Entries tagged with netflix - Channel 10

Netflix’s Neil Hunt shares encoding workflow info

benwaggoner — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:50:00 GMT

Now, this is a blog post! Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer for Netflix, has just put up a great blog post talking about their encoding workflow for their video streaming services.

It’s full of awesomeness, but I wanted to excerpt the section describing their 1st gen, 2nd gen, and HD encoding settings and workflow.

First Generation Encoding

Our first set of encodes are based on WMV3 and WMA in ASF with WMDRM10 (Janus). We chose these standards because the Janus components have been widely adopted by our CE partners such as Roku, LG Electronics, Samsung, TiVo, and of course Microsoft Xbox.
We encode most content at 500, 1000, 1600, and 2200kbps VBR, but some titles whose source quality merits it have also been encoded at 3400kbps. The highest bitrate encodes are fit into 720x480 non-square pixels (the usual 1.2 PAR for widescreen content, 0.9 PAR for 4:3), but optimum encoding at lower bitrates is achieved with fewer pixels. Encoded films are normally at 24fps to match the source, while shot-to-video and mixed material is de-interlaced to 30fps (or 25fps for PAL content).

Netflix has been using anamorphic video all along, which I think is an underused feature of Windows Media and other formats. When you’re limited to 720x480 pixels, you want to encode all the pixels you’ve got, without having to synthesize any extra.

Second Generation Encoding

The new Silverlight player (that some users are helping us test as I write) uses VC1 Advanced Profile encoding with PlayReady DRM. A key property is that each GOP header includes frame size and resolution, which allows us to assemble a stream on the fly from different bitrate encodes as your broadband bandwidth fluctuates. (Another key feature is more coverage, including Intel Macs and Firefox users.) We expect to switch completely to the new player later this year.
The VC1 encoders are more efficient than the WMV3 encoders, so we are currently encoding VC1AP at slightly lower birates: 375, 500, 1000, and 1500kbps, all square pixel. At some point we are likely to add a couple more resolutions of non-square pixel encodes capturing the original pixel-aspect-ratio of the source.
We are also re-wrapping the VC1AP encodes in WMDRM10 for CE devices, which will gradually switch to the more efficient encodes in future firmware upgrades.

This is a great example of the improved efficiency of the VC-1 Encoder SDK and tools based on it. Not all Windows Media/VC-1 encoding is equal; the latest tools can offer a very meaningful reduction in bitrate required for a give quality level, improving user experiences and the cost of delivering the content.

The new encodes are backwards compatible to older hardware and software encoders, so even older devices can take advantage of the improvements.

High Definition Encodes

Today we have rights to deliver about 400 streams in HD (720p). More titles will be added over time. We experimented with first-generation WMV3 encodes at 4000kbps and 5500kbps, but settled on second-generation HD encodes with VC1AP at 2600kbps and 3800kbps, which extends their accessibility down to lower home broadband connections. As with SD, encodes of film material are at 24fps, and encodes of shot-to-video material are at 30fps (or 25fps for PAL), rather than the 60fps that would come from a Blu-ray disc - we judged the 60fps content as too expensive of bandwidth for now. In general, these encodes are definitively better than SD, but won't challenge well-executed Blu-ray encodes - that would require a bitrate out of reach for most domestic broadband today. We believe Moore's law will drive home broadband higher and higher enabling full 1080p60 encodes in a few years.

There’s codecs for you – a good 720p experience at 3800 Kbps, which is probably a little below the average 480p bitrate used for MPEG-2 on the DVDs that fly around the nation in those Netflix envelopes.

I’m not that worried about 1080p60 encoding myself. The vast majority of fictional content is shot 24p, including 99% at least of Blu-ray discs. While Blu-ray players may output 60p, the encodes, and hence bitrate requirements, are still 1080p. I find that typical film content in VC-1 wants around 6-8 Mbps for a 1080p24 experience enough better than 720p to be worth the trouble.

I just got my Xbox set up to handle the Netflix streams – now I’ve got to go check out some of those 400 HD titles! Hmm. Pan’s Labyrinth and Heroes.

