Tag: netflix

Netflix Keeping Bandwidth Usage Low By Encoding Its Video With VP9 and H.264/AVC Codecs

Netflix announced last week that it is getting offline video downloads support. The company has since shared that it is using VP9 video compression codec to ensure that the file sizes don’t weigh a lot. An anonymous reader shares an article on Slashgear (edited): For streaming content, Netflix largely relies on H.264/AVC to reduce the bandwidth, but for downloading content, it uses VP9 encoding. VP9 can allow better quality videos for the same amount of data needed to download. The challenge is that VP9 isn’t supported by all streaming providers — it is supported on Android devices and via the Chrome browser. So to get around that lack of support on iOS, Netflix is offering downloads in H.264/AVC High whereas streams are encoded in H.264/AVC Main on such devices. Netflix chooses the optimal encoding format for each title on its service after finding, for instance, that animated films are easier to encode than live-action. Netflix says that H.264 High encoding saves 19% bandwidth compared to other encoding standards while VP9 saves 36%. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Netflix Keeping Bandwidth Usage Low By Encoding Its Video With VP9 and H.264/AVC Codecs

Netflix Adds Offline Viewing for Phones and Tablets

Starting today, Netflix will let you download select shows so that you can watch offline. That means you can queue up your favorite shows to watch while you’re traveling or don’t want to use up your data plan. Read more…

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Netflix Adds Offline Viewing for Phones and Tablets

4K Netflix is finally available on Windows 10 PCs

Netflix has been pushing out 4K content to its apps on streaming boxes and Smart TVs for awhile, but the entertainment industry’s anti-piracy crusade and some DRM limitations have meant PC users looking to stream ultra HD episodes of Bloodline have been out of luck until now. Starting today, Netflix’s 4K content is available to stream on Windows 10 PCs — but only if your machine is a fairly recent one. The catch: you’ll need a new or new-ish Windows 10 PC with a seventh-gen Intel Kaby Lake processor and 4K display to take advantage. So, your options are basically limited to the Lenovo Yoga 910 and a handful of gaming laptops and desktop machines at the moment. Assuming your hardware is good to go, you’ll also need to upgrade to the $12 monthly Premium subscription with Ultra HD streaming. Users with older Home Theater PCs are still out of luck, unfortunately. On the bright side, the new partnership with Netflix — which includes getting Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life in 4K a few days before everyone else — gives Redmond the opportunity to tout battery life improvements they’ve made to their very own Edge browser . According to Microsoft, you’ll be able to squeeze in one more episode before your battery dies if you’re streaming on Edge instead of Chrome. Of course, a Chromecast Ultra would also do the trick. Source: Windows Blog

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4K Netflix is finally available on Windows 10 PCs

Vimeo is working on a subscription streaming service

Vimeo plans to start a new Netflix-type streaming service and develop its own content, but its won’t spend Netflix dollars. Rather, the site (owned by Barry Diller’s IAC) will help its creator community develop original content and supplement it with licensed programming. “Vimeo has the once-in-a-generation opportunity to, following in Netflix’s footsteps, deliver compelling subscription viewing experiences for consumers in the market for pay TV, ” CEO Joey Levin said in a shareholder letter Levin didn’t give any specifics, but said that Vimeo will experiment with proprietary subscription services. To get the required content, the company will lean on its pro subscribers, who are often emerging filmmakers, directors and producers. He points out that High Maintenance , for instance, aired for two seasons on Vimeo before HBO picked it up, and that three of four Oscar-nominated shorts come from Vimeo directors. The site already offers video streaming services via its On Demand service, with content from independent producers and major studios like Lionsgate . However, users must purchase videos à la carte , whereas the new streaming service would be on a subscription basis. We will supplement our creators with original and licensed programming, and can fill out a robust slate of programming for tens of millions, not billions, of dollars. “[We] can fill out a robust slate of programming for tens of millions, not billions of dollars, ” Levin said. Noting that the site has 240 million monthly viewers “with a strong propensity to spend, ” he adds that “if we can convert just a small portion of our audience, we have a very large business.” Levin acknowledges that Vimeo is in tough against established sites like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, and notes that the site is still losing money. But he said that profitability is not the near-term goal, and that the service has a unique niche. “It’s the combination of both the tools and the audience in one platform — a one-stop shop for creators to bypass the entire existing media infrastructure, ” he said. Of course, Barry Diller tried to beat the existing broadcast infrastructure with Aereo, and that didn’t work out so well. Via: Variety Source: Vimeo (shareholder letter)

