Netflix's new revolutionary idea? Re-encoding all of its movies, TV shows, and anything in between located in its streaming database to make its streaming service faster, stronger, and clearer — all the while saving consumers data.
Netflix has been working on this algorithm retooling for four years from its Los Gatos, Calif., office, according to an exclusive published by Variety. The endgame? To boost streaming capabilities for a cleaner, faster experience, and to do it by saving up to 20 percent of data for users as they use less bandwidth when streaming.
Netflix's plan, which the company intends to implement at the end of the first quater of 2016, could be a true gamechanger. As Variety pointed out, Netflix accounts for roughly a third of all data usage during Internet peak hours, and on top of that, international Netflix account holders who live in areas with slow streaming service to begin with would see a significant improvement in their streaming quality.
Here's a breakdown of Netflix's encoding scale as of now: video files with slogging connections are encoded with a bitrate of 235 Kbps, which results in a low-res quality of 320 by 240 pixels; a midrange quality connection encodes a bitrate of 1,750 Kbps with a resolution of 1,280 by 720 pixels, and a high-quality file is encoded with a 5,800 Kpbs bitrate for a high-res 1080 pixel experience. Bitrates measure how much data is transmitted in a given amount of time, and the quality of an audio or video file is measured by its bitrate.
This model would work fine — if every movie streamed the same way. Because different shows need different amounts of data for streaming, problems and viewing discrepancies can occur.
"You shouldn't allocate the same amount of bits for My Little Pony as for The Avengers," Netflix's video algorithms manager Anne Aaron told Variety in an exclusive interview.
"A one-size-fits-all model doesn't give you the most optimal quality," she added.
Netflix's new encoding model is essentially more of a boutique approach, with each video on the streaming service individualized as per its data set, making it simple to watch movies and episodes in HD quality with minimal draw on the data stream.
"We want to be good stewards of the Internet," Aaron concluded.
Via: Variety
Photo: Shardayy | Flickr