Anyway, it’s great stuff. I love it when partners can share this kind of detail about what they’re doing.

Get A Free 48-Hour Netflix Trial With New Xbox Game

sarahintampa — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:13:00 GMT

Inside the new James Bond Xbox 360 game, Quantum of Solace, there’s a special insert card that gives you the option to try out the upcoming Netflix streaming service set to launch with the New Xbox Experience on November 19th. The card provided with the game is actually a 48-hour Gold Live Trial Card which has a separate code for Netflix included on the back.

The New Xbox Experience will offer Netflix/Xbox Gold members in the U.S. the ability to stream over 12,000 movies and TV shows right over their Xbox LIVE connection for no additional charge.

NetFlix Silverlight player now in open Beta

benwaggoner — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:18:00 GMT

Just a quick note - NetFlix is offering an open beta for their new Silverlight-based player.

It's an opt-in, and once you opt-in, you need to use Silverlight on all your machines you use for "Watch Instantly."

Friday, October 31, 2008

Opt-in for the new Netflix movie player

Hi, Brent here with an update on our new player for the Mac and PC. We're past the first phase of our beta already, so I'd like to give you a chance to join in. But before doing so you need to consider the following:

There may be bugs. We are logging all errors, but if you run into problems you can help out by posting details here in the blog comments.

Not all movies are available to watch with Silverlight. You may notice errors or lower than normal quality when watching certain titles.

Our new player works on PCs and Intel-based Macs.

Windows users should be aware that if you opt in, you will need to use Silverlight on all the machines you use to watch instantly.

Once you get up and running check out some of our newest content. We recently added a lot more movies, as well as recent episodes of many TV shows including Heroes, CSI and NCIS. You’ll find all these movies & TV episodes under the “Watch Instantly” tab of the website.

So here’s the opt-in link:
www.netflix.com/silverlightoptin

Enjoy!

Posted by Brent at 1:45 PM

HD Netflix Movies Coming To Xbox

sarahintampa — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:04:00 GMT

Out of the 10,000 or so Netflix movies and TV episodes which will be coming to the Xbox on November 19th, there will also be 300 HD movies available for streaming, too. This feature is only going to be found on Xbox 360, not on the other Netflix media consoles like the Roku nor on Netflix’s own “Watch Instantly” portal. It’s an exclusive feature just for Xbox LIVE subscribers (in the U.S.)…well, at least for now. I’m not sure about you, but I’m not exactly rushing out to get a Blu-ray drive now that I know I can just stream HD movies instead.

Oh, and for those who were fretting about the HD Netflix HDCP restrictions – Engadget just debunked that. Stream away!

Silverlight 2 powering Netflix on Mac

benwaggoner — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:38:00 GMT

It's been discussed for a while, but the time is now - Netflix has just announced Silverlight 2 will power their streaming video service, which had been Windows-only until now. Silverlight 2 adds support for PlayReady DRM, so we now have the same DRM support on Mac and Windows. The service will be available on Xbox 360 as well.

You have to be a Netflix subscriber of course, but the content is commercial-free and much higher quality than the various free video services. They encode up to a full 720x480, in proper 4:3 or 16:9, at a range of bitrates. The higher rates definitely outperform standard def cable and satellite in video quality.

Lots of good stuff in the press release, but I had a couple of things I wanted to call out (bolding mine).

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), the world's largest online movie rental service, today announced it has begun the deployment of Microsoft Silverlight to enhance the instant watching component of the Netflix service and to allow subscribers for the first time to watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their Intel-based Apple Macintosh computers. The deployment, which will initially touch a small percentage of new Netflix subscribers, is the first step in an anticipated roll-out of the new platform to all Netflix subscribers by the end of the year.

Note that this won’t be immediately available to all customers.

