Pirates Taunt Amazon over New “Turd Sandwich” Prime Video Quality

Megalith

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Amazon Prime Video pirates and legitimate customers alike complained this week of declining streaming quality: according to one viewer, new episodes of shows looked like a “blurry mess” resembling standard-definition DVD. Many were quick to conclude that Amazon was trying to save on bandwidth costs, but a TorrentFreak source suggests there was a mix-up with encoding profiles, which is being addressed.

“Recently, it appears these values have been intentionally changed in order to lower the bitrate and file sizes for reasons unknown. As a result, the quality of some streams has been reduced by up to 50% of their previous values. This has introduced a visual loss of quality, comparable to that of viewing something in standard definition versus high definition.”
 
I have prime and a gigabit net connection. Prime video does look like shit at times.

Yeah. I can understand quality occasionally dipping (especially on my connection), but Prime consistently looks worse than Netflix. It makes watching Prime kind of a pain and not really worth it.
 
Tried watching a movie on prime the other week, quality was fucking terrible. 400mb pipe, and it was the equivalent to 360p youtube, which is indeed barely a step above 240. That's in addition to a ton of the previously available amazon prime content getting broken up into their stupid channel subscriptions for another $5 a month each or whatever.

Now the amazon produced stuff looks decent... but I don't want to watch any of that.
 
Honestly, ive always found their HD and 4K content weak on my living room tv. Pretty fucking annoying. Also, their shows buffer really fucking slow at the start sometimes, worse than SD quality for too long.

And thats on a 110meg a sec cable connection.
 
This makes me wonder if its less Amazon issue, and more Internet provider Issue....

I remember reading something some time ago, they were debating on limiting bandwidth and streaming ot other servicers, so as to push people back into their own streaming / whatever....

reason I mention this is, I have Comcast business, 50/10 with 5 statics, and I notice NO issues with amazon or Netflix, but I always stream directly from my pc to my tv.... no other devices....

however my friend has a google chromecast, and 2.5mbps DSL and he occasionally (well...almost always) has to start streaming, it plays more or less 720p quality...for a good 2-5 minutes befor it bumps up to 1080p...


hes also using it over wireless, whereas I have direct Cat5 cable.....



edit: for the record, I think what I read was more or less related ot "what can happen" with the whole net neutrality bullshit... maybe were starting to see that?
 
I'm glad prime good for other things but I have to agree with others regarding the video issues. Pretty much anything above SD gets trickier the higher you go. I've got ~300Mbps connection and sometimes even then it fails to consistently buffer and switch over to the 4k streams. I've also noticed some strange pix-elation that even when at 4k it seems like their vbr regularly dips so low you can see details fade and come back. When it's at its best things are pretty nice, problem is best is rare and not consistent.

edit: I've witnessed this with our 2 4k t.v.s, and a 4k player with the app. I don't believe it's our ISP since when I d/l games from Steam it never dips below 150Mbps and usually averages 250-300Mbps. For the compression their using anything over 80Mbps should suffice.
 
This makes me wonder if its less Amazon issue, and more Internet provider Issue....

I remember reading something some time ago, they were debating on limiting bandwidth and streaming ot other servicers, so as to push people back into their own streaming / whatever....

reason I mention this is, I have Comcast business, 50/10 with 5 statics, and I notice NO issues with amazon or Netflix, but I always stream directly from my pc to my tv.... no other devices....

however my friend has a google chromecast, and 2.5mbps DSL and he occasionally (well...almost always) has to start streaming, it plays more or less 720p quality...for a good 2-5 minutes befor it bumps up to 1080p...


hes also using it over wireless, whereas I have direct Cat5 cable.....



edit: for the record, I think what I read was more or less related ot "what can happen" with the whole net neutrality bullshit... maybe were starting to see that?
I get what you're saying, but I doubt it. I've seen the same thing happen at work where we aren't using home consumer ISPs. Plus like I said, the amazon produced content doesn't have this issue, see the above comments about Bosch.

So I just loaded an episode of Bosch, after about 20 seconds, the picture looks pretty good. Now I try to find a movie that's been on amazon prime for a while like Arrival, again about 20 seconds for the HD thing to light up looks better than when the stream started but while that movie overall has a very washed out look, it doesn't look as good as Bosch or the Jack Reacher movie because it's quite grainy by comparison. It's not horrible like 360 or 240, but it's not very good.
 
I have prime and a gigabit net connection. Prime video does look like shit at times.

Yeah, but you don't have Prime because of Prime video, do you?

I've tried it a few time, there are things I want to watch, but I get my internet over a string and two cups.
 
300MB pipe here, AMZ prime streaming looks solid for me. no complaints whatsoever.
 
120/15 here and never have any issues streaming 4K HDR Prime. Always looks great. Same goes for Netflix.
 
In general, the HD streams do not compare to NF. The Amazon produced content does always seem to be sharper and clearer. (and btw thw show Sneaky Pete by Amazon is great too)

But the stupid "player" whether it's the desktop browser or the mobile app, can never seem to make up its mind and that's why I hate the whole "dynamic we'll decide for you bs" because the second it *thinks* there's any connection issue, BLOOP, it drops you down a tier quality. So many times I'm watching something and then all of a sudden it turns to garbage....
 
This and audio is why I still buy physical media.

Yup.

Even though I stills steam significantly, I do occasionally collect discs and now have a UHD (with Dolby Vision for the OLED) player.

I'll also say this: while Netflix is the best, Amazon ain't bad, and both are a damn sight better than anything Spectrum broadcasts or streams.
 
120/15 here and never have any issues streaming 4K HDR Prime. Always looks great. Same goes for Netflix.

This leads me to believe that those of us who are having issues with them are somewhere where their local/regional network side of things can't adequately keep up. As I have 400/15 and have seen it work to its potential I know for sure it's not my ISP but yet Amazon in UHD is often a roll of the dice. Netflix is pretty stable for their UHD/HDR.

My biggest complaint for either is that compared to physical copies things often look more like a blu-ray upscale than a true 4k/4k DI/HDR. Not saying I don't notice improvements here and there just that its not as drastic as an actual disc.
 
Yeah. I can understand quality occasionally dipping (especially on my connection), but Prime consistently looks worse than Netflix. It makes watching Prime kind of a pain and not really worth it.

I'm on a gigabit as well and Prime looks absolutely terrible and Netflix is pretty bad as well. I only use them as absolutely last resort as I cannot stand the shit quality. In current state would never pay for either separately but they come free with other services I use. They really have ways to go before I would even consider but since most people don't seem to care or watch on their phones, I guess both companies don't give a rats ass. To make things worse instead of improving stream quality, both have been declining further.
 
I wonder how much of this could be attributed to people's wifi being in a congested area. I've experienced terrible wifi video streaming while my actual downloads are great. Ran a site survey, bought some 5GHz gear, no more issues.
 
the biggest issue i have with prime video is the horrid interface i have to use, its via my roku. REALLY hard to find what you want to see.
 
Interface and video quality of amazon are pretty bad. Netflix is far superior.
 
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