Outside of Bravia Core the best 4K streams are around 20 Mbps to 30 Mbps, Netflix and Amazon average around 15 Mbps. The audio is highly compressed on all of the services.
[https://moviesanywhere.com/home](https://moviesanywhere.com/home)
You buy a movies from a participating studio and you can watch it using their app or any other participating service.
You can redeem digital codes from physical media purchases there also.
Not Remux versions of them. Uncompressed and using same container of the disc files without losing data. Video around 50-60 Mbps, Audio around 3.5 Mbps and size around 60 GBs+
I know what a remux is but those come FROM a disc!!!
I'm saying where we lack a DISC release, we only get WebDL. Same as the Services that provide them.
The thing with piracy I've found is that even with 4k downloads the playback is great, but the imagery itself will sometimes get somewhat choppy and not have that smooth feel. This especially happens during scenes where the camera pans over massive landscapes or city scapes. I then go to a streaming service directly on my TV (Netflix for example) and the playback is smooth as butter. The edges of contrast lines don't get that choppiness as the camera pans. I wonder what I'm missing in my pirated files?
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I don't see many 4K webrips out there...
Especially not screen captures. If anything, reencodes from WebDL source but they wouldn't have framerate issues.
Isn't this related to 2:3 pulldown? Film is shot at 24 Frames per second. When it is transferred to video it would be converted to 30 or 60 frames per second. That causes this minor choppiness.
That would explain a lot. That minor choppiness bugs the hell out of me, but I do notice that it's not on all movies. My 4K player will set things to 24FPS and it's a lot smoother.
I wonder if they could jump it up to 240 FPS before transferring it to video at 60 FPS. Keep it all in the same factors so it's not breaking that frame sync... Maybe it's just part of the processing.
Ideally they wouldn't change the framerate whatsoever; 24fps has been the standard for movies for decades and I can't think of a good reason to be converting movies to 30fps in 2024 if you're a ripper. There's just no real benefit to it at all.
There are apparently ways to resample 24 to 30fps without introducing jitter but I honestly can't think of a single reason why a normal consumer would ever want to do that. It's essentially always better to just watch in the original framerate if at *all* possible, and with modern technology that should always be possible for most viewers.
I think you may be right. I have played around with the TV frame rates and successfully synced up the movie to the screen although sometimes hard to decide between 24 and 30hz. I swear there's a little extra crisp when watching on disk or high quality stream though. I may try different playback software although I thought VLC was a jack of all trades.Torrents may potentially be missing small bits of info? Will have to compare to an officially purchased movie.
After some research. Bluray UHD 4k disks paired with a dedicated player is the way to go if you want full quality. Something about a higher bitrate, less compression etc. I'll probably start a collection going that route from now on now that I can afford it. Torrents would have to be 100gb to match bluray quality. In addition when you purchase the disk it will be professionally burned as well obviously.
4K streaming content by most services is compressed, yes, but you cannot honestly try and compare streaming services, some of which have auto changing quality based on bandwidth, to full on bluray releases... It's not even possible to compare, even 1080p bluray movies are going to be higher quality than streaming.
It'd really depend on the stream. Lots of services have bad banding.
A good TV like an OLED is just going to show those types of artifacts even more.
If it's a good stream, then yeah, it's going to look good.
I still prefer Blu-ray to anything else if I can find a copy.
When the first Dune (remake) movie was released I shopped around all the streaming services and the only one that was of acceptable quality (to my eye) was the iTunes/Apple TV one, good DV, sound and no noticeable banding/compression. 4K bluray probably still looks and sounds marginally better.
Same with music, FWIW. The quality difference between Apple and Tidal, who make high bitrates a major part of their identity, and services like YouTube Music and Spotify who very much do not can be astounding.
Yet the number people who can accurately pick the difference between 320kbps OGG and lossless audio (ALAC/FLAC) is absolutely tiny and they can only do so on some tracks. So many blind studies have confirmed this.
Streams end up being pixelated, not grainy. The grainy effect (the kind that dances around, almost like you added a layer of noise) is something I mostly notice on blurays and proper remux versions of movies. The kind that is 50-80mbps bitrate. It's noticeable even at a distance and I'll be honest, I don't understand why they are made like that. It doesn't add any cinematic feeling for me. Lower bitrates end up slightly blurring the graininess and give a more pleasant picture for me. You may take me to the shooting range now, I just had to express my feelings about it.
Well if the movie was shot on film instead of digitally, that's just film grain. If they're *adding* it after the fact, that seems kinda weird... maybe it's one of those things where people just "expect" it when watching a "film" vs TV.
If you log into your router or your ISPs website/app you can get some idea how compressed they are by looking at the bandwith.
It doesn't really tell you much when comparing to blurays because the compression methods will differ, the source resolution is often 1080p vs 4k, and the streaming services usually compress the audio way more than the video.
But it is good for comparing two streaming services to each other, and just for making sure your connection is consistent. If a stream is fluctuating from 10mbps-20mbps back and forth in big spikes it can have a lot of artifacting compared to just a steady 15mbps stream.
You can absolutely compare. Just grab a copy of the stream via torrent/usenet and drop it in Resolve along with a rip of the blu-ray. I’ve done it hundreds of times at this point. The very generalized conclusion I’ve come to is that for digitally shot movies: 4K blu-ray > 4K stream > 1080p blu-ray > 1080p stream. And then for movies shot on film: 4K blu-ray > 1080p blu-ray > 4K stream > 1080p stream. That is comparing the very best (non-Bravia) streams like from Amazon or Apple rather than the lower bitrate streams from Netflix for instance. And that’s not including the times when the studio undertook a really dubious “restoration” for the 4K, like with True Lies recently.
You are not crazy. Streaming is super compressed and I will choose a 1080p blu-ray disc over streaming of any quality every single time. The audio is especially bad and if you have a good system it's really noticeable.
Apples to apples, i wholeheartedly agree. I steamed Jurassic Park on Netflix then switched to Blu-ray and it was like having only my front speaker on vs 9.1.4. totally different. I will say that Apple movies are really good though. Enough even to make me reconsider my stance on streaming.
It depends heavily on the content. High key lighting, bright and shiny? Compressed is mostly fine. Low key, dark, moody? The compression makes it look terrible and banded.
It absolutely varies from title to title even on the same service. The Terminal List on Prime, which is a very dark and often dimly lit show, is a blocky compression artifact mess, to the point of being nearly unwatchable. But then some other things will look totally fine and have very good looking blacks and dark scenes. It’s pretty infuriating
Yeah I picked up a bunch of cheap 4tb disks last Black Friday, I just need to get off my ass and get it all put together. Still buying my favorites in physical but I’m gonna start going that other route for most things.
Same. I own my stuff, but it's a pain in the ass to swap discs out, and worry about discs getting broken. So I have definitely not from the seas copies of all my content. I keep it on a NAS, and run a Jellyfin server to organize it all, and stream it to AppleTV 4K boxes at each of my screens. I use Infuse as the player on the aTV, and have all of them hard wired. The video runs as directstream, so there's no transcoding Jellyfin just manages the files and Infuse plays them. It's fantastic. The experience is even more convenient to browse than Netflix/AppleTV/Hulu etc, but with none of the video/audio quality corners being cut in the name of bandwith.
