Netflix adds 3D and Super HD - Page 15

That post was one of the sources that lead me to believe that it is a bug. That and the fact that the stream I was getting could in no way be actually SD.

Also, I managed to reach a US server through unblock-us today which did not provide Super HD streams.
Edited by tizmon - 2/10/13 at 3:08am

Netflix has said something indicating that the 3D encodes start at 6000 Kbps and go up to 12000 Kbps (which may be been a range of connection bandwidth required to keep a buffer full of it, so the encodes would have been 5000 Kbps to 10000 Kbps). All of those would qualify as X-High/HD on the old scale.

By the way, I am seeing the "Super HD" badge on my TiVo Premiere but not on my other devices such as the Apple TV 3 (with the latest firmware upgrade). I'm not using ublock and I'm on FIOS which is not part of Open Connect. When I play the Example Short on the TiVo it tops out at 1750 kbps (when it decides to show the bit rates). Sometimes it will say the clip is not available. I wonder if this is a bug with the TiVo Premiere as I doubt I'm getting Super HD.

Hi all, a few questions... anyone with Uverse has Super HD yet? When I enter "Example Short 23.976" there are two option: 11 min and 11 min Burned In Timecode, which one should I choose to test? I have a PS3 and S790, where in NetFlix is the 3D movies?

Not to go off-topic but does anyone have the time display what is left? Since last week all it shows is 00:00:00/00:00:00.

I'll have to fool around with the Win8 app some more. It works fine with the Play/Pause/Stop buttons on my keyboard. I haven't tried the FF/RW buttons yet.

Anyhow, a temp solution if you don't want to invest in a cheap mouse is to invest in a cheap remote with mouse movement like I did.

Only "Example Short 23.976" has the bit-rate/resolution info overlay now. ("Example 8 Hour 23.976" used to, but apparently no longer).

3D movies are only accessible if your ISP is hooked into Netflix's Open Connect CDN (like Super HD). You can only play them on PS3s connected to 3D HDTVs and some LG 3D HDTVs.

Believe me, they don't do anything. The "mouse on the scrub bar" control is all you get and it is very buggy. Play around with it too much and it will stop playback with an error message or even kill the player. As I wrote, last night it killed my system--I've been looking for an HD title with some high-detail, sharp-focused, completely static frames that I could capture for comparison of the 3850-, 4300- and 5800 Kbps encodes; I found some documentary about a painter and figured it would have some still frames of his paintings and was scrolling around through it looking for some.

Do they have any content with test patterns such as EIA Resolution Charts, multi-burst, ramps, etc.?

Just in case, an FY for those that do not have test disc: If you have a Blu-ray player and BD titles from Sony (Columbia) disc- Go to the Main Menu and enter SONY (7669) on your remote. This will bring up several test patterns. Remember, the Resolution Charts on the Sony disc is in terms of per pixel height.

If I recall some of the Example 23.976 titles have some rudimentary test patterns (some of the longer ones I think) - but I don't they have patterns that will be much use for this kind of test.

I have downloaded AVS HD 709 and have put it on a USB drive. That way I can at least check the set up of my Roku 2 through to the display.

AVS HD can also be burned to DVD or Blu-Ray - see http://www.avsforum.com/t/948496/avs-hd-709-blu-ray-mp4-calibration

EDIT michaelscott is of course correct these rudimentary patterns are at the end of the 11 minute cycle in all the 'Example' clips - they won't be much use for this kind of test.

Watching the 'Example' clips again reminds me how frustrating it is that the Roku 2 XS will only output 1080P60 and how poor a job it does converting P24 to P60.

Playing the 'Example' shorts though my BD390 and they are output at P24 and the movement and pans look great. In particular check the swinging ball. However using the BD390 for Netflix limits me to 720P and 2.0 sound.....

I understand some recent Panasonic players output 1080P24 for Netflix - but none of them switch automatically between P24 and P60 the way the BD390 does.....
Edited by undecided - 2/9/13 at 5:07pm

Not that I can find. Their myriad "Example" clips are all that same insipid 11 minute, 9 second sequence repeated as many times as necessary to fill the desired duration (30 minutes, 2 hours, 8 hours, etc). It contains a color bar, circle-in-a-grid pattern and grayscale bars but nothing with enough detail to show changes in sharpness. My favorite frames to compare are facial close-ups, the older and more worn the face the better, but I don't have the ability to precisely match them like msgohan did in his captures (done, no doubt, by capturing a sequence to a file and stepping through). Just using the pause control in the Netflix app doesn't cut it.

I did find some paintings in an HD film, Gerhard Richter Painting and did some captures of a full-frame shot, but the "focus" of the work was too soft to be able to tell much difference between the 3850 Kbps and 5800 Kbps versions:

The captures: (Click to show)
If anyone knows of a high-detail, sharp-focused shot in an HD Netflix title where the camera and focus remain absolutely static for a few seconds (perhaps a facial close-up of a dead person ), please let me know.
Edited by michaeltscott - 2/9/13 at 6:49pm

Ok, that probably explains what I'm seeing, I'll try it again tonight, thanks! .

Thanks, watched it on 4 players and this is best Bitrate I can get.
XBox - 3000 kbps 1280x720
Apple Tv 3 - 3850 kbps 1920x1080
PS3 - 3000 kbps 1280x720 (???)
S790 - 1050 kbps 640x480 (???)

My understanding is the early video codecs (MPEG-2 etc) sent a frame then sent the differences and motion vectors for the next few frames - my guess (yes it is a guess) is the latest codecs do the same.

It could be a static scene will probably not show much difference between 3850 and 5800 kpbs. Once the initial frame has been sent at 1080P - if it doesn't change the codec will just send 'no change' using minimal bandwidth.