Silverlight is designed for delivery of cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences inside a Web browser. It is expected that Netflix members who watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their computers will enjoy a faster, easier connection and a more robust viewing experience with Silverlight, due to the quality built directly into the player. Among the viewing enhancements with the new player is a breakthrough in timeline navigation that vastly improves the use of fast-forwarding and rewinding. The new Netflix player takes advantage of PlayReady DRM, which is built into Silverlight, for the playback of protected content on both Windows-based PCs and on Macs. That had not been possible with previous generation technologies.

This is one of the first big rollouts of PlayReady with Silverlight in the USA. When you see the new navigation, it’s a real testament to the difference between a media player plugin like the WMP OCX, and a rich application runtime that plays media well like Silverlight.

The rich user experience support and DRM, what else does Silverlight bring to the equation? One big thing is that PlayReady DRM supports http delivery of pre-encrypted content, unlike other platforms that require a proprietary streaming server and protocol be used to deliver protected content, applying DRM on the fly. Pre-encrypted content is both more scalable (since the encryption processing is only done once, not per user), and more secure (since an in-the-clear media file doesn’t need to be transmitted and stored on the server).

There’s been two big technical challenges in web video for the last dozen years or so.

How do we deliver the best experience to each user, in a world of variable bandwidth and hardware power
How do we deliver that experience as cost effectively as possible, enabling new business models in video distribution.

We’re at the point now where a user with a fast connection and a decent computer should have a darn good video and audio experience. Netflix is a testament to what’s possible as the cost to deliver a MB of video gets low enough, from a business perspective. While finally delivering a user experience better than VideoCD.

Silverlight com DRM permite Netflix no Mac OSX

Galileu — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:13:00 GMT

A Netflix é uma empresa americana que criou um serviço de aluguel de DVD realmente inovador. O cliente assina um plano mensal de aluguel quer permite ter, ao mesmo tempo, um certo número de DVDs. Por exemplo, por US$ 9 você pode ter até 2 DVDs em casa com você. Só que por causa da assinatura mensal, você pode ficar com os DVDs por quanto tempo quiser. Ou seja, se quiser ficar os os mesmos 2 filmes por 3 meses, você continua pagando a mesma mensalidade. E se você quiser assistir 40 filmes por mês, você paga o mesmo preço. Os DVDs são escolhidos via o site do Netflix e são entregue pelo correio (o cliente não paga nada adicional para receber e enviar os DVDs). O modelo foi tão inovador que a Blockbuster teve que oferecer o mesmo tipo de negócio (disponível no Brasil como Blockbuster Online Connect)porque estavam perdendo muitos clientes.

Bom, após essa grande inovação, eles apresentaram um ano atrás a segunda grande inovação. Todo cliente tem direito de assistir filmes e seriados da coleção da Netflix pela Web de graça. Não toda a coleção está disponível no momento (são 20.000 títulos no momento) mas a cada mês eles disponibilizam mais títulos para seus clientes.

O grande porém era que isso só estava disponível para clientes com Windows XP e Vista. Mas hoje eles anunciaram o mesmo serviço para usuários de Mac OSX. Isso só foi possível graças ao Silverlight por sua natureza de ser multi-plataforma e multi-browser. Hoje Silverlight 2.0 já conta com uma tecnologia DRM chamada Play Ready que permite entregar conteúdo com DRM para Mac, Windows e Linux e Internet Explorer, Safari e Firefox. E não por acaso o anúncio foi feito hoje, o primeiro dia do Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2008.

Sneak Peek: Netflix On the Xbox

sarahintampa — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 02:50:00 GMT

On November 19th, Xboxes everywhere will be updated to the “New Xbox Experience” – that’s the blanket term for the revamped and refreshed Xbox UI. The New Xbox Experience includes features like avatars, updated gamercards, new themes, an updated video marketplace, a new game store, and so much more. Of course, one of the most highly anticipated features that’s going to be revealed on the 19th is the Xbox/Netflix integration. All Xbox Gold members with a Netflix subscription will soon be able to instantly watch movies from their Netflix library right on the Xbox – and there’s no extra charge for doing so! The Netflix library offers over 12,000 movies to choose from, but if you can’t find something you like there (or you’re not a Netflix subscriber), the new Xbox Video Marketplace will also offer tons of content to choose from. There, you’ll find over 20,000 pieces of HD and standard def content which includes both movies and TV shows.

