Netflix - WTH is Standard Definition?

[FordGT90Concept]

DVD-Video uses MPEG-2 and a very limited set of resolutions (NTSC: 720 × 480; PAL: 720 x 576), frames per second (NTSC: 29.97; PAL: 25), color depth (24-bit), and color sampling (4:2:0) for maximum compatibility. Apparently even 4:3 movies on DVD are 720x480.

 

[hat]

I've never seen a 4:3 DVD yet, only 3:2 and 16:9... but I imagine it would work the same way 16:9 DVDs do, store in 720x480, display in another resolution with clever tricks. Though, applying 4:3 over top of 720x480 would actually yield a lower resolution...

Wait a minute... disregard this, as I'm encountering a bit of a mindfuck now... I just checked some of my older rips from back when I first started doing this and they're stored in 720x480 yet display 640x480. That's... wat

I don't even know what I did

 

[BiggieShady]

I don't even know what I did

Your older dvd is meant to be presented in 4:3 format (1.33 aspect ratio) and the actual file is always 720x480 for NTSC DVDs (1.5 aspect ratio). So your dvd has a "aspect ratio flag" that tells player to distort it from 1.5 aspect ratio to 1.33 aspect ratio.

 

[hat]

I can't believe that it's stored in 720x480 and displayed as less. That means it's actually using up more space than what the actual display picture should be. Conversely, you gain a bigger picture than the actual stored space with the 16:9 aspect ratio. Spooky...

 

[dorsetknob]

Or did Europeans? An American (Philo Farnsworth) invented the TV, USA had the first terrestrial TV station (W2XB), and NTSC (1941) predates PAL (1962) by two decades after all.

BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 November 1936

Baird Television Ltd. made Britain's first television broadcast, on 30 September 1929 from its studio in Long Acre, London, via the BBC's London transmitter, using the electromechanical system pioneered by John Logie Baird. This system used a vertically-scanned image of 30 lines – just enough resolution for a close-up of one person, and with a bandwidth low enough to use existing radio transmitters. Simultaneous transmission of sound and picture was achieved on 30 March 1930, by using the BBC's new twin transmitter at Brookmans Park. By late 1930, 30 minutes of morning programmes were broadcast Monday to Friday, and 30 minutes at midnight on Tuesdays and Fridays, after BBC radio went off the air. Baird broadcasts via the BBC continued until June 1932.

Sorry America Britain was there 1st

 

[FordGT90Concept]

We're talking standards. Before NTSC was proprietary systems with limited reach. What they had back then was akin to what Dish Network and DirecTV have today.

 

[Shen]

For DVD and DVB, SD can be either 4:3 od 16:9. Both actually have same resolution (PAL 720x576), but different pixels. We're used to pixels being square, but in 16:9 image they are rectangle. So 720x576 "rectangles" "becomes" 1024x576 "squares" when you apply correct aspect ratio to display the image in 16:9 aspect ratio on square pixel monitor.

What I wrote only applies to DVD and DVB-T/S. Netflix, YouTube and other streaming services use square pixels and different resolutions for SD.

 

[dorsetknob]

Netflix recommends:

Quality Required download speed Ref
Required 0.5 Mbit/s [281]
Recommended 1.5 Mbit/s [281]
SD 3.0 Mbit/s [281]
HD (720p & 1080p) 5.0 Mbit/s [281]
Ultra HD (2160p) 25 Mbit/s [282]
Netflix common streaming quality and resolutions:

Quality Resolution Aspect Ratio
235 320 x 240 4:3
375 384 x 288 4:3
560 512 x 384 4:3
750 512 x 384 4:3
1050 640 x 480 4:3
1750 720 x 480 3:2
2350 1280 x 720 16:9
3000 1280 x 720 16:9
4300 1920 x 1080 16:9
5800 1920 x 1080 16:9

source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix#Throttling_of_DVDs_by_mail

 

[Easy Rhino]

Love me some unlimited netflix at UHD. Balls to the wall American style!!!

 

[rtwjunkie]

Sorry America Britain was there 1st

WTF? Who the hell cares about shit like that? Does it make any difference in ANYthing in the world? Why are ANYbody concerned about first, last, etc?!!

 

[Nosada]

Sorry America Britain was there 1st

Nope:
"the first long-distance public television broadcast from Washington, D.C., on 7 April 1927". The yanks have the islanders beat by about 2 years.

WTF? Who the hell cares about shit like that? Does it make any difference in ANYthing in the world? Why are ANYbody concerned about first, last, etc?!!

Because facts are important. That, and I get this warm, fuzzy feeling when I correct someone.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Nope:
"the first long-distance public television broadcast from Washington, D.C., on 7 April 1927". The yanks have the islanders beat by about 2 years.

Because facts are important. That, and I get this warm, fuzzy feeling when I correct someone.

None of the who was first in anything makes one bit of difference. We as HUMANS make advances, and they benefit the whole human race. That's all that's important.

