Official List of Netflix Watch Instantly Titles w/5.1 Sound - Page 5

I recently tested the Roku XD and it didn't play 1080 streams. The Roku XDS has better wireless, component video (480p, 720p) and optical SP/DIF outs and a USB connection through which it can play video from a USB storage device. Whereas it's capable of playing 1080p through its HDMI connector (as is the Roku XD) its Netflix player isn't exhibiting that capability on the XD. It also cannot do 5.1 or closed captioning. If you have some non-anectdotal evidence that that's changed, please post it.

Of the devices I've tested (Roku XD, DMP-BDT110, PS3, Xbox 360, TiVo and PC), only the PS3 and DMP-BDT110 can play 5.1 and closed captions and only the PS3 has accessed a higher bit rate HD encoding which I presume is 1080p. (5.8 Mbps for the same 10 minutes of a stream when the television is set to 1080p resolution and 4.5 Mbps when screen resolution is set to 720p--see the graphs here. I believe that those numbers include some unplayed buffered content; assuming the 720p is Netflix' advertised 3.8 Mbps encoding, I've extrapolated that the higher bandwidth encoding is at around 5.1 Mbps. Bandwidth consumed by the Roku playing the same thing did not change with screen resolution and was approximately the same average bit rate as 720p on any of the other devices I looked at).

Both the PS3 and BDT110 have precisely the same HTML5-based user interface; none of the others I looked at have it. I've heard that Apple TV can now play 5.1 sound from the titles which have it.

The Roku XD can play 1080p YouTube clips which have them--I assume that the XDS can as well. I'd guess that the XDS can also play 1080p files from USB connected storage (EDIT: Roku says that the XDS can do that here).

List updated with 24 New! titles. Enjoy .

I've decided to test some of these titles to see if they seem to have the third HD encoding. To test, I'll stream them to the PS3 while running the realtime bandwidth usage monitor in my router. The router shows an average bit rate for 10 minutes worth; after running 13 minutes or so (to scroll start-up behavior out of the monitor's 10 minute window) if the average is up above 5 Mbps then it indicates the higher rate stream. (These numbers include unplayed buffered video, so they're higher than the numbers quoted by Netflix. The 3.8 Mbps stream will typically average 4.2-4.5 Mbps; the higher rate stream 5.5 Mbps or more--I've seen it be 6 Mbps+). See my posts here and here for some examples of this.

This test is slow and can only prove that the stream has the 3rd HD encoding; since there might be reasons why the average in the window I was observing never got that high, like fluctuations bandwidth available on my connection to Netflix' server, it can't disprove that a title has the 3rd HD stream.

I'm not even going to try to test the entire list; for most of it I don't care whether it has a high bit rate HD stream or not. So far I've only tested four, all of which happened to be SE Asian action films: The Good, the Bad, the Weird, Ong Bak 2, Ong Bak 3 and Red Cliff. I'm going to concentrate my testing on highly visual titles: the action stuff, Sci Fi, etc.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Stuff that you've watched on the PS3 that you suspected was 1080p would be most interesting.

In the list, I'm coloring the titles which seem to have the 3rd HD encoding bold sky blue. It seems distinct and reasonably readable, without being eye-searing.

BTW, notice that I asked a mod to remove "(PS3 Only)" from the thread title, which has been done . Thanks, Mike Lang!

You're right--both available seasons of Parks and Recreations apparently have the third high bit rate HD encoding (tested episode 1 one each season, observing average bit rates of 5.4 Mbps). Ditto Heroes Seasons 1 and 2, with slightly higher averages (more high-action scenes)--I'm checking the rest of the Heroes seasons, then I'll probably check a few more movies before doing any more TV (Monsters also has the high bit rate HD encoding--good movie, though strange; kind of a mixture of Cloverfield and Lost in Translation ).

I've been doing this stuff in the mornings, because it's a period of low demand on both my provider's network and Netflix's servers; after 10 AM, things start getting dicey. I'll mark up the list with the titles I've found when I'm done this morning.

I tested and verified that 13 more titles with 5.1 sound have the 3rd high bit rate encoding when played by the PS3 with its screen resolution set to 1080p; I've marked them all in the top post with bold sky blue text. It wasn't too terribly bothersome as a background process to other stuff I was doing, so I'll keep testing.

Thus far, every 5.1 title I've tried has had the 1080p encoding. I did a couple of sanity checks to verify that I do not see that rate if I restrict screen resolution to 720p or for any non-5.1 HD streams.

