Netflix To Charge More For 4K Video

Mr D from 63 points out that watching Netflix in Ultra high-definition is going to cost you a little extra per month. A higher-resolution, 4K stream from Netflix will cost more. The company has boosted its monthly price for streaming ultrahigh-definition television and movies to $11.99 per month, citing the higher expenses associated with that content. In May, Netflix announced that its original series, such as House of Cards, would be available to stream in the 4K format, which offers roughly four times the resolution of current high-def TVs.

Comments

Thats Fair

[Anonymous Coward]

To me that doesn't seem like a bad deal. 3 bux more for 4k video, sounds good . Now only if there was alot of 4k video available

Re: Thats Fair

[Archangel Michael]

I'd pay more for better bandwidth.

The problem isn't the bandwidth. Verizon FIOS has the bandwidth, and Netflix has the Bandwidth. The problem is not the bandwidth, the problem is you, willing to "pay more" to get Verizon and Netflix to install a cable between their switches at the COLO facility, which is something they should do. But if Verizon FIOS is anything like Comcast, they want to charge Netflix to bring Netflix to their own customers.

You are Netflix Customer
You are Verizon FIOS Customer
You are already paying for their service (both sides).

Re: Thats Fair

[Shoten]

I'd pay more for better bandwidth.

The problem isn't the bandwidth. Verizon FIOS has the bandwidth, and Netflix has the Bandwidth. The problem is not the bandwidth, the problem is you, willing to "pay more" to get Verizon and Netflix to install a cable between their switches at the COLO facility, which is something they should do. But if Verizon FIOS is anything like Comcast, they want to charge Netflix to bring Netflix to their own customers.

You are Netflix Customer
You are Verizon FIOS Customer
You are already paying for their service (both sides).

Actually, the problem is bandwidth. Remember how it turns out that most big ISPs are throttling Netflix traffic, and trying to get Netflix to pay them extra to pass their content? Yeah, well, Netflix has had to cave a bit. Comcast is getting paid by Netflix now, and thus the more bandwidth needed, the higher the cost.

But there are other challenges as well. Content providers charge more for media in multiple formats than they do for media in just one format. Pushing the data, even within Netflix, does require more drive space and internal bandwidth and capacity (or, in Netflix's case, a higher bill from Amazon since they are hosted in AWS). They need to build their systems out (i.e., pay for more cloud) to manage the bifurcation between content types as well.

And in other news, you get what you pay for. Extra features, upgraded content, etc. have never been free. They come at a premium. Everything else is just an explanation as to why that might be.

Re: Thats Fair

[The Technomancer]

You do know that both HBO and Netflix use AWS, right? It has nothing to do with the hosts. It has to do with your ISP throttling the competition for their in-house streaming video service.

Re:Thats Fair

[robbyb20]

Yes, because it's an additional servic with more offerings. You make it sound like netflix pays for some shitty internet connect and won't pony up the cash for a bigger pipe. If they are paying for the appropriate bandwidth, then this problem is on the ISP(comcast/verizon) and since I am paying for a certain level of service, I shouldn't have a problem watching netflix.

4k is a buzzword

[rafjaimes]

4k is just a buzzword. They'd be better off having higher quality 1080 streams, right now they're highly compressed. Higher quality 1080 would appeal to MANY more people given the adoption rate of 1080 over 4k.

Re: 4k is a buzzword

[Anonymous Coward]

Video people use verticals (1080) which comes from the analog days where the vertical resolution was much easier to quantify.

Film people use horizontals since we work with multiple aspect ratios so the vertical changes from show to show.

Since film and tv are adopting 4k at about the same time, I guess the marketing guys chose to follow the film standard.

Re: 4k is a buzzword

[fustakrakich]

Hey! Wait a minute! Film people never measured resolution in pixels until digital video came along. And your aspect ratios were determined by the lens (hell of a lot easier to change than the film gate). On film the frame size is set in stone. You're right, marketing, but it was no film standard.

Re:4k is a buzzword

[tlhIngan]

It sure is. It should be 2K or 2160p, whatever. Real 4K (4320p) is their 8K(16xHD!), and I believe there's a couple of those out, so "4K" will be obsolete very soon. Why did we let them switch over to horizontal resolution?

