Xbox 360 NetFlix HD movies Quality Vs True Blu-Ray HD?

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SuperJedi

CAGiversary!
I am not sure where to ask this question.

How does HD videos downloaded from Xbox NXE via Netflix compared to Blu-ray movies?

Is it at least 80% good enough?
 
That's all relative. I personally can watch the netflix streaming without a major problem as long as I have full signal strength, but I will always wait to see a blu-ray copy of the movie if I can.

You can thoroughly enjoy a movie over netflix but you can see the compression they use to stream it in HD. Then again, I do a little bit of color/scratch & dirt correction for short films so I've trained my eyes to see the differences.
 
It's good, but not great.

You need a pretty blazing fast connection speed to take advantage of the HD content as well.
 
Not even in the ballpark with Blu-Ray. It's a decent picture but it's not up to the standards of Hi-Def television, let alone HDMI Blu-Ray.

Not sure this is posted in the right area...
 
sound wise i doubt we will ever get near bluray.. i dont think we are even getting dd 5.1 on these netflix streams..

ive really only been watching heroes on netflix though.. and my receiver does not show dd .
 
I have FIOS and I own the Pan's Blu Ray, and it looks close to the BR on NF. Again, FIOS is pretty fast. For $9 a month, NF is a no brainer on the 360.
 
yea its not meant to be as good as a physical media.. your still just streaming it..

that being said it is pretty decent and convenient...
 
Looks like the only way I'll find out is by do a Trial with them!


NetFlix didn't do any Black Friday deals did they? Would love Membership discounts :)
 
if you are worried about how it looks to you - you also have to factor in your screen size. If you are watching on a 60in tv - then you'll most likely see the difference in quality.

I did a test run by watching first couple mins of Pirates 3(though maybe it wasnt HD?) on my 360 - definitely not even remotely close to quality.
 
I'm watching Heroes right now. It's not even as good as broadcast HD, which in turn isn't as sharp as BD. Netflix is merely passable for HD. As mentioned it's not even in Dolby Digital. Put it this way, even though I could use the hard drive space, I won't be deleting my season pass on my Tivo to watch it on Netflix.

I guess I should state I have 10.0 down and full bars when loading up a show/movie.
 
22Mb down and 6Mb up...

30 Rock looks similar to broadcast HD, but it's not even in the same stratosphere as a good Blu-ray encode.

I really wish they would support Dolby Digital Plus like the VUDU box, but I'm not 100% certain MS wants to license and integrate DD+.

Still it's a fantastic service since I already had Netflix.
 
Good bit worse quality as others have noted.

But I still love the feature. Great way to watch more flix without upping my Netflix play from one out at at ime. Which is good as a lot of months I only get through 2 or 3 movies anyway, so I have this for no extra time for months when I'm not traveling etc. and have more time to watch stuff.

But it's 100% not for videophiles though.
 
[quote name='Corvin']I'm watching Heroes right now. It's not even as good as broadcast HD, which in turn isn't as sharp as BD. Netflix is merely passable for HD. As mentioned it's not even in Dolby Digital. Put it this way, even though I could use the hard drive space, I won't be deleting my season pass on my Tivo to watch it on Netflix.

I guess I should state I have 10.0 down and full bars when loading up a show/movie.[/QUOTE]

I don't think they are sending Heroes in HD, otherwise the HD symbol would show up like the other HD movies.

The HD movies on Netflix uses Microsoft's advanced VC-1 codec at a bitrate of 2.6 to 3.8 Mbps at 720p. (This is rather impressive, seeing how DVD's hover around 3.6 Mbps in old Mpeg2). It's actually a newer version than the one that Universal, Warner Brothers, and other studios use for Blu-Ray's.

As a comparison, the HD movies you get off Live are around 4-8 Mbps. They do look quite a bit better (Most people couldn't tell a difference with a Blu-ray).

For the tech heads here is a rather technical explanation of how Netflix and Microsoft are doing it.

Also in this article:
Neflix says themselves that these encodes “won’t challenge well-executed Blu-ray encodes”.
That is not to say that they are settling - Netflix is aiming for better as Broadband rates improve.
Click to expand...

Benwagoner says in the first article, essentially, that they expect to give Blu-ray a run for their money in a couple years when broadband speeds pick up. Once you can sustain a 10-12 Mbps stream, most people can't tell a difference with a 40 Mbps stream. Of course, I don't think that is taking into consideration audio, which can add a lot more.
 
30 Rock looks just about as good as the broadcast picture... the camera looks a little unsteady at times, and i think that's the stream
 
I've watched only one thing in HD so far - an episode of The Office. It looked better than DVD, but not as good as it does from my FiOS box via HDMI. I'm guessing the HD content is streaming at 720i instead of at 1080p.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']I don't think they are sending Heroes in HD, otherwise the HD symbol would show up like the other HD movies.[/QUOTE]

Well that explains it. Thanks for clearing that up.
 
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