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Comment by jiggawatts | Hacker News Reader

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"Don't be snarky."

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How's it not 4K?

You need to use Windows 10 Creator update or newer and the Edge browser (most likely the old one and not the newer Chromium based). You need an Intel 7th generation CPU (i3, i5, or i7) or an Nvidia GPU.[1][2]

[1]: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23931

[2]: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4583/~/4...

Despite having all of those requirements I still can't get 4k streams on my PC. All I've managed to find are rumours from unofficial sources that there's some issue with HDCP 2.2 when using displayport with certain monitors. Either way it's extremely convoluted. In fact it's vastly easier just to pirate the 4k version. I don't feel bad about doing this because I already pay for netflix.

> How's it not 4K?

Many people report Netflix's 4k is very heavily compressed compared to 4k blu-ray, making it high quality in name only.

I wouldn't know, because Netflix won't serve 4k content to any of my devices.

> Many people report Netflix's 4k is very heavily compressed compared to 4k blu-ray, making it high quality in name only.

This is quite true, and it is to be expected from a streaming service that wants to deliver 4K video over most Internet connections. They stream 4K at around 15mbps to my LG TV, meanwhile a blu-ray's video stream would go above 50mbps typically.

There is definitely also a cost component to take into account when you have over 160M paying accounts to deliver content to.

Every time I read a requirements list like this I remind myself that the pirated version works without hassle.

For those not on Windows and without a very specific hardware setup, 4K and even 1080p is unattainable. I understand the annoyance the person you replied to feels.

> the Edge browser (most likely the old one and not the newer Chromium based).

Chromium-Edge also supports 4k (and higher-bitrate 1080p) streaming because Microsoft added the same DRM used in normal Edge to Chromium-Edge.

I was under the impression you actually can via exactly one browser: Microsoft Edge.

Netflix's UWP client also supports 4k streaming, alongside 5.1 audio at a slightly-higher bitrate (128kbps IIRC?), but it has the same HDCP and Intel/NVIDIA requirements as far as I know.

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