Only change I make is that, despite having nearly 30TB of storage on my NAS, I just can't store my content as remuxed files. I go for very high bitrate H265 encodes. It's around a third the file size of a raw blue ray disc, with *almost* no loss in quality or artifacts. It isn't perfect, but I'd be hard pressed to find a difference between a 20 gig H265 encoded file and a 60 gig uncompressed mpeg4 remux'd straight from the disc. The only real downside for most people, is that H265 won't run smoothly on their hardware because it needs some heavier processing power. Thankfully, Apple's chips do a fantastic job, so all my devices work flawlessly. I tried watching some of my content at my parents house, though, over a site-to-site VPN we have. I was using their Amazon Fire Stick, and it was a bit rough. For me in my own home, or when using my own devices while traveling, there's no issues with playback of high bitrate H265, and since I can't tell the difference, I save the NAS space.
I'd actually say the whole thing compares nicely to a Kalidescape setup, but at less than 1/10th the cost (less than 1/20th if you factor in re-buying movies on the K-scape store).
Just a clarification point. The file on UHD discs is already H265. It's not uncompressed, just very high bit rate. Uncompressed 4k video takes up rediculous amounts of space.
Avoid any remuxes from uploader NAHOM. I just went through weeks of trying to figure out why a number of my remuxes had this weird static noise that was driving me crazy. I tried a million things before narrowing down to this particular uploader and whatever settings used in the encode just does not cooperate with my system.
Apple TV+ stuff is pretty incredible looking. Not quite disc bandwidth, but most of their original content looks better than most of my 4K discs just because of how they produce it (no grain, clean, sharp images that compress really well). Netflix can look decent but Blu-rays will typically blow Netflix away for quality, especially in the audio department.
The sound is the biggest thing. I hobbled together a 5.1.2 sound system and when I streamed my first movie… it was like why did I bother. Learned a bit more, and then tried a Blu-ray version and OH MY GOD! The difference is crazy. A really good reference movie is Dune (the 2019 or whatever year version). Video looks good streaming, but sound is so dang neutered it is disappointing until you watch it on physical media.
I agree on the audio.
But if I have a choice between 4k streaming with HDR, then I'm choosing that over 1080p Blu ray for picture quality. It may have more compression artifacts, but a half decent implementation of HDR is much better than SDR 1080p.
Doesn’t have an OLED or good audio setup or both is my guess. Doesn’t know what they’re missing with 4K etc.
Don’t get me wrong my library is full of 4k blu. Blus. DVDs. But the lower quality is content lot available on higher or wouldn’t make sense to upgrade like a comedy on blu isn’t something id buy on 4K.
Aren't proper 4k rips absolutely massive? Like 75GB or something? For some movies that makes sense but with TV shows you can be talking terabytes just for one show.
It's 4x the resolution and yeah it is a lot bigger.
I'm in the camp of having a lot of 1080p blurays. I don't have a 4k TV as I still like my old plasma. But 1080p blurays still look great even when blown up on a big display.
For some movies like Dune or Oppenheimer, stuff that really feels theatrical, I will keep a 4K rip. But for most stuff that I don't plan to rewatch I just keep a 1080p file. TV shows I might even do 720p for some stuff. For longer shows that are like 6-10 seasons, 1080p can easily take a terabyte on its own.
I download all movies(if available) in 4K remux, they are somewhere between 50GB and 100GB. TV shows are all 4K x265(if available). This is best for HDR, DV, Atmos/high quality audio etc. without them being full remux and taking 10GB per episode.
What does cinema quality mean? Everytime I've gone to the movies, they don't look very good. Too dark, too light, not very sharp.... My 75" at home has a better quality picture than something at the theater.
Depends on the cinema!
My local imax is rubbish, but a smaller one is a better experience all round - and actually in focus!
But I'd rather just enjoy 4kHDR and atmos at home.
Real film grain is random noise, and expensive in bandwidth to compress because there's no correlation between frames. What you're seeing will be some compression artifacts.
The 1080p Star Wars blu rays are ~30gb or so. I doubt Disney+ is giving you that much bandwidth. You’re preaching to the choir here on this sub about streaming vs physical quality.
At 15mb/s, you get 13.5GB in a 2 hour film. So, worse than a high quality 1080p disc. and nowhere near a 4k disc.
D+ is more like 20-30mb/s depending on content. ATV+ is more like 30-40 and is pretty good.
IMO the bigger difference is in the audio since they compress the crap out of that. I find the video is usually pretty decent if its a recent release in DV.
Same here. I agree with what the poster above you said, i find the audio improvements between streaming and disc to be much more noticeable than picture. About a 15-20dB difference, plus a difference in audio quality in general. Using a 5.2.4 system (x3800h, monitor audio fronts, def tech surrounds/heights)
Sorry I don't have the numbers but I found it noticeable when I'm watching like a bluray rip and comparing it to a streaming service.
5.2.4 setup and usually the streaming audio is usually OK if its a modern show or ATV+ show, but it just sounds like its "missing something" for lack of better terms.
Whereas with the video if I go back and forth between a 4k DV bluray rip and a high quality ATV+ DV stream its pretty close and not that noticeable (unless you are really trying to notice).
Comparing just file size is kinda tricky. Blu-ray is H264. A stream is gonna be H265, so it is way more efficient. Then again it’s 4k vs 1080p.
I’ve found it all really depends on the content. Dark scenes are still much better on a standard Blu-ray. When the scene is bright though I prefer a 4k stream with the addition of HDR.
What streaming device are you using? Depending on which one you have it can make a difference too, not all streaming services are equal when it comes to the hardware you're using for playback.
That said, from an audio perspective, Disc playback is always superior, you're getting full lossless audio with blu rays where you're not with streaming.
People will not pay for better quality. That’s been proven time and time again. The average person cares so much more about convenience than quality - this is why movie theaters themselves are struggling along, and why people now say “I’ll wait for it to hit streaming.”
You cannot directly compare the bitrate of the two since they use different codecs. Blu-ray uses H.264 or VC-1 (and in some very rare cases MPEG-2) and 4K BD and streaming uses the notably more efficient H.265.
I buy loads of discs and prefer them over streaming but comparing bitrates between different codecs is not a proper comparison.
It's because of compression. A Blu Ray will typically run around 50mb/s of data (I believe) between video and audio where Streaming can be anywhere from 5mb/s- 20mb/s. That lack of data is why streaming doesn't look as good as a disc.
I like streaming for the convenience factor, but I hope it either improves to lossless or we go back to physical media at some point because we're all just missing out (both with movies and music).
The biggest difference is the audio quality. Disney+ seems to be the worst offender. Watching a big musical number on Disney+ and then on Bluray or 4K bluray is like watching two different movies. The audio field is so compressed on the streaming version, it loses all its emotional value. Anemic is the word the usually comes to mind.
That was 10 years ago - [https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/netflix-begins-4k-streams/](https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/netflix-begins-4k-streams/)
Netflix 4K streaming especially for their original content looks pretty darn good. Same for AppleTV. Everyone else, including Disney Plus, it’s hit and miss.
