Netflix adds 3D and Super HD - Page 16

I noticed this tonight when I watched 2 episodes of House of Cards, the first ep was the SuperHD encode(High/SD-PS3) but the second ep was the regular HD encode(High/HD-PS3) which would indicate it had disconnected from the SuperHD source and went with the normal CDN feed on the second episode. It took 5 tries just to get connected correctly the first time around.

My connections last night (through Unblock-us) were just as puzzling. I watched a Netflix SuperHD tagged movie on my WDTV Live and it only got to High/HD and stayed there. After it was over I decided to watch an episode of The Killing (also SuperHD) and it started and ended on X-High/HD. If anyone can explain this behavior I'm all ears.

Dont know what to say except its unreliable. FWIW, I have watched about 3 or 4 titles in 3D and have had good results...when it works...but as mentioned previously, you have to make sure you are assigned to their servers by playing "Example Short 23.976". When I get the stream, I go to the 3D title and play. The frustrating part about this is...you have to watch it all the way through and even sometimes that doesnt work if the stream disconnects. Every time I have stopped playback, it has lost the stream and you have to repeat the process over again...which last night took me about 4 tries (backing out of NF app). I watched "Mummies: IMAX" doc all the way through in 3D and it was beautiful. FYI, my menu now shows 3D catagory, so it was easier for me to find titles....there are quite a few and more than people think, I suspect.

What device are you using that gets the 3D on the menu?

I am using the PS3. I am not sure if it is a viewer specific category based on viewing habits or if its a preset category. I went through and started adding every 3D title I could find to my que and last night I went through all the categories and it had 3D, some titles were in there that I didn't search for or know that they were in 3D.

I use either the Panasonic BDT-500 or the TiVo Premiere. Don't know if the 3D menu is available yet?

I tried last night and the "Example Short 23.976" wouldn't get above 1750kbps and there's nothing wrong with my Internet connection. It's too bad this method is not more reliable.

3D is not available yet on those platforms, only PS3 and some LG 3D HDTVs.

It must be the area or your ISP. I have Cablevision here in Jersey. I'm using wifi and I never run lower then 3000kps.



Ian
Edited by mailiang - 2/12/13 at 12:01pm

I posted in detail at the Unblock site the problems I am having with reception. Here is their last reply, which pretty much states US users are going to have to suffer if they want to try and use Super HD:


Here is the complete thread:

http://support.unblock-us.com/customer/portal/questions/802121-erratic-netflix-superhd-connection

It did seem a bit odd as I've never really had any issue with Netflix streaming, Comcast is my provider with 16/2 service, but after 2 tries and no joy I said the heck with it and watched regular TV. I'll give it another try Weds evening, tonight though it's Fat Tuesday in the Fillmore!

what kills me is that if you are playing a title and you stop it, you have to repeat the process to get the stream again. I would think once your app is open and connected to those servers, it should stay connected until exiting the app.

try and try again...it will work. I actually know when its going to work and when its not now... if it starts at like between 1000-3800kbs, surprisingly this is when it wont work. if I play Example Short and it starts at 375kbs, then I KNOW its gonna work. it usually climbs rapidly from there up to 5800kbs

Wow. Just...wow. Well, at least they're willing to be honest about it .

Has anyone been able to view the example short in 3D? Since the other day I always get a 3D option when viewing from the PS3, but then it says the stream is not available.

not once. wonder why?

But there seems to be different levels of "good" among the SuperHD servers. Why would that be?

Also I noticed that when I log into Netflix with Unblock the movies always show the SuperHD logo, even in those cases where I cannot access SuperHD. That also is confusing to me.

Here are a couple more tidbits from Unblock:

Have you set up our service on your computer? Basically you will need to have at least one computer working and running with our service to make sure your other device will work properly. It needs to be working on a computer first or we can't get the information we need from the "check service" to allow your device to make connection to us.

Again remember to check service on your computer. The service must be working in your computer first otherwise, the service will not work properly on your other devices.

Unless you want to be frustrated to hell, I find for me, Unblock is only really good for PC use and general use to Canada. That's it.

Not sure why it doesn't work to US Netflix SuperHD servers properly when it works fine to the PC ones, but there you go.

The ps3 client now shows 720 and 1080 HD instead of the high and med. very interesting. I'll have to see what it does for superhd.

When it gets to 4300 Kbps it says "1080p Super HD" . Cool . (Of course, they haven't fixed the time counter ). Hopefully they'll make that switch for other devices with that indicator (they have not for the Sony BDP-S390 as yet).

Now Unblock should get a flood of posts saying they're not getting SuperHD (to which of course they'll respond it's their connection speed).

