this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2025
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High resolution ≠ clarity (atomicpoet.org)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org to c/movies@piefed.social
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High resolution ≠ clarity.

Plenty of so-called “4K” streams look worse than a 1080p Blu-ray—smeared shadows, mosquito noise, blocky skies. Resolution is just pixel math. Clarity is bitrate. And that’s where streaming falls flat.

Netflix 4K HDR? Around 15–17 Mbps. YouTube 4K? Maybe 12–20 Mbps if you’re lucky. Compare that to a 4K UHD Blu-ray spinning at 80–100 Mbps—with peaks past 120. That’s not a rounding error. That’s five to ten times more data flowing into your eyeballs.

Streaming services throttle because they have to. Bandwidth is limited, people watch on phones, and adaptive compression keeps everyone from buffering. It’s accessible, yes—but it’s not the “true” 4K people imagine.

Which is why even a decade-old 1080p Blu-ray often looks sharper, cleaner, more alive than the 4K stream that’s supposed to replace it. More data means more picture, every single time.

4K streaming is marketing. Blu-ray is the truth.

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[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The other problem is that many streaming services use adaptive bitrates, which are often overly sensitive to network fluctuations and preemptively tank your stream's bitrate unnecessarily.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah from a customer perspective buffering is the worst thing in the world, low quality is normal. For snobs like us we'd rather have 5 min of buffering if it means a perfect picture. (No sarcasm, I am a snob when it comes to quality)

[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 4 points 4 days ago

I hate buffering too, the difference is my solution is to plan ahead and have the entire film ready in advance.