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Movies Entertainment Technology

How Netflix Is Using Its Muscle To Push Filmmaking Technology Boundaries 50

Posted by BeauHD from the gets-what-it-wants dept.
Carolyn Giardina from The Hollywood Reporter writes about the growing influence Netflix has from hardware and software development to industry display standards. For example, as recently as six months ago, Netflix forbid Hollywood cinematographers from using a highly-popular camera because the standard model employed a 3.2K resolution sensor instead of a 4K sensor required for the streamer's original programming.

Netflix also pressured TV manufacturers like Sony and Panasonic to feature a "Netflix calibrated mode" and "Netflix Recommended TV" logo in their consumer TVs. From the report: To make sure its content is being produced how it wants, the streamer in September launched a Netflix Post Technology Alliance with MTI, Adobe, Sony and others. It shares its roadmap with these companies, and if these firms develop tools -- from cameras to editing systems -- that meet its requirements, they are permitted to use the "Netflix Post Technology Alliance" logo. The logo has been visible in the past year at industry trade shows -- a literal sign of growing influence. Netflix also is involved in industry standardization and development efforts. For instance, it recently joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Academy Software Foundation, a forum for open source software developers.

While Netflix is involved in collaborations, the company also maintains robust engineering efforts in-house -- beyond the teams working on its secret distribution algorithms. It is pioneering new interactive content, such as Bandersnatch, which was made incorporating Branch Manager, a software system developed in-house. Other homegrown advances include Netflix's scheduling software and its work to bring more automation to audio dubbing through artificial intelligence. There's likely much more in the works that Netflix does not share with the public. But one thing is certain: The company is having a penetrating impact not only on which content is made and how it is distributed and consumed, but also on the very tech that creates it.
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How Netflix Is Using Its Muscle To Push Filmmaking Technology Boundaries More

How Netflix Is Using Its Muscle To Push Filmmaking Technology Boundaries

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  • They're paying, so they define the spec. Nothing unusual there.

    They'll be bust soon anyway.

    • Re:Normal business (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @05:14AM (#59081932) Homepage Journal

      It's a good thing for consumers too. Broadcast TV quality is abysmal, low bit rates and colour designed for the lowest common denominator. Little incentive to improve, until Netflix offers something significantly better.

      YouTube deserves thanks too. 4k/60 is pretty common there now.

      For Netflix this also allows them to compete with Bluray for the videophile market. If you check some of the forums it's getting to the point where people are saying that the Netflix version is at least as good as the Bluray, and there is a lot more 4k content on there than is available on physical discs.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @06:44AM (#59082064)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Normal business (Score:4, Insightful)

          by tripleevenfall ( 1990004 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @07:16AM (#59082118)

          I think for most people their internet service is going to be more of a limiting factor than their display hardware is.

        • Re:Normal business (Score:5, Informative)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @07:20AM (#59082132) Homepage Journal

          I watch on a fairly cheap 40" LCD screen from 3-4m away and can tell the difference between 720p, 1080p and 4k. My sight isn't great either. Maybe I'm just hyper sensitive to it.

          One other reason might be that 4k uses different encoding, which fixes a lot of the issues with the older ones used for 1080p.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by lgw ( 121541 )

            It's likely the encoding. That's much too far away for the human eye to see any difference above 1080p on a small screen (assuming we're talking about human eyes here - this is AmiMoJo, so who knows). It could also be your TV doind bad upscaling, if it's cheap enough.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              I'm not convinced by these claims of "retina" displays being beyond human perception. For example, the edges of 4k text on screen look sharper than 1080p text to me. There's no encoding involved, both are uncompressed.

              There is the moire pattern effect too. Stuff that can cause it at 1080p doesn't necessarily cause it at 4k. Even if it's beyond your ability to see the individual pixels you can still see the moire effect.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by lgw ( 121541 )

                Very often, people confuse the quality of the TV with the resolution when a new format comes out. When comparing a "Cheapest I can find" old-gen TV with a "Priced for enthusiasts" next-gen TV, it's not the resolution that's the difference. You saw this a lot when 4K was new.

                the edges of 4k text on screen look sharper than 1080p text to me. There's no encoding involved, both are uncompressed.

                Are you talking about computer monitors, or TV screens at living-room distance watching TV/Movies? A 4k monitor on your desk is a different story. If you're talking about text on a screen coming from a connected PC, even in the living

        • My eyes aren't the best either. 4k doesn't make much of a difference to me unless up close. What is noticeable though is HDR. I probably would have been just as happy with a 1080P HDR display if there were such a beast.

        • I agree that for my old eyes the greater resolution is pretty much lost on me if I'm more than a few feet away from the screen.

          But it's not just about the resolution. Just as important (and more important to me) is the color gamut of 4K (rec.2020). It is roughly twice as large as HD (rec. 709). The difference is very appreciable.

          https://www.nanosysinc.com/blo... [nanosysinc.com]

          A movie has to be shot in rec.2020 for that to make any difference, so if someone is pushing the issue, good on 'em.
        • For me depends on the movie, the scene, and the type of compression used. In some movies with good lighting and good compression it's hard to tell the difference between 1080p and 4K, while the difference is really obvious in some dark scenes or with poor compression.
          • I hope they allow or 'approve' the camera offerings from Blackmagic Design.

            Their 4K camera, the camera science behind it AND the use of Davinci Resolve 16, for NLE, sound, SFX, and color grading seem a combo that is VERY impressive.

            They just released the new Blackmagic Design Cinema "pocket" 6K camera which looks to be amazing.

            It would be nice to shoot in 6K and then have the freedom to reframe easily for 4K or HD output.

            That new 6K camera is only about $2500 too....it should give Canon and Red and such

        • Not just being able to notice the difference, but viewers being able to enjoy the difference is necessary. If something is just a tiny amount crisper visually, but adds nothing important to the presentation why even bother? Using more bandwidth for the sake of using bandwidth is just pollution for the digital era.

        • With my eyes, I can barely see a difference between SD and HD, BluRay to 4K is like, "looks the same"

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        YouTube deserves thanks too. 4k/60 is pretty common there now.

        I wonder how much electricity is wasted every month by people pretending 4k is anything other than marketing bullshit.

      • BluRay is not about the video. BluRay video can easily be stored on a standard DVD, and in many applications it is. What BluRay provides is sufficient storage to be able to support multichannel high definition sound, and this is what takes up all the space on a BluRay disc. The video is not that much bigger than the video on your average DVD.

        Video is easy, the audio is hard. At least NetFlix has minimally decent audio. Many (most) competitors do not. Most of them are absolutely terrible in the audio d

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dwywit ( 1109409 )

          Where do you get your information? And are you talking about DVD-data, or DVD-video? Those are two different standards.

          DVD - video or data - is 4.7GB or 8GB dual layer. IME, 2K features distributed to cinemas can take up to 180GB, and a blu-ray will store ~25GB or 50GB dual layer. You can re-encode and compress a high-definition source down to fit onto a DVD data disc, but then it's not really high-def anymore, is it? Hint - compression generally means throwing away a LOT of bits to get to the required fil

    • I'd bet the EBU technical specs are probably even more restrictive, defining things down to loudness of commercials vs programming; they just couldn't list the cameras that work within those specs.

    • That's the problem with the article. Most of it is about how Netflix is driving technological improvements, but it begins with a twisted interpretation of how they want their in-house programming shot at a certain resolution. That changes the tone of the piece in a way that really doesn't make any sense.

      The editor should have caught that and said something.

      • Yeah, I had to read the article before it was clear that it was about Netflix’s original productions and not all of Hollywood.

  • Film at 24p, watch at 60p...?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Harold Halloway ( 1047486 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @05:17AM (#59081936)

    If they were pushing technical boundaries, they'd have surely worked out how to enable automatic frame rate switching on the Amazon Fire Stick already. Seriously, Netflix, if you want to be taken seriously technically, don't film everything at 24p and then force pretty much everyone to watch it at 60p!

    (To save anyone the effort, I know how to change the refresh on the Fire Stick manually but it really shouldn't be necessary when the Fire Stick OS supports automatic frame rate matching.)

  • I'd settle for TVs that don't have the infuriating "feature" of automatically dimming during dark scenes as the default. I don't know why anyone thought that was a good idea, especially if there is no way of turning it off.
    • Every TV I've seen (which admittedly isn't that many) has a way of disabling that. And it's actually not a bad idea and looks pretty good on TVs that use enough zones and proper processing algorithms, but unfortunately looks like crap when that's not the case.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      I don't know why anyone thought that was a good idea, especially if there is no way of turning it off.

      Number wars. You know, like megapixel wars of years gone by , or the MHz wars, or any other thing where "my number is bigger than your number".

      In this case, the number was contrast ratio. LCDs have a piss poor one, even today, which is why you can tell even if a screen is displaying all black, if it's on or off. It can range from 1:1000 for a really bad screen to around 1:3000 or a decent screen. This means

  • Poor quality.. (Score:3)

    by sTERNKERN ( 1290626 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @06:04AM (#59081994)
    Their stream quality is less than desirable. Get to a dark scene and you'll see pixel chunks bigger than your palm.. have a flickering-lights scene and your eyes will beg for mercy to make an end to it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Maybe you didn't pay for the high quality stream. They gave me a free month of 4k recently, and it copied extremely well with dark scenes and flashing lights. Stranger Things is a good test case.

      • 4K is hugely beneficial for this as it uses 10-bit H.265 which handles dark scenes with subtle details in far better.
  • Of course filming in 4k is better is you're gonna display it in 4k later but one would think scaling 3.2 to 4k would be good enough. It's not like the difference in pixels is huge

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Wulf2k ( 4703573 )

      Upscaling 2k to 4k would probably look better than 3.2k to 4k.

      • Well, 2k to 4k you can just double the pixels but any decent upscaling method looks really good so I don't agree.

  • hey netflix you have pre and post production standards and workflows for 4k which are great
    (everyone pretty much had the same before you wrote it down in one place)

    do you want to actually set the standard for 8k production ?

    I would prefer someone, anyone really actually came out and set what they expect please

    thanks

    John Jones

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      Consumer 8k isn't getting traction. 8K TV do exist, but it's really still a theater thing, and Netflix cares nothing about that.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Khyber ( 864651 )

        "Consumer 8k isn't getting traction."

        I can tell you don't pay attention to the REAL filming industry driver - the porno.

        We had 8K back when I still worked in porn. Didn't help it was all Japanese, but just as you were getting 4K TVs we were already selling 8K movies on flash drives.

        You're like 5 years too late.

    • Considering that most 4K workflows are not truly in 4K yet, that’s going to take a while. Many are merely up-scaled from lower resolutions. Replacing all the equipment will take time, and 4K TVs are not quite universal for consumers makes the move to 8K way too early. Beyond that, the infrastructure isn’t read for 8K streaming.
  • I'm not sure I'd consider requiring producers to use a camera at least as high in resolution as a couple-generation-old cell phone to be "pushing the boundaries".
  • Bandersnatch is a copy of what has been done on YouTube for years.
  • . . . (wait for it) . . . great responsibility.

  • Seriously, I don't know many minorities or women who actual subscribe to the hardcore extremist politics supposedly supporting the "underrepresented" that Netflix pushes. As bad as the new Disney films are in this respect they aren't anywhere near as bad as Netflix.

    Also, for what is supposedly an American company, they sure are producing a lot of foreign content in languages other than English and doing crappy dubs or subtitles and they give you no way to indicate you don't want that specifically because th

  • ...how few shits I give about this.

  • ...they are permitted to use the "Netflix Post Technology Alliance" logo.

    I'd be interested to see if any significant number of consumers look for or even know what that logo would mean. Or if they would care that it wasn't there.

  • Could those buffoons that fuck my link up come peak hour fix that too? You know, because its single source to client unlike torrents? How about a small cache that people can decide to install for something off their bill per month. Sick of my connection going to shit just because ten thousand shallow whores want to catch the latest bachelor or my kitchen rules the instant they get home from work.

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