Well, I had a very different experience to you matey. I had a rock solid 20mbit connection at my last place and Netflix buffered constantly and Amazon Prime would downgrade the stream to HD.
Only if you're doing absolutely nothing else with the connection at the time: if you can't handle 15.26Mb/s steady (which is the bitrate Netflix streams Ultra HD content at) then you're getting downgraded to Full HD. All it'd take on a 16Mb/s connection is someone firing up Facebook on their phone to check messages and poof, bye-bye Ultra HD. 's why Netflix says 25Mb/s even though it streams at 15.26Mb/s.
Exactly. So that's why I mentioned 16Mbs is a bare minimum. Netflix 4k runs at four different bit rates, depending on your connection speed (Higher the bitrate, the better the quality) - 7.68Mbs - 9.54Mbs - 11.44Mbs - 15.26Mbs 1440p - 6.06Mbs - 6.58Mbs - 7.10Mbs. So worst case scenario, it would drop to QHD before Full HD.
I'd put the bare minimum a bit higher, personally: remember that 15.26Mb/s is the bitrate of the video stream, not the network bandwidth being used. You've got various overheads on top of that. 18Mb/s, maybe, 20Mb/s might be a bit more comfortable, but not 16Mb/s.
It couldn't of been that stable of a connection, as 4K content can actually run at the lower bitrate of 7.68Mbs.
I guess it is down to trial an error. As everyone's cabinet is different with either a mix of copper and fibre, or just copper or fibre, will have a major impact on the quality of your connection. So that's more to why they mentioned a min of 25Mb/s.
I can assure you mate, it was a 20mbit connection all day long. We were fibered up on my last base. Didn't even drop at peak times. And there's no way on this earth that 4k can run on a 7.6mbit connection.
Speed is not going to be an issue. I remembered earlier that I'm on me Jack Jones now, so nobody uses more than one connection at once. Gave the TV a go last night. Firstly I am amazed at the quality for the price. I remember about 5 years ago trying to find a half decent 32" for £350 and failed. Well, finding a 1080p one any way. I watched Masterchef @ 1080p then went on to Netflix at 540p or whatever it is you get for £5.99 a month. Yeah, definitely want to upgrade that. I was also really happy with how it sounds too. God knows how they get that much sound out of a flat TV. Don't need to use my Klipsch Ipod dock any more then. Looking forward to the new Android box and hard drive arriving now. Just changed out the toilet seat (don't... I feel violated.. I had to cut the bolts off with a Dremel and it was all so gross ) so now onto the good bit.
That's not how it works: I'm not talking of buying a package which says "up to 25Mb/s," I'm talking about heading to fast.com and literally measuring 25Mb/s. 25Mb/s measured is 25Mb/s measured whether you're using copper, fibre, copper and fibre, or a piece of wet string. That's Netflix's readout, that, I recognise it - and a screen doesn't have a bitrate. That's definitely the bitrate of the stream. It's perfectly possible to stream Ultra HD as low as 1kb/s, of course - it's just it'd look absolutely terrible, like one giant MPEG artefact in the middle updating once every thirty seconds or so.
I know a screen doesn't have a bitrate. I asked if the 2160 was referring to the resolution of the connected panel rather than the bitrate.
OK, I get you now but at the lower bitrate, it surely must be blocky as hell - ere go not really 4k...
Bitrate ain't measured in pixels. The Netflix stream stats show the bitrate and resolution of the stream, which means that is definitely 100% showing a 2160p (Ultra HD) stream at a 7.63Mb/s bitrate.
That will depend how good your set is at upscaling etc. 4K @ 7.68Mbs bitrate is still better than full HD, and QHD. Edit: I swear when typing on this forum with a phone changes your text...
I also know bitrate isn't measured in pixels..... I was asking if the 2160 after the bitrate and the / was referring to the resolution of the panel it was connected to - which I now know it doesn't. Hope that's clearer.
Nope, the resolution changes with the bitrate, so it starts off at 720p and increases over a few seconds till it reaches it's peak 15.26Mbs 4k content if your connection is fast enough.
That'd be artefact removal, not upscaling, and I don't know if that's a standard feature of TVs these days: if you're viewing an Ultra HD stream on an Ultra HD TV, you're viewing it at the TV's native resolution and there's no upscaling involved. It is clearer, and I can confirm that it isn't: it's purely the status of the stream, not the connected display.
I was referring more to the resolution scaling as it drops from the native Res of the screen to QHD, and the likes, where the Set has a decent upscaler. As with my TV, I can't tell the difference between Full HD at it's max bitrate, to 4K at the low bitrate, as the upscaling is brilliant, even at 720p it still looks crisp.
