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Netflix Super HD

Time Warner Cable has a serious bone to pick with Netflix over the latter's new high quality streaming service. Netflix at present offers the option to stream content in 3D or Super HD for a express number of titles. The stop cost to consumers for the feature? $0. Any current Netflix subscriber tin can have advantage of the option if your ISP agrees to apply Netflix's own Open Connect content commitment network (CDN).

Netflix has built and designed its own CDN, and therein lies the problem. "Netflix is actually closing off access to some of its content while seeking unprecedented preferential handling from ISPs," Fourth dimension Warner Cablevision said in a argument to Multichannel News. "We believe it is wrong for Netflix to withhold any content formats from our subscribers and the subscribers of many other ISPs. Time Warner Cable's network is more than capable of delivering this content to Netflix subscribers today."

Hither'south the catch: This "preferential treatment" is nonexistent. Some of you may recall the fight between Comcast and Level 3 over peerage in 2022. More recently, Comcast has been caught prioritizing its own video service, falsely claiming that it travels over a separate network, and not counting the service against data caps. All of these battles are a struggle over who pays for content commitment and how services are prioritized or de-prioritized to assign favor.

If TWC agrees to use Netflix'southward CDN, information technology can't charge Netflix carrier fees — and that's precisely the "preferential treatment" Netflix is request for. If you think about information technology, the argument is prima facie ridiculous. Netflix is building its own service to deliver content rather than rely on tertiary parties to practice so. This is directly tied to the 2022 Comcast/L3 dispute. The result of that dispute was that Level 3 had to pay Comcast CDN fees to carry Netflix traffic after Netflix had already paid Level 3 to carry it.

Go on in mind, Netflix isn't charging other ISPs to employ its CDN to behave its own content. Thus far, British Telecom, Cable, Clearwire, Google Fiber, Telmex, Telus, and Virgin Media have signed on to use Open Connect. Fourth dimension Warner Cable is in talks with the company and will likely agree, though with sick grace. Netflix hasn't published whatever screen shots or comparisons between Super HD video and standard Hard disk streaming, but claims that customers volition need a 5Mbit connectedness — minimum — to utilize the service. Currently supported devices are:

  • Sony PlayStation iii
  • Apple Telly with 1080p
  • Roku with 1080p
  • Nintendo Wii U
  • Windows 8
  • Blu-Ray Players and Smart TV'south with existing Netflix 1080p support
  • More devices coming soon!

4K resolution comparison

Ultra Hard disk? Go Set up To Rumble

This fight is a forerunner to the battle we'll come across between streaming video services and Ultra Hd tv set as the latter continues to evolve. Streaming services like Netflix are the logical place to deploy 4K source material; the Blu-ray standard doesn't currently allow 4K content and any upgrades to add together the specification will break compatibility with current-generation players.

The problem is that 4K is going to eat substantially more bandwidth than 1080p content. The advent of H.265 (aka High Efficiency Video Coding) will ameliorate this, but won't negate the difference altogether. Companies similar Netflix, having been burned once by ISP greed, aren't willing to continue underwriting Internet access provider profit margins, particularly when the cost to send a GB of traffic across major networks continues falling while the toll of data access is only going upwards.

The ISPs, meanwhile, are just as determined not to become dumb pipes. Thus, we have Comcast and AT&T treating their ain content preferentially. If the shift to streaming services continues, this is simply going to become a larger flash point. Consumers, meanwhile, are caught in the middle. The trick for determining which service or product actually upholds net neutrality is to ask where the coin is or isn't flowing. In this case, Netflix is trying to reduce its ain costs and offering a costless CDN to the ISPs.