Guardyan
Stunt Coordinator
Hey everyone,
I need you to please help me - I've started watching the new season of Black Mirror (S7) and at first, while watching the episode "Common People," I've noticed that the image was sorta lacking definition though most of the time it seemed fine (acceptable for just a few minutes in my case). My internet is top notch, but I still restarted my modem to see if that fixed the issue. Well, it didn't. I accessed the Video Resolution Overlay (that white text we get on the top left corner when we press Info or Display on our remotes) and saw that bitrate for the episode was 0.33 Mbps. That was too strange for me because:
1. Episode "USS Callister" (Part 2) had a 1.50 Mbps bitrate. The quality was much better but I still found it odd because...
2. ... by playing a random Netflix Original movie, I got a 2.24 Mbps for bitrate!
3. Then I started playing "Hotel Reverie" (another episode from Black Mirror S7) and there it was the soft/weird/lacking definition image. At times your eyes can be fooled and everything seems fine, but there are some small pixelation. I checked Video Resolution Overlay again and voilà - the same bitrate of 0.33 Mbps for this episode as well.
I've contacted Netflix and they filed a report - and I also sent my own reports - but so far nothing has been fixed. It was very annoying because the agent made me restart my TV, log out and log back into my account, a nightmare of troubleshooting that got me nowhere. I knew from the beginning it was an issue on their end.
Then, out of curiosity, I checked "Hotel Reverie" on my phone and saw that it was even weirder on my phone screen: it got that damned soap opera effect on it! And it's so evident on the phone screen. I went back to the TV and saw that in fact, though less noticeable, the soap-opera effect could also be seen on this episode when watching it on the TV.
Is Netflix allowing some episodes be encoded in a way that an interpolation is added to episodes natively and you just cannot turn it off? I did a quick search on here and saw that user @DaveF had already brought up this subject and - wow - it was also in regard to Black Mirror but a previous season! Something that I confess I had never perceived before. Interpolation added to films is the reason why I downgraded my cable package because it was just pissing me off to see movies that looked like cheap video recordings. I have no idea why they are doing that damn thing and that's the reason why I've been resorting to streaming: because in general they respect the director's vision and don't mess with or tweak the media.
So, could you please check those titles I mentioned above and see what bitrate you're getting? All you need to do is play the episodes and press info/display on your remotes to access the Video Resolution Overlay.
EDIT: It's worth mentioning that I don't have Premium but image quality has always been great even on Standard.
I need you to please help me - I've started watching the new season of Black Mirror (S7) and at first, while watching the episode "Common People," I've noticed that the image was sorta lacking definition though most of the time it seemed fine (acceptable for just a few minutes in my case). My internet is top notch, but I still restarted my modem to see if that fixed the issue. Well, it didn't. I accessed the Video Resolution Overlay (that white text we get on the top left corner when we press Info or Display on our remotes) and saw that bitrate for the episode was 0.33 Mbps. That was too strange for me because:
1. Episode "USS Callister" (Part 2) had a 1.50 Mbps bitrate. The quality was much better but I still found it odd because...
2. ... by playing a random Netflix Original movie, I got a 2.24 Mbps for bitrate!
3. Then I started playing "Hotel Reverie" (another episode from Black Mirror S7) and there it was the soft/weird/lacking definition image. At times your eyes can be fooled and everything seems fine, but there are some small pixelation. I checked Video Resolution Overlay again and voilà - the same bitrate of 0.33 Mbps for this episode as well.
I've contacted Netflix and they filed a report - and I also sent my own reports - but so far nothing has been fixed. It was very annoying because the agent made me restart my TV, log out and log back into my account, a nightmare of troubleshooting that got me nowhere. I knew from the beginning it was an issue on their end.
Then, out of curiosity, I checked "Hotel Reverie" on my phone and saw that it was even weirder on my phone screen: it got that damned soap opera effect on it! And it's so evident on the phone screen. I went back to the TV and saw that in fact, though less noticeable, the soap-opera effect could also be seen on this episode when watching it on the TV.
Is Netflix allowing some episodes be encoded in a way that an interpolation is added to episodes natively and you just cannot turn it off? I did a quick search on here and saw that user @DaveF had already brought up this subject and - wow - it was also in regard to Black Mirror but a previous season! Something that I confess I had never perceived before. Interpolation added to films is the reason why I downgraded my cable package because it was just pissing me off to see movies that looked like cheap video recordings. I have no idea why they are doing that damn thing and that's the reason why I've been resorting to streaming: because in general they respect the director's vision and don't mess with or tweak the media.
So, could you please check those titles I mentioned above and see what bitrate you're getting? All you need to do is play the episodes and press info/display on your remotes to access the Video Resolution Overlay.
EDIT: It's worth mentioning that I don't have Premium but image quality has always been great even on Standard.
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