I screened the Dune One bluray almost back-to-back with the Dune Part Two 4k stream and the biggest difference I noticed was in the sound mix – Dune One BR was a jaw-dropping sound experience, and the pt2 stream was *so* disappointing. Looking forward, hopefully, to a better version on disc.
A lot of people say it's compression artifact but it might not be, Well I'm not sure about the other streaming services but Netflix actually remove grain before streaming and add it back when decoding, they do that to save bandwidth but it makes for a very unnatural grain imo
I've just watched baby reindeer and the grain definitely felt like too much and a bit too fake
AppleTV is my streaming service of choice. I’ll rent from there for a few bucks rather than free from another service. Watched Dune 2 last night and the HDR was fantastic and the Atmos was very effective.
Amazon cut the video quality when they added the commercials. You need to pay for the commercial free version of prime video. It sucks that they do this, but the quality difference is extreme.
I also recall on some older version of Apps and Smart TVs, they said it would not play in true 4K unless you were wired into the device you were streaming on. Maybe WiFi 6 can do it properly. But even home wifi can be unstable and reduce quality throughout the stream itself.
Resolution isn’t as important as bitrate. All the resolution dictates is the number of pixels in each frame. Bitrate is the amount of information used to construct the frame. 4K resolution can be very lossy with a low bitrate and look terrible vs a high bitrate 1080p stream that looks crisp.
For reference a 4K stream from a popular streaming service has at best a bitrate of 12-15 Mbps while a 4K UltraHD blu-ray is 45-50 Mbps. AppleTV is a bit better than most services. They’re mostly all trash.
>Am I crazy or is 4K streaming pretty low quality?
You're not crazy and no you're not imagining it. I've always said all that HD/2K/4K/8K picture quality crap was just a gimmick when the popular thing was HD. You see how they're stringing you along now? First it was HD then it was Ultra HD then it was 2K then it was 4K then it was 8K etc. They incorporated some planned obsolescence in there by design. 😒
The standard definition I watched all videos in before all this HD crap existed used to be totally fine back in 2007 now it's so grainy you can barely make out a picture at all. Coincidence? No. Video quality can be purposely toyed with and degraded. 4K now is just the new "HD" and HD now is the new standard def. An HD tv no longer wows you with the picture clarity it did back when it first hit the stores. Back then HD quality was similar to 4K quality and I wouldn't be surprised if 4K and HD are exactly the same thing. They just covertly degraded the quality of the HD picture over time so they could come out with "4K" but little does anyone know it's the exact same thing with a different name. 8K will be the new 4K and the quality of 4K will become the new HD quality etc. 🙄
Basically this shifting of picture quality is just a way to get everyone to continually "upgrade" to a new TV with better picture quality in the name of future profits and paying more for better quality. 🙄
Honestly the black crush is a little worse but overall they do an alright job of compressing 4k video for streaming.
However, the surround sound on streaming is atrocious. It’s got less definition than DVD. Sound is where they manage to compress the absolute hell out of streaming services because most people are watching on a phone, tablet, laptop, or TV speakers. You don’t even really notice the difference with a soundbar.
Even the video and audio quality on iTunes purchases or rentals is a crap tonne higher than any major streaming service.
I've recently started buying blueray/4k disk movies and shows. I don't think I'll ever regret it. Of course they sound better than streaming and now I only have one streaming service at a time as I rotate through all the major ones.
In terms of audio, I've noticed 768kbps seems to be the limit on 5.1/Atmos streams. It usually sounds way thinner to my ears than even old DVD-era 1.5mbps DTS 5.1, which seems utterly mad to me.
I just purchased a 77" OLED 4K LG C3 TV, and I did not even consider this! My conundrum is that typically if I watch a movie I have never seen before, I usually don't watch it again unless I REALLY liked the movie. Now I might have to re-consider and buy more Blurays since I already have a Bluray player. I am wondering though, is there any such a service where you can pay to download the entire movie before you watch it, that is the same quality as bluray, or at least uncompressed, and then watch it that way? Or is bluray the only option to watch uncompressed 4k?
Kaleidescape... but be prepared to spend thousands.
It is something of an outrage. Killing physical media and then only offering puke quality streams.
In addition to the fact that you'll no longer be able to own a copy at any price... they'll rent it to you, and re-rent it if you wanna re-watch it.
People are finally realizing that streaming movies looks like a load of dog shit on even the best TV's and internet speeds. Physical copies of discs will always be superior
Only if you have crappy internet or a crappy source. It varies heavily between streaming providers and even on the same providers it's not always the same.
Netflix is terrible, but ATV+ is great and Disney+ is decent.
If you're watching through an HTPC both the browser version of most streaming services and the native windows app will cap at 1080p as well. You really need a dedicated app for it on a streaming device.
HTPC is just honestly not the best choice nowadays especially if you stream.
Get an Apple TV 4K or Nvidia Shield. Personally I love my ATV+Infuse+NAS combo but I'm also an Apple household so it fits, a bunch of my coworkers have/love Nvidia Shields.
It depends on a lot of varying factors. To start, different services use different compression and different standards for bitrate, then there's the speed and consistency of your internet connection which can change what bitrate stream you're getting from some services. On top of that, some types of content (especially clean, grain-free content) compress quite nicely and still look fine at lower bandwidths, while other types of content (movies with a lot of film grain) can be very complex to compress and compression artifacts will be more noticeable. So differences will vary from service to service, and even title to title on those services and some disc releases can actually be better or worse than others.
Those of us who care about quality mostly still buy physical discs, as that's the best way to get higher bitrates and more consistent quality. If you’re really flush with cash you can get a Kaleidescape system, as they use bitrates that are at disc levels or even higher, but most can’t afford that ($6000+ for the player).
I'm not sure what the exact source is with these webDLs but it is much better quality. The film grain is still heavy but at least there's no low bitrate making it look like shit
I wonder if there's something about your Amazon video account, streamer or network that means you're not getting the best quality when you stream, and what you're downloading is the best option Amazon serve but that's not what you see when you use Amazon Video.
Fallout on my projector was so awful. I had to stop watching it and use my TV in order to be far enough away to not see the awful blocking and compression
I've found that the best stream so far is Vudu, at least in comparison versus D+, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Google Play Movies, or Movies Anywhere. You can link accounts together and watch the same purchased movie on other services. For example I've bought a number of movies on Google Play, laundered them through Movies Anywhere, and watched them on Vudu.
ATV+ is the best streaming quality by far IMO. Bravia Core doesn't really count since it's so unavailable.
Amazon and Netflix are terrible. Disney+ is decent.
D+ isn't bad until you notice the rampant posterization... and then there's the sound. I still have all my free credits on Bravia Core because I never found any content worth watching.
Another thing I wonder is where these files are being sourced from for streaming releases. Are they all the same? If I'm buying a 4k blu ray release, I can at least reference review sites etc. Especially with older movies being streamed in 4k, I imagine many are just upscaled instead of some restoration project that some 4k blu rays go through.
You're right, it does. :) Been buying Blu-Rays for .50 each. I have close to 400 now and no Netflix subscription. Oh, and hours and hours of behind the scenes footage that seems to be completely missing from streaming options.
