Tag Archives: 4K Video

Video and Broadband Speeds

slow-downAkamai has released their latest quarterly report on the state of broadband around the world. Akamai runs network monitoring software for large ISPs and the Internet backbone providers and they get a peek inside actual broadband speeds achieved by end users.

Overall the worldwide Internet keeps getting faster each year. The average speeds achieved by end users was 5.1 Mbps download in the third quarter of 2015, up 14% from the year before. Topping that list was South Korea at 20.5 Mbps followed by Sweden at 17.4 Mbps and Norway at 16.4 Mbps. The US placed 16th globally with an average speed of 12.6 Mbps, up 9.4% from a year ago.

Akamai says that only about 15% of the connection in the world are ready for 4K video which they estimate will require about a 15 Mbps connection. That’s not a totally accurate figure, but rather an average speed for a 4K video connection. Like with all video, the speeds required for any given video clip varies by how much the picture changes, with high action video requiring more bandwidth than low-action scenes.

And so a house that had exactly a 15 Mbps connection could watch some 4K video, but they might not be able to watch a very high-action film. Further, this measurement ignores the fact that these days homes have an additional need for bandwidth for a host of other uses that range from emails, programs and apps that talk to the cloud and a host of other things that happen in the background. It’s more realistic to think that a home is going to need something closer to 20 Mbps if they are going to want to reliably watch 4K video while accommodating other normal uses of bandwidth.

One of the most interesting statistics of the survey is that the number of homes that get at least 15 Mbps rose to 15% from only 5.2% a year earlier. It’s obvious that ISPs are selling more higher bandwidth connections.

There was a recent announcement that is going to have a big impact on the ability of people to watch quality video. Netflix announced that it is rolling out a new technology that is going to maximize the quality of video to each user experience. It is going to offer what it thinks is the best bit rate based upon the content being viewed and the viewer’s video stream. Again, this goes back to the fact that there is a significant difference between a high-action movie and one that just has people sitting and talking.

In the past Netflix only had a few standard speeds that they tried. If they were unable to get a stream through at the speed that people requested they would step the speed down to a fairly low level and hoped it worked. But for people on slow connections, this often has meant lower quality movies, but also transmission problems such pauses in the movie stream when viewing outpaced download.

The new technology is supposedly going to be a lot more dynamic. Before, if somebody asked for an HD stream then Netflix tried to send it out at 5.8 Mbps. If a customer’s ISP couldn’t handle this they were automatically downloaded to something much slower.

But now, Netflix will first set the download speed according to the content. There are low-action HD videos that might only need 4 or 4 Mbps. And so Netflix will figure out the optimum target speeds for each type of content. Further, they will use a wide range of possible step-downs in speeds rather than going directly from HD to a very slow speed.

I’ve seen this being touted in a number of articles as something that will save a lot of bandwidth for Netflix since they will not force all HD content into 5.8 Mbps streams. But those articles also see this as a savings for ISPs and I think they are wrong. I think this means that ISPs with very fast speeds will also see a bandwidth savings, but interestingly, ISPs with slow network speeds will probably see an overall increase in bandwidth demand from Netflix.

Today if an ISP offers 3 Mbps, then Netflix might send them an HD video at a third of that speed. But with this new technology Netflix is going to try to maximize the customer experience and will use up more of the available bandwidth. This technology will also make it easier for households with somewhat slow bandwidth to watch more than one video at a time and the Netflix algorithms will try to fit the content into the available data path.

For now Netflix is the only company doing this, but like with all breakthroughs you can expect the rest of the industry to catch up in a year or so. One thing is certain, and that is that web video is here to stay and ISPs are going to be under tremendous pressure to provide enough bandwidth to allow people to watch what they want online. There doesn’t seem to be any end in sight for the demand of household bandwidth.

 

What’s Up with 4K Video?

4K videoIt seems like I can’t read tech news lately without seeing an article mentioning something new going on with 4K video. So I thought I would talk a bit about what 4K is and how it differs from other current types of video.

4K is the marketing term to cover what is officially named Ultra High Definition (UHD) video. UHD video is distinguished from current high definition video by having a higher picture resolution (more pixels) as well as more realistic colors and higher frame rates (meaning more pictures per second).

Let’s start with some definitions. 4K video is defined by the Consumer Electronics Association as a video stream that has at least 3,840 X 2,160 pixels. This contrasts to existing high definition (HD) video that has 1,920 X 1,080 pixels and standard definition video (SD) that has 720 X 480 pixels. These are not precise standards—for example there is some SD video that is broadcast at 540 pixels. There is also an existing standard for some video cameras that record at 4,096 X 2,160 pixels which is also considered 4K.