Actually, 2K in cinema production refers to 2048x1080 video. The "K" figure refers to horizontal resolution and always has, while if you want lines, you give it with a progressive or interlaced identifier (e.g. 1080p, 720p, 1080i, 2160p).

4K, consumer wise is 3840x2160, or 4 times 1080p to make everything simple. Cinema 4K does exist, and it's 4096x2160.

8K is 8192x4320, and very very few people shoot in 8K.

There are HDMI interconnection specs for it too - HDMI 1.4b supports consumer 4K (3840x2160) at 25 and 30fps, and Cinema 4K (4096x2160) at 24fps.

HDMI 2.0 ups that for 4K at 60fps.

Of course, truth be told, the K standards aren't standardized in cinema either. 2K could refer to 1920, 2000, or 2048 width by 1080 height. 4K being 3840, 4000, or 4096 width by 2160 height.

And in the end, the film will be reformatted for the consumer anyways which they usually do by chopping the sides off, so filmmakers have to avoid putting anything there anyways.

Oh, and the camera you get often goes higher as well - most filmmakers actually shoot "5K" and crop it down because that's what their cameras actually capture.

Fair

[Enry]

Their ISP and storage costs will increase to handle the new format and you have to pay for that somehow.

At least they have 4k content.

Re:Understandable.

[knightghost]

Bandwidth is following Moore's law and doubling every 18 months (per $), so a 4x upgrade is 3 years. Not huge. The industry needs to show constant improvement instead of just net profit extracted through monopolistic actions against customers.

Netflix officially runs on Linux

[kervin]

A bit off-topic but strange, Netflix officially removed the Linux block after the release of Chrome 38 and all the NSS updates this week. And we didn't even get a Slashdot story on this.

Re:Netflix officially runs on Linux

[PRMan]

I read this on Slashdot. It's the fault of those darn Linux hobbyists working on weekends when they are done with their "real" jobs...

Re:Netflix officially runs on Linux

[crtreece]

I believe there have been at least two stories about netflix support of linux clients.

Re:Understandable.

[khellendros1984]

4.6Mbps was the world average speed in Q1 2014, as measured by Akamai. The US average was 11.4Mbps, but sure, you can make up whatever numbers you want.

http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q214-infographic.pdf

Maybe h.265 adoption will be sped up?

[AbRASiON]

Seems a possibility at least, it's going to buy them anywhere from 25 to 50% bandwidth reductions once adopted. Admittedly only for customers with a modern machine / software to decode it but we may see the adoption of it quicker than we saw the switch from mpeg2 to mpeg4.

4K on a 2K monitor

[BrookHarty]

I've been watching 4K on my shimian korean 2560x1440 monitor. Waiting for gaming 4K 120hz models with ati compatible gsync comes down in price.
Even at 2560x1440 its a noticeable improvement over a 1080P blueray.

I cant wait for netflix to offer 4k streams, even on my lower than 4k rez monitor its worth it.

Why don't they just add a higher tier HD service

[PJ6]

with a bitrate higher than "shitty"?

Re:4K pixels wide

[fustakrakich]

Yes, p is for progressive, but nothing to do with height. It is opposed to "i" for interlaced, like analog TV. Both numbers are the pixels. Anyway, it turns out the whole thing was taken over by film people.

Re:4K pixels wide

[tepples]

Yes, p is for progressive, but nothing to do with height. It is opposed to "i" for interlaced, like analog TV. Both numbers are the pixels.

Let me clarify what I meant by height: The p and i suffixes always follow a number of scanlines. 1080p means "frame is 1080 lines tall and progressive", and 1080i is "frame is 1080 lines tall, transmitted as two 540-line interlaced fields". The number of scanlines always equals the height of a picture unless the picture is column-major, which rarely happens outside portrait-oriented monitors.

Works for me!

[iamacat]

I love the idea of folks with money to burn subsidizing my subscription. Even if my rates are not directly lowered, extra income would allow Netflix to purchase better catalog and build out infrastructure. Would gladly go 720p only for further rate cut.

Re:Negatives scanned at 4K

[ChrisMaple]

4000 x 2000 x 24 fps x 3600 sec/hr x 2 hr x 3 colors = 4.2 Tbytes, uncompressed. That's about $180 worth of hard drive per uncompressed 2 hour movie. Assuming a conservative 30:1 compression ratio, $1000 of hard drives will store 166 movies.