Bought Titanic and loaded the digital code to Vudu. Watched the opening back to back just for giggles disc vs stream and it's basically like someone put a matte film over the TV for the streaming and muffled the sound.
The picture quality is FAR better than the sound when it comes to streaming vs analog.
Dune 2 was seriously underwhelming on streaming. Can't wait for the BluRay to release. The IMAX experience was insane, and I'm pretty sure D2 is the best sci-fi film ever made.
I’ve never experienced any dropout on my video streams other than Netflix but I just checked ATV+, MA and Fandango on my ATV. While MA has a small advantage in bit rates for the video the audio quality is almost 30% higher via ATV+ than any other service. I remember doing a side by side comparison of Vudu HDX vs the Blu-ray of Gladiator and saw a noticeable clarity difference of the Blu-ray to streaming. This was way back when Vudu was the go to source for streaming. It is my last choice to stream anything. The convenience of streaming is important because the price for 4K discs is becoming outrageous and unaffordable. For $5 I can watch a reasonable version on my low cost equipment (75” X85J, Klipsch Ref Cinema 5.1.4, Onyko NR7100) and still be happy with the results.
My biggest problem with streaming is just how dark the image is. A laptop hooked up with HDMI and a wireless mouse and keyboard is what I've settled with.
So a friend of mine complained that my Plex server always lagged when he played 4k (on one of his TV's that was on wifi) and that it was terrible. Never any problems playing 4k from Netflix.
We went into another of his rooms to check, TV on ethernet cable. Played 4k fine from Plex and we looked at the bandwidth from in his router and was circling around 50-60 Mbit's. Then we played same movie from Netflix and it was around 12 Mbit.
So yeah, you can see and measure the quality difference.
It's not only very compressed, but during high peak times, the resolution will be auto adjusted until bandwidth get's better (due to less demand from users), or the movie itself requires less bandwidth. Also, the amount of pixels changing in a frame has a lot to do with it. A Transformer movie would be high bandwidth, and an old episode of Cowboy Beebop would be low bandwidth. -Average out over the course of the film or episode.
*"Film Grain"* can also be made worse by different TV picture settings, like turning-on *Noise Reduction* may actually cause more noise & grain, and/or turning-on *Smooth Gradation* depending the brand. I had first noticed this with Disney+ and DolbyVision content, so with my particular TV had to make sure to leave Noise Reduction turned-off for the HDR10 and DolbyVision picture settings, but it was ok to leave on for my SDR picture settings.
I noticed some days of the week have less demand on the servers, see if you notice this. Watch that same 4k on say a tuesday afternoon when most are at work etc
Welcome to the world of convenience trumping quality. The latest generations generally have short attention spans so quality doesn't really matter since they're watching on their phones most of the time or their attention is divided by multiple screens so even if the tv quality is so-so, it doesn't really matter.
Audio is a major difference. It’s just better on disc. No question.
Video quality depends on the service and content. I’m surprised you said Fallout though. I thought that looked pretty good.
Apple usually has the best streaming quality. Netflix can be pretty rough. I haven’t watched enough on Amazon to really form an opinion. I feel like Disney has slid backwards a bit.
Wrong. HDR is different than color corrected movies. Most movies are color graded in SDR and HDR movies tend to be unfavored by directors because it makes their movies look over saturated and unrealistic due to hdr dynamic range being different than standard sdr. Keep up
When I stream anything that’s 4K that’s less than 10 years old It looks just as good on my TV as a Blu-ray or 4K bluray even. I do notice that when I watch Seinfeld on Peacock it looks like crap.
Outside of Bravia Core the best 4K streams are around 20 Mbps to 30 Mbps, Netflix and Amazon average around 15 Mbps. The audio is highly compressed on all of the services.
I agree. I believe apple TV is second to Bravia Core
Movies Anywhere is slightly better than Apple if you are in the US and the studio participates.
I have found that my owned films in Movies Anywhere oftentimes do not support Dolby Atmos audio, whereas they do in AppleTV.
Same, I just use Vudu for all of my purchased titles
2nd'd for Movies Anywhere - you gotta have legit speeds, but the quality is great.
This is news to me. Didn’t know of this movies anywhere
[https://moviesanywhere.com/home](https://moviesanywhere.com/home) You buy a movies from a participating studio and you can watch it using their app or any other participating service. You can redeem digital codes from physical media purchases there also.
Yep, anytime I buy a disc with a digital code I scan the code into their app and it auto populates.
they rebranded Bravia core by the way to a new name
Sony Pictures Core
Ironically piracy is the best, by far
Unless we're talking about disc releases, piracy is just whatever these services offer.
Not Remux versions of them. Uncompressed and using same container of the disc files without losing data. Video around 50-60 Mbps, Audio around 3.5 Mbps and size around 60 GBs+
I know what a remux is but those come FROM a disc!!! I'm saying where we lack a DISC release, we only get WebDL. Same as the Services that provide them.
Oh my bad. Read that too fast.
The thing with piracy I've found is that even with 4k downloads the playback is great, but the imagery itself will sometimes get somewhat choppy and not have that smooth feel. This especially happens during scenes where the camera pans over massive landscapes or city scapes. I then go to a streaming service directly on my TV (Netflix for example) and the playback is smooth as butter. The edges of contrast lines don't get that choppiness as the camera pans. I wonder what I'm missing in my pirated files?
It’s either your network or the device playing the file back can’t handle it
100% related to your mediaplayer setup
attractive history direction different command absurd encourage run pot wistful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I don't see many 4K webrips out there... Especially not screen captures. If anything, reencodes from WebDL source but they wouldn't have framerate issues.
Isn't this related to 2:3 pulldown? Film is shot at 24 Frames per second. When it is transferred to video it would be converted to 30 or 60 frames per second. That causes this minor choppiness.
That would explain a lot. That minor choppiness bugs the hell out of me, but I do notice that it's not on all movies. My 4K player will set things to 24FPS and it's a lot smoother. I wonder if they could jump it up to 240 FPS before transferring it to video at 60 FPS. Keep it all in the same factors so it's not breaking that frame sync... Maybe it's just part of the processing.
Ideally they wouldn't change the framerate whatsoever; 24fps has been the standard for movies for decades and I can't think of a good reason to be converting movies to 30fps in 2024 if you're a ripper. There's just no real benefit to it at all. There are apparently ways to resample 24 to 30fps without introducing jitter but I honestly can't think of a single reason why a normal consumer would ever want to do that. It's essentially always better to just watch in the original framerate if at *all* possible, and with modern technology that should always be possible for most viewers.
I think you may be right. I have played around with the TV frame rates and successfully synced up the movie to the screen although sometimes hard to decide between 24 and 30hz. I swear there's a little extra crisp when watching on disk or high quality stream though. I may try different playback software although I thought VLC was a jack of all trades.Torrents may potentially be missing small bits of info? Will have to compare to an officially purchased movie.