The 4K standard was developed in an attempt to be able to deliver digital media to movie theaters. This would save a lot of money compared to shipping around reels of film. Standard HD does not project well onto the big screens and 4K will overcome a lot of these shortfalls. But high action movies require more definition than is provided by 4K and will require the upcoming 8K video standard to be able to be digitally transmitted for use on the largest screens.

Interestingly, there is not a huge increase in quality from shifting home viewing from HD to 4K. There is a huge improvement in quality between SD and HD, but the incremental improvements between HD and 4K are much harder to discern. The improvements are more due to the number of different colors being projected, because the human eye cannot really see the pixel differences when viewed on relatively small computers or home TV screens. It’s easy to get fooled about the quality of 4K due to some of the spectacular demo videos of the technology being shown on the web. But these demos are far different than what run-of-the-mill 4K will look like, and if you think back there were equally impressive demos of HD video years ago.

The major difference between HD and 4K for the broadband industry is the size of the data stream needed to transmit all of the pixel data. Current 4K transmissions online require a data path between 18 Mbps and 22 Mbps. This is just below the FCC’s definition of broadband and according to the FCC’s numbers, only around 20% of homes currently have enough broadband speed to watch 4K video. Google just recently announced that they have developed some coding schemes that might reduce the required size of a 4K transmission by 40% to 50%, but even with that reduction 4K video is going to put a lot of strain on ISPs and broadband networks, particularly if homes want to watch more than one 4K video at a time.

I recently read that 15% of the TVs sold in 2015 were capable of 4K and that percentage is growing rapidly. However, lagging behind this is 4K capable settop boxes; anybody that wants to get 4K from their cable provider will require a new box. Most of the large cable providers now offer these boxes, but often at the cost of another monthly fee.

Interestingly, there is a lot of 4K video content on the web, much of it filmed by amateurs and available on sites like YouTube or Vimeo. But there is a quickly increasing array of for-pay content. For instance, most of the Netflix original content is available in 4K. Amazon Prime also has Breaking Bad and other original content in 4K. It’s been reported that the next soccer World Cup will be filmed in 4K. There are a number of movies now being shot in 4K as well as a library of existing IMAX films which fit well into this format. Samsung has even lined up a few movies and series in 4K which are only available to people with Samsung 4K TVs.

One thing is for sure, it looks like 4K is here to stay. More and more content is being recorded in the format and one has to imagine that over the next few years 4K is going to become as common as HD video is today. And along with the growth of 4K demand will come demand for better bandwidth.

Comcast Trying Data Caps Again

comcast-truck-cmcsa-cmcsk_largeYet again Comcast is trying to introduce data caps. They have introduced what they are calling ‘data usage trials’ in Miami and the Florida Keys. For some reason most of their past trials for this have also been in the southeast. The new plan gives customers a monthly data cap of 300 gigabits of downloaded data. After you hit that cap then every additional 50 gigabits costs $10. For $30 extra you can get unlimited downloads.

When Comcast tried caps a few years ago they used a monthly cap of 250 gigabits. Since the average household has been doubling the amounts of data used every three years, the new cap is stingier than the old 250 GB cap since households would have normally almost doubled usage compared to the last time Comcast tried this. This means the 300 GB cap is going to affect a lot more people than the old cap.

What is probably most annoying about this is that Comcast is refusing this time to call these data caps. Instead they are calling this a ‘data usage trial’ and are trying hard to compare themselves to the plans sold by the cell phone companies. Of course, everybody in the world understands those cellular plans to be data caps.

It’s not hard to understand why Comcast wants to do this. While broadband subscriptions continue to grow, with the overall US market at an 83% broadband penetration there is not a lot of future upside in broadband sales. Further, I know that Comcast is eyeing the financial performance of the cellphone companies with envy since they can see the significant revenues generated by AT&T and Verizon with their data caps.

But Comcast also must understand that customers are absolutely going to hate these caps. Households are watching online video more and more and it is that usage that is driving the vast majority of downloads. There are other households that have big usage due to gaming, and some households that still engage in file-sharing, even though that is often illegal and riskier than it used to be.

The last time Comcast did this they saw a massive customer revolt and I certainly expect that to happen again. Take my case. I estimate that we probably use at least 500 GB per month. So for me this is basically means a $30 increase in my data rate. They have already pushed me to the edge of tolerance by forcing me to buy a basic TV package that I don’t use in order to get a 50 Mbps cable modem. If they introduce this cap they would push me over $100 per month just to get a broadband connection. At that point I start taking a very serious look at CenturyLink, the other provider in my neighborhood.

The biggest problem with any data caps is that, no matter where the cap is set, over time more and more customers are going to climb over it. We are just now starting to see the first proliferation of 4K video, and at download requirements of 18–22 Mbps this will blow past the data cap in no time.

