Streaming UHD 4K Video: Difference between revisions

Many people enjoy watching movies and shows through online streaming services such as Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Vimeo, BBC iPlayer, iTunes etc. There are lots of services to choose from and most charge a monthly subscription, usually offering their Ultra High Definition quality versions for a slightly higher fee.

Typically, 4K UHD video has a resolution of 3840x2160, you'll need a compatible Television/player.

Different content providers will have their own requirements as to what hardware and software are required, as well as minimum speed requirements of your Internet connection.

Typically, UHD 4K video will require a minimum of 25Mbit/s, however, some providers are encoding their video streams in different ways (e.g. using Variable bit rate as apposed to constant bit rate) meaning that lower speeds are required - perhaps around 17Mbit/s. (in 2018) Netflix 4K UHD tends to be around 17Mbit/s, other services, such as BBC, Amazon etc. may well be higher, even up to 35Mbit/s.

During the 2018 football World cup, the BBC suggest that 40Mbit/s speed is required for their 4K streams at 50 frames per second. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44308154

**You're needing the Rate to be around 25M or more (some UHD may only need around 17M or so)

**Your graph should look nice a clean - no red packet loss, not blue or green latency spikes. Whilst streaming you'll see the download shown. For example: