
What the new video compression strategy from Netflix means for Apple and Amazon - ca98am79
https://donmelton.com/2015/12/21/what-the-new-video-compression-strategy-from-netflix-means-for-apple-and-amazon/
======
SwellJoe
I wonder at his premise that consumers are choosing things based on wanting
larger file sizes and higher bit rates. Most of my friends literally could not
tell you anything about their mp3 or movie collection in terms of bit rate.
Half of them you'd need to explain what "bit rate" means, before even asking
the question. I only think about it for my DJ music collection (and VBR is
fine in that context, I'm just ruling out CBR stuff below ~192kpbs, because
sometimes it sounds a little harsh on the high end over the big speakers);
never worry about it for video or music streaming. If it's HD and looks/sounds
OK, I don't think about it at all. Netflix and Amazon both have acceptable
quality, so I don't think about it, I just consume it.

I think the success of Spotify and Pandora and Rhapsody are proof that
consumers don't care about quality. I don't know exactly what bit rate they're
streaming at, but, it sounds pretty bad on mobile, so I assume it's something
quite low. But, even though I recognize the crappiness of it, sometimes I
listen to them in the car (my truck has a crap stereo, anyway, so no big deal
there).

In short: Cool article, but the suggestion that consumers will stop it because
they want bigger files seems weird.

~~~
swang
I think you're missing the point. Consumers don't care, until some listicle
website or advertising firm points out that Amazon/Apple short you on your
mp3s by not even offering 128kbps all the way through.

Or imagine Amazon goes with pure VBR, then Apple makes an ad claiming their
sound quality is "better" because their bitrate never dips below 128kbps. It's
bullshit, but how is an average consumer suppose to figure this out? They'll
probably err on the side of caution and buy the CBR version since, "it can't
be any worse than the VBR one, but I don't lose bits and it's the same price!"

The whole article was talking about streaming vs. downloading. Streaming is
_fine_ and Netflix will probably get away with their compression, but will
Amazon/Apple be able to do that with downloads? He doesn't think so. People
are fine with Spotify/Pandora because there is no perceived ownership of the
songs they're streaming. People who actually buy and download audio or video,
they have money in the game so they want "the best" and any loss of that is
viewed as Amazon/Apple screwing them over.

~~~
SwellJoe
Has that ever happened? I mean, have there been consumer revolts over bit rate
that have cost Apple or Amazon customers? Pono and Tidal don't seem to be
killing the existing players, but perhaps I'm just not up to speed on the
state of the industry.

~~~
swang
There is no actual "revolt" because both Apple and Amazon make sure it doesn't
happen by using CBR. You're right in that consumers don't care about it all
that much.

But let's say Amazon decides to go with VBR to save space and download speed,
now there's an easy way for Apple to attack Amazon. "We never dip below a
certain quality. Amazon does. We care. Amazon doesn't"

Maybe that ad/slogan works, or maybe it doesn't. But if you're Amazon would
you be willing to risk some weird consumer backlash over it? And if you're
Apple it is an easy point to attack, and if it doesn't work, no harm no foul
(and then secretly also switch to VBR and announce it at the next Apple
conference!)

~~~
SwellJoe
So...um...Apple and Amazon have been shipping VBR files for _years_.

~~~
swang
I am not sure if there's confusion or what but this is literally discussed in
the article. So I am not sure what you're arguing exactly. The article
discusses how the VBR files have been encoded with minimum bitrate constraints
in the fear that someone will make a big deal out of it if it dips "too low"

~~~
SwellJoe
VBR with a mininum bit rate != CBR.

And, to be clear, the article is making a guess that Amazon or Apple are
imposing a minimum bit rate to insure some lower bound on file size. I don't
think there is really any solid evidence that Amazon or Apple are making
decisions based on trying to make file sizes bigger to convince consumers
they're getting "more value". I took exception to the premise, which is why I
commented above. I don't believe Apple and Amazon are making decisions based
on trying to increase file sizes, and I find it weird that the article suggest
they are. I believe they are trying to maximize audio quality at smaller file
sizes. Evidence seems to indicate that is what is happening.