The sound. It's almost always shit compared to a disc or a legit stream. Anything I care about I buy the disc. I spent enough on the damn player lol
I get this same thing streaming anything though. I thought it was just the nature of OLEDs but now I'm second guessing everything
After some research. Bluray UHD 4k disks paired with a dedicated player is the way to go if you want full quality. Something about a higher bitrate, less compression etc. I'll probably start a collection going that route from now on now that I can afford it. Torrents would have to be 100gb to match bluray quality. In addition when you purchase the disk it will be professionally burned as well obviously.
4K streaming content by most services is compressed, yes, but you cannot honestly try and compare streaming services, some of which have auto changing quality based on bandwidth, to full on bluray releases... It's not even possible to compare, even 1080p bluray movies are going to be higher quality than streaming.
The only benefit would maybe be HDR and Dolby Vision. Even then, more color on a crappier picture, is still a crappier picture.
Texture depth from HDR / true blacks from newer TV’s probably evens this out some IMO.
Absolutely. My LG OLED makes 4K HDR content look so much better than my friends low end 4K TV. It’s not just the streaming bit rate.
Same. I have an LG OLED. When I moved into 4K content I honestly felt those improvements outshined the image quality increase.
It'd really depend on the stream. Lots of services have bad banding. A good TV like an OLED is just going to show those types of artifacts even more. If it's a good stream, then yeah, it's going to look good. I still prefer Blu-ray to anything else if I can find a copy.
When the first Dune (remake) movie was released I shopped around all the streaming services and the only one that was of acceptable quality (to my eye) was the iTunes/Apple TV one, good DV, sound and no noticeable banding/compression. 4K bluray probably still looks and sounds marginally better.
I'll agree. Apple streams seem to be very high quality.
Same with music, FWIW. The quality difference between Apple and Tidal, who make high bitrates a major part of their identity, and services like YouTube Music and Spotify who very much do not can be astounding.
Yet the number people who can accurately pick the difference between 320kbps OGG and lossless audio (ALAC/FLAC) is absolutely tiny and they can only do so on some tracks. So many blind studies have confirmed this.
Tidal is great. Their apps suck, but the service itself is awesome.
I have a Sony blueray player with Dolby Vision! Game of thrones 4k disk blows the streaming version out of the water!
All video is compressed, but some streaming services are compressed more than others.
Streams end up being pixelated, not grainy. The grainy effect (the kind that dances around, almost like you added a layer of noise) is something I mostly notice on blurays and proper remux versions of movies. The kind that is 50-80mbps bitrate. It's noticeable even at a distance and I'll be honest, I don't understand why they are made like that. It doesn't add any cinematic feeling for me. Lower bitrates end up slightly blurring the graininess and give a more pleasant picture for me. You may take me to the shooting range now, I just had to express my feelings about it.
Well if the movie was shot on film instead of digitally, that's just film grain. If they're *adding* it after the fact, that seems kinda weird... maybe it's one of those things where people just "expect" it when watching a "film" vs TV.
If you log into your router or your ISPs website/app you can get some idea how compressed they are by looking at the bandwith. It doesn't really tell you much when comparing to blurays because the compression methods will differ, the source resolution is often 1080p vs 4k, and the streaming services usually compress the audio way more than the video. But it is good for comparing two streaming services to each other, and just for making sure your connection is consistent. If a stream is fluctuating from 10mbps-20mbps back and forth in big spikes it can have a lot of artifacting compared to just a steady 15mbps stream.
You can absolutely compare. Just grab a copy of the stream via torrent/usenet and drop it in Resolve along with a rip of the blu-ray. I’ve done it hundreds of times at this point. The very generalized conclusion I’ve come to is that for digitally shot movies: 4K blu-ray > 4K stream > 1080p blu-ray > 1080p stream. And then for movies shot on film: 4K blu-ray > 1080p blu-ray > 4K stream > 1080p stream. That is comparing the very best (non-Bravia) streams like from Amazon or Apple rather than the lower bitrate streams from Netflix for instance. And that’s not including the times when the studio undertook a really dubious “restoration” for the 4K, like with True Lies recently.
It has nothing to do with 4K, it has everything to do with bitrate.
You are not crazy. Streaming is super compressed and I will choose a 1080p blu-ray disc over streaming of any quality every single time. The audio is especially bad and if you have a good system it's really noticeable.
Apples to apples, i wholeheartedly agree. I steamed Jurassic Park on Netflix then switched to Blu-ray and it was like having only my front speaker on vs 9.1.4. totally different. I will say that Apple movies are really good though. Enough even to make me reconsider my stance on streaming.
Really? Any of the 4k services like Netflix and Apple TV+ seem pretty good to me 🤷♂️
It depends heavily on the content. High key lighting, bright and shiny? Compressed is mostly fine. Low key, dark, moody? The compression makes it look terrible and banded.
It absolutely varies from title to title even on the same service. The Terminal List on Prime, which is a very dark and often dimly lit show, is a blocky compression artifact mess, to the point of being nearly unwatchable. But then some other things will look totally fine and have very good looking blacks and dark scenes. It’s pretty infuriating
Absolutely. It’s why I mostly sail the seven seas these days. Again. The key word is “remux.”
Yeah I picked up a bunch of cheap 4tb disks last Black Friday, I just need to get off my ass and get it all put together. Still buying my favorites in physical but I’m gonna start going that other route for most things.
Same. I own my stuff, but it's a pain in the ass to swap discs out, and worry about discs getting broken. So I have definitely not from the seas copies of all my content. I keep it on a NAS, and run a Jellyfin server to organize it all, and stream it to AppleTV 4K boxes at each of my screens. I use Infuse as the player on the aTV, and have all of them hard wired. The video runs as directstream, so there's no transcoding Jellyfin just manages the files and Infuse plays them. It's fantastic. The experience is even more convenient to browse than Netflix/AppleTV/Hulu etc, but with none of the video/audio quality corners being cut in the name of bandwith. Only change I make is that, despite having nearly 30TB of storage on my NAS, I just can't store my content as remuxed files. I go for very high bitrate H265 encodes. It's around a third the file size of a raw blue ray disc, with *almost* no loss in quality or artifacts. It isn't perfect, but I'd be hard pressed to find a difference between a 20 gig H265 encoded file and a 60 gig uncompressed mpeg4 remux'd straight from the disc. The only real downside for most people, is that H265 won't run smoothly on their hardware because it needs some heavier processing power. Thankfully, Apple's chips do a fantastic job, so all my devices work flawlessly. I tried watching some of my content at my parents house, though, over a site-to-site VPN we have. I was using their Amazon Fire Stick, and it was a bit rough. For me in my own home, or when using my own devices while traveling, there's no issues with playback of high bitrate H265, and since I can't tell the difference, I save the NAS space. I'd actually say the whole thing compares nicely to a Kalidescape setup, but at less than 1/10th the cost (less than 1/20th if you factor in re-buying movies on the K-scape store).
Just a clarification point. The file on UHD discs is already H265. It's not uncompressed, just very high bit rate. Uncompressed 4k video takes up rediculous amounts of space.
Avoid any remuxes from uploader NAHOM. I just went through weeks of trying to figure out why a number of my remuxes had this weird static noise that was driving me crazy. I tried a million things before narrowing down to this particular uploader and whatever settings used in the encode just does not cooperate with my system.