What is most ridiculous about data caps either for cellular or landline data is that the US already has the most expensive Internet access of all of the developed countries. ISPs are already reaming us with ridiculously expensive broadband access and are now scheming for ways to make us pay more. The margins on US broadband are astronomical, in the 90% plus profit margin range. So data caps at a company like Comcast are purely greed driven, nothing else. There are zero network or performance issues that could justify penalizing customers who actually use the data they are paying for.

I am not entirely against data caps. For example, I have one client that has a 1 terabit cap on their basic data product and 2 terabits on their fastest product. They don’t use these caps to jack up customer prices, but instead use them as an opportunity to discuss usage with customers. For instance, they might convince somebody who is constantly over the 1 terabit cap to upgrade to a product with a higher cap. But mostly they use these caps as a way to force themselves to monitor customers. Their monitoring found a few customers who went over the cap because they were operating some kind of commercial retail server out of their home. Their terms of service prohibit operating a business service over a residential product and they upgraded such customers to a business product, which has no data cap.

If you want to get really annoyed, look at this Comcast blog which explains the new ‘data usage trials.’ It is frankly one of the worst cases of corporate doublespeak that I have read in a long time. You have to feel a bit sorry for the corporate communications people who had to write this drivel, but the ones to hate are their corporate bosses who are determined to make us all pay more for using data.

 

Will 4K Video Make It?

Samsung_UHD_TVIt usually takes a while to see if a new technology gets traction with the public. For example, the 3D television craze of a few years ago fell flat on its face with the viewing public. And now 4K ultra high definition (UHD) video is making enough waves to gets its real world test in the marketplace.

The high-end TV makers certainly are pushing the technology and 2.1 million UHD televisions were shipped in the second quarter of 2014, up from 1.6 million sets for all of 2013. Amazon announced a deal with Samsung to roll out world-wide availability of 4K video streams to Samsung smart TVs. Amazon announced earlier this year that they are building a UHD library by filing all of the unique program made for Amazon in UHD. Netflix has already been filming Breaking Bad and House of Cards in UHD. Fox is marketing a set of 40 movies in UHD that includes Star Trek: Into Darkness.

But there are some obstacles to overcome before UHD becomes mainstream. The cameras and associated hardware and storage needed to film in UHD are expensive, so filmmakers are being cautious about converting to the technology until they know there is a market for it. But the big obstacle for UHD being universally accepted is getting the content into homes. There are issues of both bandwidth and quality.

Pure uncompressed UHD video is amazing. I saw a UHD clip at a trade show of House of Cards running next to an HD clip and the difference was astounding. But it is not practical to broadcast in uncompressed UHD and the compression techniques in use today reduce the quality of the picture. The UHD being delivered by Netflix today is better than their HD quality, but nearly as good as uncompressed UHD.

For those not familiar with compression techniques, they are techniques that reduce the transmission size of video signals, which is necessary to make programming fit into channels on traditional cable systems. And the same sorts of compression techniques are applied to video streams over the Internet from companies like Netflix and AmazonPrime. There are many different techniques used to compress video streams, but the one that saves the most bandwidth is called block-matching, which finds and then re-uses similarities between video frames.

Bandwidth is another roadblock to UHD acceptance. Netflix reports that it requires a steady 15 Mbps download stream to bring UHD to a home. A significant percentage of American homes don’t get enough bandwidth to view UHD. And even having enough bandwidth is no guarantee of a quality experience as has been witnessed with Netflix’s recent fights with Comcast and Verizon over the quality of the SD and HD video streams. It was  reported that even some customers who subscribed to 100 Mbps download products were not getting good Netflix streams.

There are also the normal issues we see in the television industry due to lack of standards. Each manufacturer is coming up with a different way to make UHD work. For example there are two different HDMI standards already in use by different TV manufacturers and the predictions are that HDMI might need to be abandoned altogether as the industry works to goose better quality out of UHD using higher frame rates and enhanced color resolution. And this all causes confusion to home owners or companies that install high-end TVs.

But there is some hope that there will be new technologies and new compression techniques that can be used to improve the quality and decrease the digital footprint of UHD streams. As an example, Faroudja Enterprises, owned by Yves Faroudja, one of the pioneers of HD television standards, announced it has found some improvements that will greatly benefit UHD. His new technique basically will pre-process content before compression and after decompression to get better efficiency in the sharing of bits between frames. He believes he can reliably cut the size of video streams in half using the new technology. His process also would bring efficiencies to HD streams, which is good news for an Internet that is getting bogged down today by video.

Only time is going to tell if the technology is widely accepted. Certainly there is going to be demand from cinephiles who want the absolute best quality from the movies they watch. But we’ll have to see if that creates enough demand to convince more filmmakers to shoot in the UHD format. This is like many new technologies in that there is some of the cart before the horse involved in bringing this fully to market. But there are many in the industry who are predicting that the extra quality that comes from UHD will make it a lasting technology.