rate ladders you might see 7692 Kbps 1080p streams but I doubt that the High setting will prevent you from getting that. It's unlikely that it's "you can have up to 16700 Kbps for 2160p but if it's 1080p you can't have more than 7158 Kbps"; the "High" setting is essentially unbounded. (In those calculations I'm assuming that they're talking about 2-to-the-30th (gibibytes) rather than 10-to-the-9th (gigabytes) because it works out to better numbers that way. Usually when talking rates powers of 10 are used, particular in customer documentation since to Joe Average "giga" means "billions of").


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Using GB (gigabytes) per hour (rather than Mbps - megabits per second) is more helpful for viewers who are concerned about data caps from their internet provider. My cap with Comcast is 1 TB (or 1,000 GB) per month, so that's about 333 hours of high-quality HD from Netflix.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> Using GB (gigabytes) per hour (rather than Mbps - megabits per second) is more helpful for viewers who are concerned about data caps from their internet provider. My cap with Comcast is 1 TB (or 1,000 GB) per month, so that's about 333 hours of high-quality HD from Netflix.


I don't think it matters either way for most people. Most people no clue what gigabytes or megabytes mean.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

mikeyts said:


> Ah--you're just misreading that. 3G_Bytes_-per-hour = 24Gbits = 25769.8 Mbits-per-hour / 3600 seconds-per-hour = 7.158 Mbits-per-second, aka 7158 Kbps. That's plenty for 5800 Kbps 1080p video + 192 Kbps DD+ 5.1 sound. Of course, with custom bit rate ladders you might see 7692 Kbps 1080p streams but I doubt that the High setting will prevent you from getting that. It's unlikely that it's "you can have up to 16700 Kbps for 2160p but if it's 1080p you can't have more than 7158 Kbps"; the "High" setting is essentially unbounded. (In those calculations I'm assuming that they're talking about 2-to-the-30th (gibibytes) rather than 10-to-the-9th (gigabytes) because it works out to better numbers that way. Usually when talking rates powers of 10 are used, particular in customer documentation since to Joe Average "giga" means "billions of").


Your correct..thanks


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> I don't think it matters either way for most people. Most people no clue what gigabytes or megabytes mean.


Yeah, but the terms keeps getting thrown in their faces: size of their HDDs, bandwidth of their network service, etc. It's best for "giga" to mean billions, "mega" to mean millions and "kilo" to mean thousands as those prefixes do when applied to anything else (gigahertz, megaton, kilowatt), instead of 2-to-the-30th, 2-to-the-20th and 2-to-the-10th as they mean in many computing contexts.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I run into that problem a lot in my code. At one point I tried to standardize on the "real" values but found that the values calculated by most of the 3rd party libs we use were the thousands/millions/billions and not the "real" values. So we ended up going the other way and standardizing on the 0 numbers.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

aaronwt said:


> I don't think it matters either way for most people. Most people no clue what gigabytes or megabytes mean.


If they get slapped with an overage fee from their ISP, they'll learn fast.


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## Jeff_DML (Mar 3, 2009)

Bumping this old thread

Have a bolt and a 1080p tv. Was watching stranger things 2 and could not get higher then 3.65 Mbps 1080 encode. Signed into my 4 plan account and got served a 5.53 1080 encode. So they seem to give a better 1080p encode on the 4K plans based on my brief testing.


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