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4K Netflix Arrives On Windows 10, But Only Via Microsoft's Edge Browser (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-hardware-required dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Netflix 4K streaming is finally heading to Windows PCs this week. While a number of TVs and set-top-boxes already support 4K Netflix streams, the PC has largely been left out of the high-quality streams due to piracy fears. Netflix is now supporting 4K streaming through Microsoft's Edge browser, but you'll need a new PC to actually make use of it. Netflix is only supporting 7th generation (Kaby Lake) Intel Core processors, and there aren't many laptops that actually support both the 4K display required and the new Intel processors. As a result, Microsoft is using the 4K Netflix support as a marketing effort for its Edge browser and to encourage people to upgrade their hardware to watch new episodes of the Gilmore Girls. It all might seem like a bit of a con, but it's largely the fault of DRM requirements from Hollywood studios and TV networks. Content providers have strict controls for 4K playback, so that streams can't be captured and redistributed illegally. The latest hardware decryption features simply aren't available on older Intel processors, and the new Kaby Lake chips now support 10-bit HEVC, a popular 4K video codec.

11 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. If only... by Rockoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If only things could be decrypted without "hardware decryption features."

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
    1. Re:If only... by oakgrove · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In case you're wrong, you should probably friend everyone too. Just to be sure.

      --
      The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
    2. Re:If only... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Content providers have strict controls for 4K playback, so that streams can't be captured and redistributed illegally

      And somewhere, a pirate goes "Another challenge! Bring it on."

    3. Re:If only... by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Of course they can be decrypted in software. The fly in the ointment is that Netflix can't stream the movies and TV shows without Hollywood's approval. And Hollywood insists only on approving solutions on a hardware device basis. This is what delayed Netflix coming to Android. The software itself was easy enough, but Netflix had to get Hollywood's stamp of approval for every Android handset out there running the same software. That's why during the rollout, the Netflix app for Android was or wasn't available in Google's Play store depending on which phone or tablet you had.

      So likely Hollywood is pulling the same shenanigans again, and only approved 4k Netflix streaming for Kaby Lake and the Edge browser at this time. Maybe they'll give approval for older processors and different browsers in the future. Maybe not. It's up to Hollywood - their content, their rules. If you don't like it, support independent artists and producers instead of the Hollywood establishment.

    4. Re:If only... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Did you know that splitters work by using the TV's authentication handshake and therefor sending the unencrypted signal down the other cable?

      That is incorrect. There is no "unencrypted signal" in HDCP. Even after the handshake the signal is still encrypted. They work because the HDCP master key was leaked, or rather enough device keys were extracted that the master key was derived by inverting the matrix. I don't know that the HDCP2 master key has been publicly discovered yet.

      With HDCP it didn't really matter as you could already go to your favourite parts supplier and buy chips from TI or AD, among others, that had the keys builtin and would output the video as unencrypted LVDS. Connect one of those back to back with an HDMI transmitter IC and you have your HDCP stripper.

    5. Re:If only... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You could always just resort to piracy. You see, pirated content doesn't care if your hardware supports the latest DRM, it just fucking works.

    6. Re:If only... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The problem is that if DRM stuff can hide its execution and memory contents, then malware can hide itself from debuggers and other means of developing countermeasures. SGX should not be a thing at all, in my opinion, in the same way that other crappy technology such as ActiveX shouldn't have ever been a thing. If enterprises are concerned about application security, then they should segregate it on a type 1 hypervisor.

  2. Re:What is the point? by SumDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    YES! I own a 4k MSI laptop and can totally tell a difference with 4k. I can even use that laptop to power a 4k DCI display:

    http://penguindreams.org/blog/running-a-lg31mu97-on-linux-at-4096x2160-at-60hz/

    It is night and day; even on small screens. If you do a lot of photography work and have a camera that captures over 4000x?, it's really amazing. I love being able to pull up photos in Lightroom and see the entire image in fullscreen without scaling. They're really amazing:

    http://journeyofkhan.us

  3. Re: Image All The Idiots by BlytheBowman · · Score: 5, Funny

    Judging by all of the HDTVs i've seen hooked up through an SD composite connection to an HD compatable *box and the pictures being in both stretchovision and cropovision, I would not be suprised.

  4. I tried to warn you. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Informative

    I told you this was coming but nobody listened.

    the lack of a CDM specification was an intentional action by the companies currently drafting the EME for the express purpose of creating hardware dependance. While the EME does not preclude a system agnostic CDM specification, the companies drafting the EME have a vested financial interest in preventing it. If it's too late in the process to add a CDM specification, then the EME should be withheld from the approval process until an accompanying system agnostic CDM specification is approved.

    This has already had real consequences.

    Due to the lack of a proper CDM specification, Microsoft was able to make deals with major content providers to require Microsoft Playready 3.0 which uses a CDM that only works on a few browsers, only on Windows platforms and only if you have the latest Intel or AMD CPU. This is also the reason why Linux computers cannot view 4K videos on Netflix website. The only Linux computers that can view 4K content are SmartTVs made by companies that paid Microsoft.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  5. Some of it is the chroma by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is true that basically all video encoding these days is done with a 4:1 luma:chroma ratio. So ya 4k video has 1920x1080 chroma samples. However another, probably more important part when talking Youtube is just bitrate. Youtube is pretty aggressive about the bitrates they use to save on bandwidth costs and play on a wide variety of connections. For 1080p30 it uses a bitrate of about 2.5-3mbps. That's pretty crap, considering Blu-rays are usually more in the realm of 25mbps at the same picture size. More bits = more detail in compression, regardless of how many pixels.

    Well it gets a lot better at higher picture sized. 2.5k video is about 8-9mbps and 4k video is about 16-18mbps (these are all for VP9 streams). It's a big jump, more than the resolution increase itself would require for equal quality. Hence, a better output even when downsampled.

    In fact if you were to take a 1080 video from a camera, upsample it to 4k at a high bitrate and feed that to Youtube, the result would look better played at 4k and downsampled to 1080 on your screen than if you just uploaded the 1080 video directly to Youtube simply because Youtube will allocate more bits to its compression.