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Netflix streaming -- comcast -- win7

483 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by tiger1873, Feb 11, 2014

ralphcramdon

Discussion Starter · Feb 11, 2014

Ok, so I added the Netflix streaming yesterday and last night watched a movie on my dual core 3.3ghz PC using Windows 7 and Chrome -- do not have a Roku or a hardware device.

The resolution was crap (not even standard DVD quality) -- I did see the "allow HD" checkbox, so did that but still no HD. WTF is this all about? Do I need a hardware device like a Roku or something?

No problems with PC -- no CPU action anywhere but Chrome and Netflix when I tried to watch.

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pittsoccer33

· #2 · Feb 11, 2014

Many movies are limited to lower resolutions on the PC. I'm 90% sure it doesn't go higher that [email protected] and doesnt do 5.1

ALT+SHIFT+Left Mouse will show you some info on the stream you're watching.

Theres lots of speculation as to why this is. The most plausible theory is that they (Netflix and the content owners) are afraid of piracy.

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ralphcramdon

Discussion Starter · #3 · Feb 11, 2014

720 would be fine with me -- it's all my projector does anyway -- even 480 I could live with but this was bad. The text was out of focus etc. It did get better eventually but I don't want to watch something that has inconsistent fidelity. It's annoying.

So, will hardware processing improve it? Like get a Roku or ?

Can't believe Netflix is promoting streaming so much when it looks like this. been doing the DVD's for years but thought I'd try the streaming.

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Chris Gerhard

· #4 · Feb 11, 2014

I am using Comcast and have a Windows 7 laptop I have tested with Netflix. There is a test video short on Netflix with embedded bandwidth metering called Example Short 23.976 if I recall correctly, there may be others with the same or similar name but only one I have found with the embedded bandwidth metering. The maximum I was able to show was indeed the Netflix maximum 1920x1080 at 5800Mbps but that was a couple of months ago. Unfortunately I don't remember what I did to set Netflix on the laptop to the highest setting but it wasn't hard to find when I did it. The default wouldn't go to the maximum download speed which is why I found the setting for maximum. I am using a 2010 vintage laptop with Intel i7-740QM.

I have also run this test video from Google TV which I primarily use for Neflix and it reaches the maximum much quicker than the PC did for some reason but it still took some time to hit it. I am sure some Super HD content can not be displayed at the maximum using a PC as mentioned above but I don't know how to determine what content is restricted, I just use Google TV and trust if it indicates Super HD, I can get it.

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