Comments on: To stream everywhere, Netflix encodes each movie 120 times

By: B. Shamb

B. Shamb — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:01:26 +0000

You do not need 120 encodes to support all the devices they are. There are 3 major formats out there – Smooth Streaming, HLS, MPEG-DASH. Each of these can use H.264 video. To cover from 3G low bandwidth support to broadband 1080p, you would need roughly 15-20 streams.

A system can be optimised to encode those 20 streams using H.264, then take those encodes and package into the 3 different formats.

The only possibility why Netflix is saying 120 encodes is that they are re-encoding per format, which is extremely inefficient. If they made a slight and simple change (and believe me its quite simple as I have done it), they would cut costs by 2/3′s.

By: tt

tt — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 09:57:54 +0000

I’m joining the conversation with a null statement.

By: Lola

Lola — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:35:24 +0000

Netflix dont do that. Im sure u have some virus or trojan or something running, but thats not netflix.

By: eSage

eSage — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 20:51:48 +0000

And under what authority do you make that statement? Do you work for Netflix? Do you work for the encoding arm? Or are you just being a Bork content with your own self-perceived knowledge of everything?

By: streaming guard

streaming guard — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 08:01:35 +0000

120 is the number of profiles. say if in adaptive streaming you have 4 profiles for SD and 8 for HD, then you’d have per title 6 profiles, meaning 20 different devices profiles. sound right to me. BBC iplayer has announced 80 profiles.

By: Kieran Mullen

Kieran Mullen — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 05:21:41 +0000

Wish they would not feed the beast and stop using amazons server farm.

By: Janko Roettgers

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 21:45:28 +0000

Point taken. :)

By: Kwantem Mekanik

Kwantem Mekanik — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 21:35:52 +0000

“More than 900, to be precise. ”

I don’t think you know precisely what “precise” means…

By: E. Ursa

E. Ursa — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 19:30:54 +0000

I wonder if the MPAA is charging them for each encoding? They’re greedy and stupid enough.

By: pete_otaqui

pete_otaqui — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 10:44:49 +0000

I really wish the BBC had seriously tackled the web video format when it had the chance. As an organisation it was brilliantly placed with both the brains and requirements for solving so many of the problems. I think it’s too late now though, and the BBC Trust would cite the amount of time and money other companies are putting into web video formats as making it commercially unfair for them to get involved.