Take the knowledge of who discovered something or who set a standard, or who manufactured something first or who landed on the moon or who landed on a comet first, and the cup of coffee you buy will cost the same. It makes zero difference and is pointless

 

[newtekie1]

How sure are you? I've been working with standard and widescreen DVDs for some time now, and I first noticed this while ripping South Park. The older seasons, being 3:2, were stored in 720*480 and were displayed as 720*480. The newer ones, being 16:9, showed that they were stored as 720*480 but displayed as ~853x480. Visually comparing one of each side by side showed one wider than the other, yet with equal height. This page covers the issue:

https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/AnamorphicGuide

Thousands of ripped DVDs sure.

I can't believe that it's stored in 720x480 and displayed as less. That means it's actually using up more space than what the actual display picture should be. Conversely, you gain a bigger picture than the actual stored space with the 16:9 aspect ratio. Spooky...

It makes sense if you think about it. When the DVD standard was made, tv's could only accept a very limited set of resolutions. It was basically NTSC only. This was before digital connectors or even VGA was common on tv's. So, if the only output resolution you can use is 720x480, why store the content in 853x480 just to have to down scale it to display it. It is easier to store it as 720x405. Some even went as far as storing it as 720x480 and I have had to crop out the black bars when I rip them, otherwise you are wasting space encoding black nothing at the top and bottom of each frame. Though that was on early DVDs, most use 720x405 now.

There are some that use 853x480, and it has become more common, but 720x405 is still most common thanks to the NTSC standard.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

My understanding is that in the MPEG-2 codec, there is no "black bars." The playback device does that to get the aspect ratio right.

 

[newtekie1]

My understanding is that in the MPEG-2 codec, there is no "black bars." The playback device does that to get the aspect ratio right.

On some movie the black bars are encoded into the frame. I know, stupid, but that is how some did it. It is why some movies when played on a widescreen TV have black bars on all 4 sides. The TV thinks it is displaying a 2:3 video.

 

[vega22]

WTF? Who the hell cares about shit like that? Does it make any difference in ANYthing in the world? Why are ANYbody concerned about first, last, etc?!!

the guy who said america was broadcasting first i think xD

we are really in a strange time with this. i have seen br on sale with full hd 1080 stuff that was originally record on vhs....black bars down the sides and everything.

i really can't wait till i see fu hd screens on sale xD

 

[hat]

Thousands of ripped DVDs sure.



It makes sense if you think about it. When the DVD standard was made, tv's could only accept a very limited set of resolutions. It was basically NTSC only. This was before digital connectors or even VGA was common on tv's. So, if the only output resolution you can use is 720x480, why store the content in 853x480 just to have to down scale it to down scale it to display it. It is easier to store it as 720x405. Some even went as far as storing it as 720x480 and I have had to crop out the black bars when I rip them, otherwise you are wasting space encoding black nothing at the top and bottom of each frame. Though that was on early DVDs, most use 720x405 now.

There are some that use 853x480, and it has become more common, but 720x405 is still most common thanks to the NTSC standard.

Alright, I'll hand it to you then. I just haven't seen it (yet) in my personal experience.

the guy who said america was broadcasting first i think xD

we are really in a strange time with this. i have seen br on sale with full hd 1080 stuff that was originally record on vhs....black bars down the sides and everything.

i really can't wait till i see fu hd screens on sale xD

I read about that. Evidently it has something to do with the way analog film works. Depending on the size of the film, it can store a lot of detail... and with older technologies such as DVD and especially VHS, that which was reproduced actually held very little from the original. If you take that same film and copy it to Blu-Ray format, you're able to store much greater detail than you could with older tech.

 

[xorbe]

In settings I see Auto, Low, Medium, High. Where does OP see SD vs HD? Afaik the setting controls bitrate, not aspect ratio.

 

[hat]

A bit off topic, but I do indeed see some of my older work with a 4:3 aspect ratio, 8/9 PAR, being stored as 720x480 yet displayed as 640x480.

Meh, I already planned on reworking this series anyway...

 

[newtekie1]

In settings I see Auto, Low, Medium, High. Where does OP see SD vs HD? Afaik the setting controls bitrate, not aspect ratio.

Nothing will change the aspect ratio, it will remain whatever the original content is. However, the bitrate allowed will change the resolution the video is played at as well as quality. Where the OP is seeing HD and SD is on the plan pricing page/sign up page. They word it as Standard Definition for the basic plan, HD available for the standard plan, and Ultra HD available for the premium plan.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

None of the who was first in anything makes one bit of difference. We as HUMANS make advances, and they benefit the whole human race. That's all that's important.

Take the knowledge of who discovered something or who set a standard, or who manufactured something first or who landed on the moon or who landed on a comet first, and the cup of coffee you buy will cost the same. It makes zero difference and is pointless

It does matter because the name usually coincides with who, what, when and where it was done....
Think about it....Algebra, .com, Grenade and Flatulence....
Algebra is easily Arabic....
.com is American
Grenade obviously comes from France
Flatulence is obviously from the UK...LOL
I kinda agree with you actually...we are one people.

OH and anyways....
Netflix does not allow you to have unlimited UHD...
right now you only get 1 4k stream and 2 1080p streams and everything else will be 720p..unless that's a ISP thing
I tried via a ROKU 4, Roku 3, Roku Streaming stick and 2 TCL Roku tv's
EDIT: EDIT:
I think without 4k you can have as many 1080p streams
EDIT: EDIT: EDIT:
While slightly funny the "Ridiculous 6" was ridiculously stupid but was nice to see 4k