Netflix On PS3 goes disc-free...(Gets 1080p streaming and DD+ 5.1 surround sound) - Page 25

For me it's always been the first sub-section under "Suggestions For You". I didn't use Netflix last night, but it was definitely there the night before (Monday, 1/3/11).

That entire section has disappeared for me. I'll check again tonight and maybe take a picture.

For me "Recently Watched" is the forth selection down. But notice now my "New Arrivals" doesn't give me any new movies to choose from, its blank .

Checked my Xbox 360 and its fine .

It's not a a limitation of hardware . FYI

I never said it was. But it's something that needs to be fixed by Sony and unless enough people complain about it we can pretty much forget about it.

Well, technically you can trick the player into 24p off of a USB drive if you author it as an AVCHD disc. But point taken as far as Netflix playback is concerned.

-Suntan

don't know if this has been answered but i just signed up with netflix on my ps3 and now when i try to load it up i keep getting a error that i think says 301.201 I'm not sure if i''m supposed to have a activation code for it like i do on the 360.

Has anyone done a comparison with a BD to the Netflix stream for audio/video comparison?

Chris

Not even close. Netflix supposedly uses 8-9Mbps max for 1080p streams while a Blu-Ray can be well over 30. And then we're not even taking into account the matter of lossy vs lossless audio. If Sony ever fixes the problem so the app can bitstream DD+ properly it would probably make a difference, although how much is hard to say.

PS3 Netflix vs. Blu-Ray screenshot comparison thread here.

The PQ is noticeable, but not as bad as many would have you think (some people claim it's nothing but macroblocking and banding and blah blah blah but it's not, although I have seen stuff like that here and there...it's certainly not the norm).

Note the above thread also has some Vudu vs Netflix vs Blu-Ray in it....the Vudu is much closer to Blu-Ray of course. Keep in mind that while we are assuming Netflix 5.1 titles are also 1080p, no one knows for sure (the person posting screenshots claims that several stereo titles are 1080p, but I'm not convinced).

I compare the quality (of the suspected 1080p titles) to a typical HD feed through my provider (Verizon FiOS), so it's perfectly fine on my 50" TV.

AQ is better now that they are adding 5.1 titles, but it's still on a limited selection of titles (here's a list that's being compiled), and of course it's not lossless if you have the equipment and the ability to notice the difference (I have the former but not the latter)

Given that in about 18-24 months we've gone from 480p to 720p to 1080p/5.1, I have high hopes on how the quality will look a year or two from now (hopefully some re-encoded titles using improved codecs and hopefully some higher-bandwidth streams)

I agree that the PQ of even the highest quality NF streaming title is not in the same world with that of the average 1080p BD. The difference in audio quality is even more pronounced, especially for those of us whose AV receivers can play HD audio tracks. In fact, I have been so disappointed with NF streaming I have hardly used it in the past few months. To add insult to the injury of NF's clear policy to pass over newly released BD editions of old classic films, The Maltese Falcon for example, NF is also increasing its prices starting this month. Consequently, I will be putting my NF account on hold on 1/14, the last day of my current NF billing period. I am going to return to BB, at least for a little while, and see how it goes. At least BB has The Maltese Falcon BD. I won't miss NF streaming.

The best streaming titles are not even as good as a bad cable HD channel. Very disappointing on anything bigger than a 37" TV.

^ HD Netflix streaming blows away my HD cable provider (Cox Cable). It isn't even close.

Mine too (Verizon FiOS). On a 50" tv.

Comments like that make me think they haven't actually seen it, watched a bad encode, had a bad connection or used a Wii (or some combination of the above)

HUH? There is absolutely no way...if Netflix HD streaming blew my cable company away, I'd be switching to DirecTV or Uverse NOW, that's ridiculous.

Agreed.

To all who think it looks bad...are you sure you are getting x-high/HD or high/HD? Try watching The Secret of Kells. It looks crystal clear on my 50" plasma. However, you need a decent internet connection. I tried Netflix the other day after moving my wireless modem to the further room in the house and Netflix looked very poor because my PS3 wasn't getting a good signal. After I moved the modem back it looked stellar again.

I know what HD cable should, and does, look like. It doesn't touch a quality HD Netflix video. Far less macroblocking in Netflix.

There is no possible way Netflix video can come close to cable HD PQ (unless your cable provider is really, really crappy). As we've discussed many times in the video downloads services forum, the Netflix are heavily compressed streams, even moreso than Vudu HDX streams (and even those are relatively low-bandwidth compared with Blu-Ray and broadcast).

To all those who haven't, check out Vudu HDX streams to see a better streaming solution.

Then there's something wrong with your cable signal, your particular equipment setup, or both. Netflix streaming can look good, but never better than a clean HD cable feed.

Ok. Guess San Diego Cox Cable is the only HD cable that doesn't look spectacular; it is compressed and has macroblocking. Or I can just say your setup and/or internet doesn't like Netflix. Either way doesn't change the fact that Netflix looks far superior to my cable. Less blocks and noise. Unfortunately, nothing is wrong with my cable or setup; at least nothing I can fix.