I only say "third higher bit rate encoding" because rpauls is unconvinced, since he could detect no difference between High/HD and X-High/HD in photos that he shot of his screen. However, Netflix and Sony claiming that there are 1080p encodings for the PS3 and there being a higher bit rate encoding only available on the PS3 and only when its screen resolution is set to 1080p is enough to convince me.

I think that rpauls simply hasn't seen any X-High HD to photograph, expecially since his rated max network service speed is lower than I'd expect would be necessary to receive 1080p. The PS3 will indicate X-High/HD for some old HD stuff without 5.1 sound which definitely should not have a 1080p encoding. I think that indicator a bit broken.

The Netflixhelps Twitter account has stated that not all titles with 5.1 sound will have 1080p encodings and that not all titles with 1080p encodings will have 5.1 sound. They may have just been covering their butts, but I'll try some of the newer HD stuff without 5.1 tracks to see if any 1080p encodings show up.

The very first title I tested at random, Green Dragon, chosen simply because it was a recent HD addition with no 5.1 sound, turned out to have a 1080p encoding. I now speculate that all or most of their HD additions since the 1080p/5.1 announcement have 1080p encodings, with only a subset having 5.1 sound. It'll take some more testing before I have any faith in that speculation, but so far I haven't tried a single recent HD title that does not have the 1080p encoding.

Yeah, but I have to think that Green Dragon, from 2001, certainly does have a surround track (tech specs on the DVD in Amazon's listing confirms that). My guess would be that many of these things that don't get 5.1 soundtracks don't get them because Netflix' licensing for them doesn't allow it.

The difference between High/HD and X-High/HD is, according to Netflix' Netflixhelps Twitter account, the difference between 720p and 1080p.

After testing every HD title with a stereo soundtrack in my Instant Queue and a few chosen at random from the library, and finding that each and every one of them had the approximately 40% higher bit rate HD encoding on the PS3 when resolution is set to 1080p (and only on the PS3 with resolution set to 1080p), I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing special about an HD title which has that higher bit rate encoding. Therefore, I removed the color markings for "verified 1080p" from the list and hereby suspend that testing. At this point it's my belief that most if not all HD titles have 1080p encodings for the PS3 (the list of all HD titles is only a couple of thousand altogether--it wouldn't have been a terribly large effort to create those encodings prior to making the 1080p announcement. It's conceivable that there may be some titles from some providers where they're forbidden to create a 1080p encoding.

It's possible that there are devices which will also play those 1080p encodings--I suspect that the Boxee Box might--and I assume that many devices will get players to handle them in the future.

I suppose it's also possible that there are some standard def titles with 5.1 soundtracks but I am not going to test SD-only titles so that I can add them to this list. If anyone runs across any, post them here and I'll add them (with some indicator that they're SD) .

There's been a huge load of HD stuff added since my last update (which was probably on about the 31st). A ton of releases on both the 1st and 2nd. Time for an update.

Body of Proof is a brand new ABC series, 3 episodes in. They must be following it in-season.

Updated. There are an even 500 available titles in the list, 26 New!, 4 expired and 1 expired title renewed since last time.

Beneath the Dark does not show up as 5.1 on either my PS3 or my BDT110; my process missed Four Lions--thanks!

BTW, there were several HD titles added which I was disappointed did not have 5.1 sound (Glee, Rising Sun, Saving Grace, Stargate Universe) and some old stuff for which no surround soundtrack can exist which did have 5.1 (Mission Impossible, Gone With the Wind). Whatever .

You're right--almost all of the popular, recent theatrical release stuff is Starz Play (see this). AFAIK, none of it is HD or 5.1 (and many of the titles display severe video "shuddering" in motion scenes). That's just the way it is. If that's the only kind of thing you like to watch, Netflix Watch Instantly is probably not for you.

I don't know about "most", but I just tried 8 of their titles at random (the first that I found in Netflix' list of "anime series" that I could find on a list of their stuff) and half of them had X-High/HD encodings (Full Metal Panic!, Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood: Part 2, Sacred Blacksmith) and half did not (Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, Devil May Cry, Black Butler: Season 1: Part 1, Sekirei: The Complete Series). The ones that didn't are the first HD Netflix streaming titles I've tried that didn't have X-High/HD encodings for the PS3, so they prove that they exist.

Congrats! Do you have the interface like the one in the upper righthand corner below (the most common of the variations which have been seen on the PS3; my PS3 and Panasonic BD player both have that one)?


Yeah, the 5.1 icon is one of the last thing that it draws (simultaneously with the title duration--or episode count--and progress bar), but if it was going to check your connection speed before putting up stuff it'd do it before displaying the HD icon. I've tested, and the 5.1 sound adds a miniscule amount to the average bandwidth of the stream.

You're welcome--glad you like it .