And, we've come full circle to the point of my initial comment. I don't think
the argument he's making about maintaining large file sizes is backed by
evidence or a particularly good understanding of consumer behavior/preference.
I do think his guesses about the Netflix algorithm are interesting, but his
digression into consumer behavior is less so, IMHO.

------
shmerl
I'm waiting for something like Daala + Opus starting being used by huge
services like Netflix. Youtube already uses Opus.

Apple? It will take them another 50 years to start using free codecs.

UPDATE: A post on IETF blog about standardized free video codec effort:
[https://www.ietf.org/blog/2015/09/aiming-for-a-
standardized-...](https://www.ietf.org/blog/2015/09/aiming-for-a-standardized-
high-quality-royalty-free-video-codec-to-remove-friction-for-video-over-the-
internet/)

~~~
gillianseed
I'm somewhat confused, is this a different effort than the royalty free codec
which is being developed by Google, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Mozilla,
Cisco, Intel under the name 'Alliance for Open Media' ?

~~~
shmerl
Regarding the video codec, it's the same thing, except one in IETF is the
actual engineering group, and that AOM is more of an administrative one that
synchronizes all the bureaucratic stuff probably (legal as well I guess).

UPDATE: See here:
[http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/67752.html](http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/67752.html)

~~~
gillianseed
Ah, thanks, makes sense.

------
hanklazard
"But I suspect that was a problem.

You see, it would probably be difficult to sell those VBR files — some of
which were quite a bit lower than 256 Kbps and a few even lower than 128 Kbps
— because customers might perceive a loss of value."

The vast majority of customers do not care about the actual Kbps, as long as
the sound quality remains above certain standards. Just market the different
quality levels at different prices and most people would never think twice
about it (and most would choose the cheapest version).

~~~
ohitsdom
If enough "audiophiles" repeat the claim that Apple or Amazon has worse audio
quality, it could seriously hurt their brand's reputation.

~~~
dexterdog
Isn't Apple + Beats enough to convince people that Apple is not about audio
quality?

~~~
eli
Isn't the popularity of Beats (not to mention default iPhone headphones) proof
that Good Enough is fine for most people

------
mrdrozdov
Major question about this comment.

> They all have the same server farms. Owned by Amazon, no doubt. And there
> aren’t any technical hurdles. It’s just more computation.

Does Apple use Amazon's servers? I thought Apple ran its own hardware/data
centers. I've definitely heard war stories of Apple towing trucks full of
racks into the desert so they could bump their capacity for cheap.

~~~
olau
Apple's contemplating building a server farm not terribly far from where I
live, so no, I don't think they're using Amazon. I think that comment is
supposed to mean that they all have access to big clusters, not that it's the
same clusters.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
All they need is a half dozen powermac supercomputers.

But seriously, could they not be using Amazon until they finish building out
their own farm?

------
ksec
There used to be a group of people who cared about bitrate. They wanted 64kbps
Audio that sounded better then MP3 128Kbps, which till today still isn't
possible. Be it AAC, HE-AAC, Vobris, or the new Opus. Despite the hype every
time a new codec arrived.

There used to be a group of people who wanted codec that is the same quality
as Lossless at 256Kbps to 320Kbps. Personally I think MPC ( Musepack )
accomplished it. And it is patentless as well since it is based on MP2. But
the codec never caught on in Hardware world. Meanwhile AAC does about just as
well @256kbps despite being more complex.

That was in the Naspter -> iTunes download era, Then time flies, both group of
people lost interest. Mainly for the same reason. Both group wanted to store
as many music downloads as possible. 1st group dont mind a little quality
loss, 2nd group wanted near perfect quality @256Kbps, however HDD prices
dropped to a point where 1st group dont mind storing them in ~256kbps and 2nd
group will simply store them as lossless FLAC.

Then we come to the age of Streaming, that doesn't necessarily means only
Apple Music or Spotify and the like, the largest music streaming is properly
Youtube. People dont download anymore, They just click and play on Youtube.

It tuns out, I think we have reached the stage of "good enough". Whether it is
audio, or video. With Video, we can get huge improvement if we smooth out the
noise / grain details. Our broadband speeds continues to improve, we will have
G.Fast & VDSL2, the next generation of DSL broadband tech. Most kids or
youngster of this generation dont care about Audio / Video quality as much,
they would rather want instant and ease of access.

------
azinman2
Ok everyone is stuck on the bitrate argument and consumer choice. However I'm
more focused on if this plan is even possible.

Could Netflix really want to throw so much money at transcoding so many ways?
Are there various tricks to do this at a reasonable cost? Like grab random 10
seconds across 15 points in a movie and try just that? Work with top n most
popular first? Sort by existing biggest movies?