Absolute statements like this are naive. You are obviously not aware of the state of cable tv in every city.

Many cable systems compress both hd and sd signals, down to even just one third or one forth of an atsc broadcast. Netflix x-high hd on a ps3 is indeed on par with these.

Netflix's x-high HD is as good as a low to average cable HD picture. I have Fios so I don't believe it's as good as their HD quality, but it's not a major step down either.

Again that's only if you're getting a High or X-high transfer from Netflix. Anything below that and you defniitely are not getting anywhere near a cable HD picture.

A good HD encode, at X-High streaming via my PS3, looks as good as OTA HD on my 46" Bravia, so long as there isn't a huge amount of action. You can see the limitations during explosions & high-speed pans, but 99% of the time it's as good as HD via my Charter cable feed (which degrades the same way, but to a slightly lesser extent).

It varies quite a bit depending on the source; there's good encodes, and there are ones that were pretty clearly quick-and-dirty. It's never going to be Blu-ray (which, of course, is also a compressed format), but I've been surprised to find that it's more than "good enough". I had tried it a few years ago on my TiVo back when I had a slow DSL connection, and picture quality was terrible.

It amazes me how some folks can make negative remarks about Netflix streaming without actually using it (recently)!!

There was another thread on this site where someone was just going off about the horrible quality of Netflix streaming. I finally asked him if he'd even watched a recent HD stream and he admitted that he had not.

I have the Netflix app on my PS3 and I have to say that when I get the X-High or Very High as it is now called on my app, I cannot tell the difference between the picture quality of it vs. a blu-ray. Side by side, perhaps I'd be able to tell, but it's very good quality and on par with film based content on HD cable channels.

You're right, I should have tempered the remark by saying that's it's possible some cable systems are very bad, but in general, I find it hard to believe that a Netflix stream can look better than a "clean" HD cable feed. Which is what I stated above. For example, I have Comcast and there is no Netflix title that looks better than the HD I get via my local broadcast stations.

That's funny, because even the best Comcast feeds don't hold a candle in comparison to OTA HD broadcasts. Comcast is notorious for compressing it's signals! Netflix streaming has come a VERY long way in a short amount of time. I'd say it's about average with most clean Comcast broadcasts at the highest settings. I have a 120" screen with a notoriously sharp projector, so I can pick out the differences. Neither is close to BD at this point, but I don't think it will be long before Netflix surpasses Comcast...

I would agree, but at the same time, the range of quality that a person can get from Netflix varies much worse than a person usually gets from traditional cable/sat/OTA.

Simply put, making comments that Netflix can hang with this or that provider is technically true. But at the same time, everyone should keep in mind that we are talking about the "good" encodes that Netflix offers. They have a whole lot of encodes that are far from "good" too.

I'm not bagging on Netflix (personally I see very little merit in even arguing over PQ vs this or that provider) clearly they have shown the potential for great improvements, but at the same time, it is disingenuous to give people the thought that Netflix PQ is universally up. Not saying anyone here is intentionally trying to portray it like this, just saying that in the heat of an argument, qualifiers like this tend to get overlooked.

-Suntan

Comcast doesn't compress the local broadcast channel feeds, what you get is what was sent from the station. Some of the original HD cablenets such as TNT, ESPN, etc are also not further compressed from what they were when sent from the content provider. Comcast does compress(3 per QAM) most of it's other cablenets such as FX, USA, Syfy, History, etc. Keep in mind that many of these channels don't send out more than 8mb/s to 12mb/s worth of data stream so that compressing of 3 per QAM is not all that detrimental - to some it definitely is though.

Netflix streaming quality is good, or it can be good depending on the title, and I hope as well that some day it will surpass a good quality cable/sat signal, but if you have a decent cable provider that day is not here yet.

Now I've seen some Vudu titles that looked very, very good, easily equaling some of the higher quality HD I've seen from cable, but of course Vudu is a far more expensive service. For $8 per month, Netflix is a great deal, but for me it's a supplementary service, not a main destination such as regular TV or a Blu-ray disc would be. I use Netflix streaming for foreign releases that are hard to find anywhere else, I'm not really all that interested in PQ. If it happens to look good, that's great, but it's the content I'm interested in, not the technical quality.

You say you agree but then proceed to disagree.

It isn't just "possible". It is fact. Nearly all cable systems compress SD and HD signals. Some more than others. Because your cable system apparently doesn't compress the signal down to below netflix x-high HD, it seems you are in denial that this could be the case for anyone. Please recognize that not everyone has the same cable system as you and that your cable system isn't necessarily the standard for "clean".

When I say say clean I mean a signal that is unencumbered by further compression beyond what the station has sent to the cable company. I'm not in denial of anything, there are certainly bad cable systems out there, and for those folks some of the Netflix titles may look better than their cable signal, but for the largest cable company in the country, that's just not the case given a clean signal from the station.