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Vimeo is working on a subscription streaming service

Netflix Pledges to Eat $3 Billion in Debt for Original Programming

Netflix announced in a press release on Monday that the company would be taking on another $800 million in debt in order to create more original content. Netflix is already in $2.37 billion of debt to further Netflix’s vision of being 50 percent original content. Chief content officer Ted Sarandos announced in January that the company planned to invest $6 billion total in creating its own movies and TV shows. So it’s half way there. Read more…

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Netflix Pledges to Eat $3 Billion in Debt for Original Programming

Guillermo del Toro’s Trollhunters Looks Really Damn Fun

Netflix has released the first trailer for Dreamworks Trollhunters , a children’s animated series directed by the same guy whose idea of a fairy tale includes rebel torture and child murder. It’s Guillermo del Toro… for kids! Read more…

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Guillermo del Toro’s Trollhunters Looks Really Damn Fun

Roku makes it easy to launch a streaming TV channel

Roku just showed off its latest players upgraded with features like 4K and HDR, and now it’s working on getting more stuff for owners to watch. That will come via its new Roku Direct Publisher tool , which lets the people who have videos make a channel for the box, without having to do any coding. Of course, you will need somewhere to host the content for your streaming channel, but if you already have that then getting content in front of Roku’s 10 million or so active accounts (those that have actively streamed in the last 30 days) is as easy as writing this blog post. To show off what it’s capable of, a number of new partners are delivering channels built with the tool, including names like Rolling Stone, Us Weekly and Cracked. Also, using the Direct Publisher setup also means content is included in Roku’s universal search , which it recently announced covers over 100 channels. While other set-top box entries like the Apple TV, Fire TV, Chromecast and Android TV get a lot of attention, the company points out survey results earlier this year from Comscore showing it has a 49 percent share of the market. All of that means being in front of more eyeballs, which can mean more money, especially with access to Roku’s ad sales platform. Channels built this way don’t support subscription or video on-demand fees (yet), so if you’re looking to profit immediately that’s the option available. Of course, as a viewer, this just means that the next time you turn on your (relatively modern) Roku box / TV / stick you can expect to see even more options. If the channels are easy to make, update and discover, then there are even more reasons to push content on the platform (if you ever choose to watch something other than just Netflix).

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Roku makes it easy to launch a streaming TV channel

Major Netflix outage interrupts your weekend viewing plans

We hope you weren’t dead-set on watching all of Luke Cage this weekend. As we write this, Netflix is recovering from a serious worldwide outage that knocked out its service from around 3PM Eastern to shortly after 5PM. While the streaming video company is no stranger to technical problems lasting for a few hours, the sheer scale and severity is noteworthy — you couldn’t even visit Netflix’s website. We’ve asked Netflix for more details and will let you know if it can explain how and why its service went down. It’s tempting to pin the failure on crushing demand for Luke Cage (which premiered just the day before), but there’s no guarantee that this is the case. Netflix has previously coped with launch day demand for shows like House of Cards and Daredevil , so it’s not as if Reed Hastings and crew are unfamiliar with traffic spikes. Whatever happened, it’s a sore spot in what was supposed to be a banner weekend for Netflix. Hi all – we are aware of streaming issues and we are working quickly to solve them. We will update you when they are resolved. — Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) October 1, 2016 And we’re back! The streaming issues we reported are now resolved. — Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) October 1, 2016 Source: Netflix (Twitter 1) , (2)

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Major Netflix outage interrupts your weekend viewing plans