So was the update on the PS3 an updated Netflix app or did the PS3 have to update it's software? Or was no update needed for the change?

EDIT: So I see the change was automatic. But when it shows it's playing 1080 Super HD is it really playing it?
I only ask because I tried playing ten titles. Every title showed as 1080 Super HD playing. This is the first time I've been able to play a bunch of titles and it played the Super HD bitrate on each one. Usually at least half, it not more of them would not reach the Super HD bitrate, using UnBlock US, on the first try. But tonight, for some reason, every title I've tried has ramped up quickly to Super HD.

EDIT: Or is it because I paid unBlock-US $5 last night?
Edited by aaronwt - 2/12/13 at 6:19pm

The update was made in the HTML5 code. They can and have completely change the look and feel of the UI by changing the HTML5 code which they download every time you start the app up.

I'm certain that it's playing one of the Super HD encodes when it says Super HD. Now there's one "384 SD", two "480 SD", two "720p HD", one "1080p HD" and two "1080p Super HD" encodes. (Some titles still have 235-, 375- and 750 Kbps encodes; I'm sure it shows the horizontal rez and "SD" for those). I'm curious--what does the indicator say when you're playing a 3D title?

I doubt that you're getting better service because you paid your first $5--I did it a few days ago with no perceptible change .

Correct, my indicator read the same way and I paid days ago as well..so no change in service.

I watched a couple titles in 3D since the change and they said 720P. (BTW, Immortals looks really good in 3D) Also, whenever I get the SuperHD streams it rarely says X-High/HD. Most of the time it says High/HD and sometimes its stuck on High/SD (noticeably the stream is higher quality than that)

I forgot to check out the 3D titles last night to see what it showed. After I check out a bunch of SuperHD streams I watched a couple of SuperHD titles in my queue and forgot all about checking the 3D out

I also checked out some other things on the PS3, like Amazon streaming and remembered why I had stopped using the PS3 before. Their Amazon app blows for audio playback. Any title I played from Amazon , whether the audio was in stereo or 5.1 it was always sent in a 7.1 wrapper. I'm glad that the Netflix app on the PS3 sends the audio out of the PS3 correctly. I'll keep using the PS3 for Netflix and use the Roku2 for Amazon. I haven't looked at Vudu and Hulu again on the PS3 to see of those send out the audio correctly.

I told you that they would show the numbers but why is the time counter still broken?

Also if 384 SD really is what Low/SD is then it is wrong as it looks as bad as some 80s commercials I downloaded at 320x240.

Like many on this thread, I've seen pretty uneven results with Unblock-US (my Internet is Verizon FIOS at 15/5) so far. I do have a couple of questions:

1. Should it / does it make a difference where you change the DNS settings? So far I've only changed them in my BDP (Sony BDP-S590).
2. When I manually configure IP settings in my BPD, it asks if I'm using a proxy server. I say "no" since there's nothing in the Unblock-US setup that mentions configuring a proxy. Correct?
3. Does anyone have a rational explanation as to why you would sometimes have to disconnect/reconnect several times before you're able to access the 5800k content? It almost seems like performance somehow correlates to server load and their load balancers maybe aren't working properly. If you happen to connect to a server that is not over-taxed, you get good performance; not so much if you happen to connect to a heavily loaded server.

Based on the uneven results from Unblock-US, I'd be curious to know if those whose ISPs are already connected to the OpenConnect CDN (and thus they don't need to go through a secondary resource such as Unblock-US to access the 5800kbps content) are also experiencing these inconsistent results. That might indicate whether the issue is a Netflix issue or an Unblock-US issue.

I have a few more days on my trial but thus far I am underwhelmed with the Unblock-US service, although for the times SuperHD has actually *worked* I've been very pleased with the quality. Also, when it's worked, it's worked uninterrupted for long stretches of time. Really makes me wonder how Unblock-US's network is configured and also how the Netflix CDN is configured. I'm having coffee tomorrow morning to discuss a position with a company that does network and application optimization, so he may be able to shed some light on this as well.

Is it still saying "High/HD" on your PS3 instead of "1080p HD"? Before the recent change it was saying "High/HD" for 3800 Kbps and "High/SD" for the two Super HD encodes at 4300 Kbps and 5800 Kbps. Now it says "1080p HD" for 3800 Kbps and "1080p Super HD" for 4300 Kbps and 5800 Kbps.

No, it gives the res, but I just noticed the change yesterday and I watched 2 titles and parts of one (all in 3D). On the 5800 it said 720P for all of them on the PS3. I havent done any SuperHD since the change yet but will try today.