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> Transmitting high-end 4K video today requires 15 Mb/s, according to Netflix.

It doesn't really change their argument, but to be fair, Netflix has some of the lowest picture quality of any major streaming service on the market, their version of "high-end 4K" is so heavily compressed, it routinely looks worse than a 15 year old 1080p Blu-Ray.

"High-end" 4K video (assuming HEVC) should really be targeting 30 Mb/s average, with peaks up to 50 Mb/s. Not "15 Mb/s".




It's frustrating the author took this falsehood and ran with it all throughout this article.


Why? The conclusion that "somewhere between 100 Mb/s and 1 Gb/s marks the approximate saturation point" wouldn't be any different.


Yes, you've nailed exactly why it's frustrating. They still could have written his piece almost as is, even including the napkin-math extrapolations for future tech, and it would have carried a little more weight.


I watched a 4K documentary on Netflix last night and my wife got sick of me complaining that it looked worse than a 720p YouTube video


Not to mention I doubt they're even including the bandwidth necessary for 5.1 DD+ audio.


Audio doesn't require high data rates. 6 streams of uncompressed 16-bit 48 kHz PCM is 4.6 Mb/s. Compression knocks that down into insignificance.




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