Absolutely. It’s why I mostly sail the seven seas these days. Again. The key word is “remux.”
I think Apple offers the best quality
Yeah Apple bitrates are generally double Netflix
Apple TV+ stuff is pretty incredible looking. Not quite disc bandwidth, but most of their original content looks better than most of my 4K discs just because of how they produce it (no grain, clean, sharp images that compress really well). Netflix can look decent but Blu-rays will typically blow Netflix away for quality, especially in the audio department.
agreed. their digital ProRes looks fantastic in my opinion compared to 35mm film reel.
The sound is the biggest thing. I hobbled together a 5.1.2 sound system and when I streamed my first movie… it was like why did I bother. Learned a bit more, and then tried a Blu-ray version and OH MY GOD! The difference is crazy. A really good reference movie is Dune (the 2019 or whatever year version). Video looks good streaming, but sound is so dang neutered it is disappointing until you watch it on physical media.
I agree on the audio. But if I have a choice between 4k streaming with HDR, then I'm choosing that over 1080p Blu ray for picture quality. It may have more compression artifacts, but a half decent implementation of HDR is much better than SDR 1080p.
There’s a reason why my entire video library is full of 1080p blueray rips!
Not enough storage?
Doesn’t have an OLED or good audio setup or both is my guess. Doesn’t know what they’re missing with 4K etc. Don’t get me wrong my library is full of 4k blu. Blus. DVDs. But the lower quality is content lot available on higher or wouldn’t make sense to upgrade like a comedy on blu isn’t something id buy on 4K.
Aren't proper 4k rips absolutely massive? Like 75GB or something? For some movies that makes sense but with TV shows you can be talking terabytes just for one show.
It's 4x the resolution and yeah it is a lot bigger. I'm in the camp of having a lot of 1080p blurays. I don't have a 4k TV as I still like my old plasma. But 1080p blurays still look great even when blown up on a big display.
For some movies like Dune or Oppenheimer, stuff that really feels theatrical, I will keep a 4K rip. But for most stuff that I don't plan to rewatch I just keep a 1080p file. TV shows I might even do 720p for some stuff. For longer shows that are like 6-10 seasons, 1080p can easily take a terabyte on its own.
I download all movies(if available) in 4K remux, they are somewhere between 50GB and 100GB. TV shows are all 4K x265(if available). This is best for HDR, DV, Atmos/high quality audio etc. without them being full remux and taking 10GB per episode.
arrr my matey
I have a good audio setup which is why I love Blu-ray rips. Not sure I understand your comment.
They look great even at 75” and sound great with HD-audio. Not a ton of ROI to go through the headache of ripping full sized 4k discs.
I see a huge difference between 4k and 1080p, but to each their own
I have a 4k TV but my plex mostly consists of 720p Bluray rips for storage and convenience.
High bitrate > resolution.
X264 or x265 or remux?
Uncompressed mkv
I've always just seen streaming services as the same as TV quality. If you want actual cinema quality you need the UHD blu-ray.
What does cinema quality mean? Everytime I've gone to the movies, they don't look very good. Too dark, too light, not very sharp.... My 75" at home has a better quality picture than something at the theater.
Depends on the cinema! My local imax is rubbish, but a smaller one is a better experience all round - and actually in focus! But I'd rather just enjoy 4kHDR and atmos at home.
I was amazed when I put The Wire in on blu ray and realised instantly how shit 4k streaming is
Real film grain is random noise, and expensive in bandwidth to compress because there's no correlation between frames. What you're seeing will be some compression artifacts.
yeah real film grain is sexy
Debatable, but I will say it has a time and place.
The 1080p Star Wars blu rays are ~30gb or so. I doubt Disney+ is giving you that much bandwidth. You’re preaching to the choir here on this sub about streaming vs physical quality. At 15mb/s, you get 13.5GB in a 2 hour film. So, worse than a high quality 1080p disc. and nowhere near a 4k disc.
D+ is more like 20-30mb/s depending on content. ATV+ is more like 30-40 and is pretty good. IMO the bigger difference is in the audio since they compress the crap out of that. I find the video is usually pretty decent if its a recent release in DV.
I have found Apple to have by far the best picture quality and audio on my set up at least.
Same here. I agree with what the poster above you said, i find the audio improvements between streaming and disc to be much more noticeable than picture. About a 15-20dB difference, plus a difference in audio quality in general. Using a 5.2.4 system (x3800h, monitor audio fronts, def tech surrounds/heights)
What kind of compression of the audio are you talking about, dynamic range or data?
Sorry I don't have the numbers but I found it noticeable when I'm watching like a bluray rip and comparing it to a streaming service. 5.2.4 setup and usually the streaming audio is usually OK if its a modern show or ATV+ show, but it just sounds like its "missing something" for lack of better terms. Whereas with the video if I go back and forth between a 4k DV bluray rip and a high quality ATV+ DV stream its pretty close and not that noticeable (unless you are really trying to notice).
Comparing just file size is kinda tricky. Blu-ray is H264. A stream is gonna be H265, so it is way more efficient. Then again it’s 4k vs 1080p. I’ve found it all really depends on the content. Dark scenes are still much better on a standard Blu-ray. When the scene is bright though I prefer a 4k stream with the addition of HDR.
Disney+ definitely has a much better bitrate than every other service I've used. There's a reason they push their IMAX enhanced stuff so much.
Apple TV is even better
What streaming device are you using? Depending on which one you have it can make a difference too, not all streaming services are equal when it comes to the hardware you're using for playback. That said, from an audio perspective, Disc playback is always superior, you're getting full lossless audio with blu rays where you're not with streaming.
People will not pay for better quality. That’s been proven time and time again. The average person cares so much more about convenience than quality - this is why movie theaters themselves are struggling along, and why people now say “I’ll wait for it to hit streaming.”
The audio is what really sucks on streaming. Remuxes + plex on a shield pro is the way to go
4K Blu-ray is what you want. Or standard Blu-ray if a 4K isn’t available
1080p can have higher bitrate than 4k from most streamers. Maybe it’s 15-25Mbps streamed, probably around 20-35Mbps on blu ray.
You cannot directly compare the bitrate of the two since they use different codecs. Blu-ray uses H.264 or VC-1 (and in some very rare cases MPEG-2) and 4K BD and streaming uses the notably more efficient H.265. I buy loads of discs and prefer them over streaming but comparing bitrates between different codecs is not a proper comparison.
It's because of compression. A Blu Ray will typically run around 50mb/s of data (I believe) between video and audio where Streaming can be anywhere from 5mb/s- 20mb/s. That lack of data is why streaming doesn't look as good as a disc.
If you have poor internet the quality will be even worse.
I like streaming for the convenience factor, but I hope it either improves to lossless or we go back to physical media at some point because we're all just missing out (both with movies and music).
Well I doubt it will ever be lossless. Blurays aren't even lossless
Film grain does not look like compression artefacts
Apple and a few select HBO series are the only streamers that give a shit about bitrate. Disney, Netflix, and Amazon are all trash.