If you’re dying for a sneak peek at theses upcoming features, the Gamerscore blog has a few more details and screenshots.

60GB Xbox 360s Have Arrived

sarahintampa — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:08:00 GMT

According to Xbox 360 Fanboy, Major Nelson confirmed that there’s no official release date for the new 60 GB Xbox 360 units - “they’ll just appear in the retail channels,” he noted. And they are definitely appearing. Engadget spotted them at Amazon and others have seen them appearing at various retailers like Target. Of course, the big appeal of these new units is the extra hard drive space. Why is that important? Well, it’s certainly valuable if you’re thinking of signing up for the new Netflix powered movie download service. Revealed just last month at E3, the partnership with Netflix gives Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix subscribers the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix. The extra hard disk space will definitely be an advantage for anyone who plans to make heavy use of that service.

3 Ways To Stream Netflix Movies From Your PC to TV

sarahintampa — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:47:00 GMT

Last year, Neflix started offering the ability to stream movies over the internet to your PC. Of course, for Windows Media Player enthusiasts, the next logical step was to port Netflix into Media Center by way of a plugin. Luckily, there's a pretty active developer community for WMC, so we ended up with not one, but three, Windows Media Player plugins from which to choose: vmcNetflix, MyNetflix, and NetflixMC.

But which one is right for you? Let's compare:

MyNeflix

System Requirements: Vista MCE, .NET 2.0, Netflix WatchNow player
View Netflix queue
Manage Netflix queue
View history
View recommendations
Browse movies by title, genre, or top 100
Browse "Watch Now" movies
Play movies in full screen
Nice interface, very responsive
Does Not Work With Extenders
Download MyNetflix

vmcNetFlix

System Requirements: Vista MCE and Netflix WatchNow player
View Netflix queue
Manage Netflix queue
View history
View recommendations
Browse movies by genres; sort by title or year
Browse "Watch Now" movies
Keyword Search
Play movies in full screen
Support for x64 and x86
Support for Netflix Instant Queue
Support for Episode Listings
Prevents standby/sleep mode while downloading
Clean interface, easy to browse, runs smoothly
Works With Extenders
Download vmcNetflix

NetflixMC

System Requirements: Vista or MCE 2005 and .NET 2.0 or 3.5
Browse movies by genre
Browse "Watch Now" movies
Fast, Real-time "Watch Now" search
Bookmark "Watch Now" movies
TV Series episode selection
Image caching stream speed settings
Menu Personalization
A bit slow, still a “beta” app
Runs on extenders but WILL NOT play WatchNow videos
Download NetflixMC

So which one should you choose? The quick answer here is that if you have Windows XP, you only have one choice: NetflixMC. For Vista users, both MyNetflix and vmcNetflix are nice, but the extender support that vmcNetflix has makes it the clear winner. You can download vmcNetflix here.

Netflix Plugin for Windows Media Center

sarahintampa — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:05:00 GMT

If you're a Netflix subscriber, you definitely going to want Andrew Park's new plug-in for the Vista version of Windows Media Center called MyNetflix. The plug-in lets link up to your Netflix account, view your queue, browse for movies, add movies to your queue, and, of course, watch movies! Using Netflix's streaming service, you can watch movies immediately, without having to wait for discs to come in the mail. Because the plugin relies on certain software in order to work, this only works on Media Center PCs, not extenders (like the Xbox 360) unless you have your PC hooked directly to your TV or have a Netflix "Watch-Now" enabled set top box, which will be out later this year. The plugin is in beta and is available for download here.

Two cool Vista demos available, one for Flickr and one for Netflix

Duncan — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 19:42:00 GMT

Check them out at http://www.thirteen23.com/work.html

There are two applications, one that works with Flickr (called Nostalagia) and one that accesses Netflix (Cine.View).

I'm using them on a RC 1 machine, not sure what other builds they'll work on.