I know this makes it hard to do side by side screenshots.

The different frames in the encoding are called I-, P- and B-frames for "Intra-coded", "Predictive picture" and "Bi-predictive picture". P-frames (aka "delta frames") are the difference-between-the-current-and-next frame of which you speak.

At any given time, however, there is a composed frame displayed on the screen. The number of bits allotted for the encoding will determine the sharpness of the details. In the third paragraph of this post I link to two versions of the same frame of a film, both 1920x1080 res, one 4800 Kbps Netflix and the other 15000 Kbps from a BD. The difference in sharpness between the two is clear. It's a frame like that, but static enough for me to capture it, that I'm looking for.

Try Star Trek Enterprise Season 2 Ep 23 ''Regeneration''. Lots of detailed scenes, with still camera shots in the teaser and first act.

Mmmm--one of my favorite episodes. I'll give it a look.

EDIT: Okay--here are a couple:

Captures (Click to show)
I could hardly ask for a frame with much more sharp-focused detail. I can see differences, but it's definitely not smack-me-in-the-face better. (Photobucket has gone nuts, suddenly reducing the resolution of my uploads ; I won't be renewing my pro account. Thank god for the forum's image upload capability).

Last night the WDTV Live was back to High/HD for highest quality. If the quality through Unblock-us is going to be this variable I don't see myself continuing beyond the free trial period.

I still don't see the difference in picture quality between the old "HD" designation and the new "SuperHD" designation? I know that there are a lot of movies that Netflix designates as HD that shouldn't have that designation. Netflix uses the term "HD" very loosely and even one time when I talked to Netflix customer service, he said that all of their movies are HD now. I didn't argue but I thought to myself "What a bunch of ********".
Edited by lujan - 2/10/13 at 8:31am

And also accessible using UnBlock US, which is the only reason I have access to the 3D content. I have been very pleased with how it looks on my 82" Mitsubishi DLP set.(with Darbee Darblet which does a superb job increasing the perceived sharpness for 2D and 3D). The PS3 still has the ability to amaze me. This old box just keeps on finding ways to pull me back to keep using it.
Edited by aaronwt - 2/10/13 at 8:07am

IIRC, some of the content in the AVS HD 709 was provided by AVS member dr1394. This member is a codec engineer and Firewire engineer, looking at his user name I would think he has a doctorate. For me, Ron (dr1394) is the goto person whenever I have a codec question. I have used his test signals for many years, they can be found here.

These disc are in my library as well: Spears & Munsil High-Definition Benchmark Blu-ray Disc Edition, AVS thread here. Video Essentials

Also have DisplayMate

Here is copy of a question I posted on Unblock-us:

Last week, before Unblock, I watched the first five episodes of "House of Cards." I was very impressed with the video quality. I don't think I have seen anything on Netflix with this video quality. Last night when I got Unblock working I watched an episode in SuperHD. To me it looked no better than the High HD that I had previously watched. Is it possible, because it is their own production, that they are sending "House of Cards" out in SuperHD to everyone?

I already posted a question like that and Unblock will answer with essentially "We offer SuperHD, the rest is your problem". I'd be surprised if they answered any differently.

Right. I took my cue from your post. Hopefully if enough people complain they might do something. Still I wonder what the root cause is and why there are no problems with a pc.

Only about half of their movies are HD now, 4336 of 9093 according to TVandMoviesNow.com.

Like I posted before, I don't see the big benefit of Super HD. I have open connect and the standard HD looks pretty dam good to me.



What, only 4336 HD titles! I'm canceling my subscription!



Ian

Yeah--I'm not convinced that it's not a case of "the emperor's new clothes" . They make all of these claims about PQ improvement without offering a shred of proof. The last couple of frames I captured to compare did not show any impressive difference. I stand ready to be convinced.

It's taken quite a while to get to where they are but the growth in percentage of HD titles has been steady. I'm sure that they'll eventually get to the point where the majority are HD, but their hands are tied by their content providers. Some of the biggest recent titles they've added are restricted to 720p and can't be played in HD on a PC at all: Thor, Captain America, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, True Grit, Super 8, MI: Ghost Protocol, Rango, Abduction and others. Many of them don't have DD+ 5.1 sound. I suspect that the rights holders want to withhold the best presentation of that stuff for people paying more to see it.

What's the point of watching Transformers: DotM in SD without surround sound (if there is a point to watching it at all )? It's all visual flash and noise. (Actually it's not that bad; Pro Logic surround is embedded in those soundtracks).
Edited by michaeltscott - 2/10/13 at 1:31pm

That's a good one!



For what's it's worth, at 8 bucks a month, you won't get any complaints from me.


Ian

After seeing the post about Unblock US I tried it and Super HD shows up on my WD box. That said, I've had a very variable result. Over the past few weeks I've been working my way through the series West Wing. It's listed as HD, and I've seen in in HD on both my Roku XS and the WD but the last few days the WD will often show WW in Low SD nothing more. I've stopped and started playback, I might get an occasional Medium SD but it would not go the High HD as it had in the past. If I run a quick test at Speedtest.net, I get a ping of 50-61ms, and a solid 11.7mb down all the time. Not sure what is going on.

Now that I finished up WW, I'm going to start in on House of Cards, see how that looks.

Damnit! I've discovered that even though you might get a connection to the Super HD US servers on dedicated devices, they will often disconnect at the end of a movie/stream. This is a real pain if you want to watch a multi-episode show. You can test this by running the test clip after watching a few streams.

I wish there was a way to fix all these problems so it actually worked well on dedicated devices off the US server.