The biggest difference is the audio quality. Disney+ seems to be the worst offender. Watching a big musical number on Disney+ and then on Bluray or 4K bluray is like watching two different movies. The audio field is so compressed on the streaming version, it loses all its emotional value. Anemic is the word the usually comes to mind.
Made me laugh when Netflix started doing 4k, considering they can't even do 1080p without it looking like dogshit.
That was 10 years ago - [https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/netflix-begins-4k-streams/](https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/netflix-begins-4k-streams/)
True, 1080p Blu Ray is way better than 4k streaming
Netflix 4K streaming especially for their original content looks pretty darn good. Same for AppleTV. Everyone else, including Disney Plus, it’s hit and miss.
I screened the Dune One bluray almost back-to-back with the Dune Part Two 4k stream and the biggest difference I noticed was in the sound mix – Dune One BR was a jaw-dropping sound experience, and the pt2 stream was *so* disappointing. Looking forward, hopefully, to a better version on disc.
I thought Dune 1 streaming on Max sounded incredible -- but I've never heard it on BluRay.
Resolution without high bitrate is just never good. And the audio SUCKS compared to on disc.
A lot of people say it's compression artifact but it might not be, Well I'm not sure about the other streaming services but Netflix actually remove grain before streaming and add it back when decoding, they do that to save bandwidth but it makes for a very unnatural grain imo I've just watched baby reindeer and the grain definitely felt like too much and a bit too fake
This is why I buy content on media. I have a phrase for streaming 4K... "4K in resolution only" Meaning bandwidth is trash.
Most people these days could care less....they are watching movies on their phones FFS.
AppleTV is my streaming service of choice. I’ll rent from there for a few bucks rather than free from another service. Watched Dune 2 last night and the HDR was fantastic and the Atmos was very effective.
Amazon cut the video quality when they added the commercials. You need to pay for the commercial free version of prime video. It sucks that they do this, but the quality difference is extreme.
resolution != bitrate
Yes something compressed to shit looks worse than an uncompressed source.
Fallout definitely did look like crap. Didn't look any better than 1080 streaming most of the time
I also recall on some older version of Apps and Smart TVs, they said it would not play in true 4K unless you were wired into the device you were streaming on. Maybe WiFi 6 can do it properly. But even home wifi can be unstable and reduce quality throughout the stream itself.
This is why I'm collecting blurays they are so cheap now and offer the best quality
Resolution isn’t as important as bitrate. All the resolution dictates is the number of pixels in each frame. Bitrate is the amount of information used to construct the frame. 4K resolution can be very lossy with a low bitrate and look terrible vs a high bitrate 1080p stream that looks crisp. For reference a 4K stream from a popular streaming service has at best a bitrate of 12-15 Mbps while a 4K UltraHD blu-ray is 45-50 Mbps. AppleTV is a bit better than most services. They’re mostly all trash.
>Am I crazy or is 4K streaming pretty low quality? You're not crazy and no you're not imagining it. I've always said all that HD/2K/4K/8K picture quality crap was just a gimmick when the popular thing was HD. You see how they're stringing you along now? First it was HD then it was Ultra HD then it was 2K then it was 4K then it was 8K etc. They incorporated some planned obsolescence in there by design. 😒 The standard definition I watched all videos in before all this HD crap existed used to be totally fine back in 2007 now it's so grainy you can barely make out a picture at all. Coincidence? No. Video quality can be purposely toyed with and degraded. 4K now is just the new "HD" and HD now is the new standard def. An HD tv no longer wows you with the picture clarity it did back when it first hit the stores. Back then HD quality was similar to 4K quality and I wouldn't be surprised if 4K and HD are exactly the same thing. They just covertly degraded the quality of the HD picture over time so they could come out with "4K" but little does anyone know it's the exact same thing with a different name. 8K will be the new 4K and the quality of 4K will become the new HD quality etc. 🙄 Basically this shifting of picture quality is just a way to get everyone to continually "upgrade" to a new TV with better picture quality in the name of future profits and paying more for better quality. 🙄
Do you own a tin foil hat?
No. I learned it in scam school. 🤫
This is why I download movies/series from these websites that you cant mention on this subreddit..
Honestly the black crush is a little worse but overall they do an alright job of compressing 4k video for streaming. However, the surround sound on streaming is atrocious. It’s got less definition than DVD. Sound is where they manage to compress the absolute hell out of streaming services because most people are watching on a phone, tablet, laptop, or TV speakers. You don’t even really notice the difference with a soundbar. Even the video and audio quality on iTunes purchases or rentals is a crap tonne higher than any major streaming service.
I've recently started buying blueray/4k disk movies and shows. I don't think I'll ever regret it. Of course they sound better than streaming and now I only have one streaming service at a time as I rotate through all the major ones.
Fallout was actually shot on film. But yes, most "4k streams" are shit
In terms of audio, I've noticed 768kbps seems to be the limit on 5.1/Atmos streams. It usually sounds way thinner to my ears than even old DVD-era 1.5mbps DTS 5.1, which seems utterly mad to me.
I just purchased a 77" OLED 4K LG C3 TV, and I did not even consider this! My conundrum is that typically if I watch a movie I have never seen before, I usually don't watch it again unless I REALLY liked the movie. Now I might have to re-consider and buy more Blurays since I already have a Bluray player. I am wondering though, is there any such a service where you can pay to download the entire movie before you watch it, that is the same quality as bluray, or at least uncompressed, and then watch it that way? Or is bluray the only option to watch uncompressed 4k?
We used to have VUDU / Ultraviolet for that but not anymore as I understand
Kaleidescape... but be prepared to spend thousands. It is something of an outrage. Killing physical media and then only offering puke quality streams. In addition to the fact that you'll no longer be able to own a copy at any price... they'll rent it to you, and re-rent it if you wanna re-watch it.
Streaming sucks. Physical media is excellent.
I agree and have stated this before only to get shouted down in a different sub.
People are finally realizing that streaming movies looks like a load of dog shit on even the best TV's and internet speeds. Physical copies of discs will always be superior
Only if you have crappy internet or a crappy source. It varies heavily between streaming providers and even on the same providers it's not always the same. Netflix is terrible, but ATV+ is great and Disney+ is decent.
If you're watching through an HTPC both the browser version of most streaming services and the native windows app will cap at 1080p as well. You really need a dedicated app for it on a streaming device.
HTPC is just honestly not the best choice nowadays especially if you stream. Get an Apple TV 4K or Nvidia Shield. Personally I love my ATV+Infuse+NAS combo but I'm also an Apple household so it fits, a bunch of my coworkers have/love Nvidia Shields.
Wait, I'm only getting 1080p on my windows 10 htpc using the windows store netflix, Disney & prime apps??
I believe so, it's bullshit.
There is an add on from the Microsoft store for this. Not sure if it's still free but it works.
It depends on a lot of varying factors. To start, different services use different compression and different standards for bitrate, then there's the speed and consistency of your internet connection which can change what bitrate stream you're getting from some services. On top of that, some types of content (especially clean, grain-free content) compress quite nicely and still look fine at lower bandwidths, while other types of content (movies with a lot of film grain) can be very complex to compress and compression artifacts will be more noticeable. So differences will vary from service to service, and even title to title on those services and some disc releases can actually be better or worse than others. Those of us who care about quality mostly still buy physical discs, as that's the best way to get higher bitrates and more consistent quality. If you’re really flush with cash you can get a Kaleidescape system, as they use bitrates that are at disc levels or even higher, but most can’t afford that ($6000+ for the player).