~~~
lnanek2
Doing the transcodes is pretty much a drop in the bucket for NetFlix. Even
transcoding the same movie 1000x at full length is pretty meaningless to them
since it is a fixed cost against their library size.

What they really care about is things that are multiplied by the number of
users they have. Saving 5% of bandwidth on 100k users is very meaningful to
them. So doing extra transcodes to figure out what to send is very valuable.

They've come and given talks at Cloud dev meetups and just an unexpected bump
in bandwidth or delay in server response time causing traffic to back up is
enough to knock over their servers and they do things no one else would even
think of, like having their clients upload code to their servers to batch
requests together in the optimal format for the clients, just to reduce
bandwidth and load on their network.

------
kevin_thibedeau

      I would bet money that Amazon ran into this same
      conundrum with the unconstrained VBR mode of the
      LAME MP3 encoder which they use.
    

Lame has always had a way to set minimum and maximum bounds on the VBR bit
rates. I would bet that Amazon has at least one employee who knows this. I
used to use this a lot with a hardware player that couldn't handle VBR above
224 kbps.

------
KaiserPro
Why would apple et al follow?

Unless there is any noticeable affect on quality/streaming ease then consumers
won't care.

You have to remember that most people can't/won't tell the difference between
blueray and DVD, let alone bitrate change. More importantly they have lots of
silly TV effects that actively fuck with the picture (Sharpening, Aspect ratio
stretching, over saturation, active motion, and other horrid "enhancements")

The only reason netflix et al is a thing is because of the content, not the
platform. (just look at how shit iTunes is to use) You can make the most
wonderful interface in the world, but if there is no content, there is no
point.

Streaming does cost money, but that's not the main cost of business. Most cost
comes from licensing the content in the first place. (Then paying all your
staff to do fancy things)

Seriously bandwidth is pretty cheap, compared the the cost of buy the license
to broadcast a top rated movie. (a high ranking movie is easily a few
$million. custom TV series is anywhere between 1 and 30+ million for a
season.)

~~~
johngunderman
The article seems to focus too much on the consumer side of the bandwidth
equation. I think the real win for Netflix is the aggregate egress bandwidth
savings from their DCs. If Netflix can halve their bandwidth (as the article
seems to claim) without any appreciable loss in quality, they've just saved
substantially in the infrastructure and peering contracts needed to deliver
their content. I have no idea how much money Netflix currently spends on
bandwidth/CDN, but I'd guess it's certainly in the 100s of millions. I can
imagine that Amazon and Apple would be very interested in emulating those
savings.

------
sbouafif
It's completely normal for Netflix to work on that and end-consumers wont see
a difference.

That's exactly what's been done by illegal release groups (pirated content)
which are very picky when it comes to time to release (encoding/sharing) and
do their best to encode fast enough while having a good viewable quality.

When it comes to encoding, even for a large library like Netflix's, time to
encode is always lesser than time/bandwith saved while sharing/streaming.

As of now, Netflix 1080p raw content (not transcoded) is delivered at a
bitrate of 5200kbps/5900kbps with no differences between the content (animated
or live action - here I compared BoJack Horseman to The Ridiculous 6). While
many (or even all) high quality release groups encode animated bluray at
around 3000Kbps (1080p) (around 5500kbps for very high quality) while live
action is encoded at around 11.0Mbps. The same difference is applied when the
content is capped from TV and then encoded.

~~~
paulmd
This also varies by the target audience.