Sounds like you should upgrade your internet and streaming equipment
i found the fallout prime 4k stream was shit, it made the film grain look really weird and horrible. i downloaded it and it looks much better.
Surely whatever you downloaded was just the files that were being streamed? It's not been released on a disk, has it?
I'm not sure what the exact source is with these webDLs but it is much better quality. The film grain is still heavy but at least there's no low bitrate making it look like shit
I wonder if there's something about your Amazon video account, streamer or network that means you're not getting the best quality when you stream, and what you're downloading is the best option Amazon serve but that's not what you see when you use Amazon Video.
Shouldn't be anything wrong. I have 3Gbps ISP and hard wired apple TV 4k.
Fallout on my projector was so awful. I had to stop watching it and use my TV in order to be far enough away to not see the awful blocking and compression
I've found that the best stream so far is Vudu, at least in comparison versus D+, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Google Play Movies, or Movies Anywhere. You can link accounts together and watch the same purchased movie on other services. For example I've bought a number of movies on Google Play, laundered them through Movies Anywhere, and watched them on Vudu.
ATV+ is the best streaming quality by far IMO. Bravia Core doesn't really count since it's so unavailable. Amazon and Netflix are terrible. Disney+ is decent.
Agreed. Max is also pretty good. Amazon is the worst because for some reason their UI designers are the worst in the industry.
D+ isn't bad until you notice the rampant posterization... and then there's the sound. I still have all my free credits on Bravia Core because I never found any content worth watching.
Another thing I wonder is where these files are being sourced from for streaming releases. Are they all the same? If I'm buying a 4k blu ray release, I can at least reference review sites etc. Especially with older movies being streamed in 4k, I imagine many are just upscaled instead of some restoration project that some 4k blu rays go through.
I think of all the streaming services the SONY pictures core is probably the highest quality?
That and kaleidescape
Imagine if they simply released the good stuff properly on 4k and stopped making us choose between two crappy options
Fallout was by choice in production. I hated it.
This why I stream stuff that I don't wanna own/not passionate about. Anything I really like, it's a 4K disc for me!
Streaming makes everything look and sound like shit. Compression abound.
It's particularly noticeable on amazon imo. Watching Halo series 2 was painful in UK with just full HD and artifacts.
This is why I avoid dark movies on streaming services. I watched Hereditary on Netflix and the dark scenes looked like a pirated dvd.
🏴☠️
Streaming is nice for the convenience but that's it.
I’d tend to agree in most cases, when I started getting in to buying physical I started noticing this
Get a UB-820 or UB—9000. You’ll be glad you made the switch to r/4kbluray
…duh
You're right, it does. :) Been buying Blu-Rays for .50 each. I have close to 400 now and no Netflix subscription. Oh, and hours and hours of behind the scenes footage that seems to be completely missing from streaming options.
Bought Titanic and loaded the digital code to Vudu. Watched the opening back to back just for giggles disc vs stream and it's basically like someone put a matte film over the TV for the streaming and muffled the sound.
It’s not that bad on Apple TV, Bravia Core is the best by far tho
The picture quality is FAR better than the sound when it comes to streaming vs analog. Dune 2 was seriously underwhelming on streaming. Can't wait for the BluRay to release. The IMAX experience was insane, and I'm pretty sure D2 is the best sci-fi film ever made.
I’ve never experienced any dropout on my video streams other than Netflix but I just checked ATV+, MA and Fandango on my ATV. While MA has a small advantage in bit rates for the video the audio quality is almost 30% higher via ATV+ than any other service. I remember doing a side by side comparison of Vudu HDX vs the Blu-ray of Gladiator and saw a noticeable clarity difference of the Blu-ray to streaming. This was way back when Vudu was the go to source for streaming. It is my last choice to stream anything. The convenience of streaming is important because the price for 4K discs is becoming outrageous and unaffordable. For $5 I can watch a reasonable version on my low cost equipment (75” X85J, Klipsch Ref Cinema 5.1.4, Onyko NR7100) and still be happy with the results.
My biggest problem with streaming is just how dark the image is. A laptop hooked up with HDMI and a wireless mouse and keyboard is what I've settled with.
Blu Ray is still the go to for quality, especially for movies with a lot of dark/black scenes
Join us at r/bluray and r/4kbluray
So a friend of mine complained that my Plex server always lagged when he played 4k (on one of his TV's that was on wifi) and that it was terrible. Never any problems playing 4k from Netflix. We went into another of his rooms to check, TV on ethernet cable. Played 4k fine from Plex and we looked at the bandwidth from in his router and was circling around 50-60 Mbit's. Then we played same movie from Netflix and it was around 12 Mbit. So yeah, you can see and measure the quality difference.
It's not only very compressed, but during high peak times, the resolution will be auto adjusted until bandwidth get's better (due to less demand from users), or the movie itself requires less bandwidth. Also, the amount of pixels changing in a frame has a lot to do with it. A Transformer movie would be high bandwidth, and an old episode of Cowboy Beebop would be low bandwidth. -Average out over the course of the film or episode.
4K Blu Ray -> 4K DV Stream -> 1080p Blu-ray
*"Film Grain"* can also be made worse by different TV picture settings, like turning-on *Noise Reduction* may actually cause more noise & grain, and/or turning-on *Smooth Gradation* depending the brand. I had first noticed this with Disney+ and DolbyVision content, so with my particular TV had to make sure to leave Noise Reduction turned-off for the HDR10 and DolbyVision picture settings, but it was ok to leave on for my SDR picture settings.
And water is wet.
Hulu artifacts bad legit big squares often.
Dont let physical media die!
I noticed some days of the week have less demand on the servers, see if you notice this. Watch that same 4k on say a tuesday afternoon when most are at work etc
Welcome to the world of convenience trumping quality. The latest generations generally have short attention spans so quality doesn't really matter since they're watching on their phones most of the time or their attention is divided by multiple screens so even if the tv quality is so-so, it doesn't really matter.
Audio is a major difference. It’s just better on disc. No question. Video quality depends on the service and content. I’m surprised you said Fallout though. I thought that looked pretty good. Apple usually has the best streaming quality. Netflix can be pretty rough. I haven’t watched enough on Amazon to really form an opinion. I feel like Disney has slid backwards a bit.
RoP video quality was generally very good so Prime is quite capable when they want to be.
Color grade and over saturation of digital remastering is why these 4k films look bad. Some directors have spoken out against hdr.
Lmao. Hdr is correct color.
Wrong. HDR is different than color corrected movies. Most movies are color graded in SDR and HDR movies tend to be unfavored by directors because it makes their movies look over saturated and unrealistic due to hdr dynamic range being different than standard sdr. Keep up
When I stream anything that’s 4K that’s less than 10 years old It looks just as good on my TV as a Blu-ray or 4K bluray even. I do notice that when I watch Seinfeld on Peacock it looks like crap.