Stuff that is released via publically-tracked torrent (i.e. for mass-market
audiences) often targets around 1.5-2 GB for a feature-length movie in 1080p.
In contrast, releases aimed at Usenet (the technical crowd) are often 6-7 GB
and sometimes as large as 11-13 GB for the same movie.

On the other hand the situation is much more equitable for audio. Lossless
audio torrents are pretty common even in the torrent world, and due to the
typically greater number of torrents available the overall selection of
lossless files is probably at least as large as on Usenet.

I would assume that private trackers tend towards higher-quality releases.

------
grandalf
As more video moves to higher resolutions (such as 4K) the amount of bandwidth
wasted by inefficient encoding increases exponentially.

While consumers only care if the quality is "acceptable", it's pretty easy to
tell the difference between a crisp 4K picture and a 1080p picture, and also
easier to see encoding or bitrate artifacts.

So I think this is probably an attempt to improve the margins a bit on content
delivery costs without sacrificing quality.

Netflix has also embraced 4K content with its original series, so it is in a
unique position to leverage the shift to higher resolution content for maximum
profitability.

~~~
lern_too_spel
I see it more as an attempt to offer better quality to people with crappy ISPs
as they expand to more countries. Previously, they would have seen a low-res
Bojack, but now that Netflix can decide that a full HD encode of Bojack can
fit in a smaller bitrate, those people will see a high-res Bojack. It might
even be related to the T-Mobile announcement that allows people to watch
Netflix without eating into their data caps as long as the bitrate is capped.

------
discreditable
People get really excited about this revolutionary "quality based" encoding
and to me it just sounds like -crf in x264. For trying to hit a constant
bitrate, I've heard of people performing a -crf pass, then taking the average
bitrate of the result and using that for a constant quality encode.

With this method, you let the encoder figure out the bitrate for the quality
target you want to hit, then you can use that bitrate in a constant quality
encode if you like.

------
jordache
author's point is weak. users of netflix is not concerned with knowing what
bitrate the video is. It just needs to have an acceptable quality.

~~~
sangnoir
> users of netflix is not concerned with knowing what bitrate the video is

That's part of the author's point: if netflix can halve their bandwidth
without users noticing, they will earn massive savings. Apple & Amazon will
also want in on the savings (being competitors and all)

~~~
jordache
that must have been a nuanced point. He had much more emphasize on the
strategy of differentiation via bitrate.

------
JustSomeNobody
Consumers don't understand bitrate for videos. They only care if they can
watch 1080p on their 1080p TV. It doesn't occur to them that resolution is
only a minor player in digital quality.

------
HappyTypist
Let's assume that consumers even know about or care about bit rate. Apple and
Amazon could offer two downloads, VBR and CBR.

------
nickpsecurity
Really neat stuff. Can't wait to see it in FOSS software so we can save some
space in our video collections. :)

~~~
brigade
OSS encoders (x264, Theora, VP9, Daala, Vorbis) already tend to have a
constant quality rate control mode that they'd very much prefer you use unless
you have an actual reason to need a specific bitrate. I'm always surprised at
how many people try to reinvent it via abr...

Netflix (and streaming services in general) on the other hand needs known
bitrates with known constraints so their bandwidth estimation can work
correctly without hiccups. Your personal video collection does not.

~~~
nickpsecurity
So, it only affects bandwidth and not storage space?

~~~
brigade
No - the point is that true constant quality has (almost) no constraints on
local bitrate, so one section of a movie might be twenty times the bitrate of
another section. Online streaming services continually estimate the current
available bandwidth, then choose from a selection of pre-encoded streams to
download. For this to work well, the selection must know the maximum local
bitrate of each stream to match the estimation. If this local maximum isn't
known or constrained, you get buffering because you're attempting to download
a stream that's actually currently twenty times more than the available
bandwidth.

Whereas your personal video collection probably isn't being streamed over any
link slower than several hundred MBit/s, which is more than enough for
anything short of intermediate codec bitrates, plus significant buffering
doesn't count against any data caps.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Makes sense. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

------
thecosas
Love the closing sentence from this article:

 _I don’t know. It’s hard to predict because consumers… well… we’re fucking
stupid._

------
reiichiroh
Are they just using H265 HEVC?

