Streaming and Internet Speed

[HD Fboy]

First, I have had a home theater since the late 1990's. My current theater is 7.2.4 ATMOS audio with somewhere around 5000 watts of audio power. Display device is a full up laser engine 4K projector on a 132" screen. primary HDMI cables are fiber. ATV box is hard wired to the internet using RG-6.

There is a reason disks aren't going away anytime soon. Mostly this is due to audio but with streaming a 4K source I can still see artifacts. For those who aren't critical consumers of content, streaming is the way to go. I wouldn't purchase a disk today that didn't include the electronic copy of the content. So convenient!!

A couple of months ago I upgraded from Comcast 150MBS speed to their 1GBS service over copper. As of now, I can't get fiber into the house but gigabit fiber would be a fairly significant upgrade over my current service.

In my experience the following will improve your audio and video performance when streaming content:
Moving from Wireless to a wired ATV.
Upgrading your Internet service to 1GBS.
Upgrading your HDMI Cables.

Wireless has a very inconsistent connection. I can see my service vary by over 100MPS. This results in a highly compressed signal.

Significant benefit from upgrading the internet service to the 1GB. while on a 4K iTunes source my resolution was good, when I upgraded the service my color palette from streaming improved by an order of magnitude.

Depending on your display device, distance the HDMI cable is running, speed of internet service, and quality of the original source you can see significant improvement from HDMI cable upgrades. I am not a believer in high dollar cables, but with 4K and ATMOS a real 18GB cable does matter. Any yes, you can see the difference.

I expect it will be a while before we will actually see real ATMOS from streaming services. Based on my experience, I think you would need a minimum of a 2GBS fiber plug (with little over traffic) to support this without any degradation in the quality. There is an audible difference in ATMOS lite and real ATMOS off of a blueray or 4k disk.

I am pretty impressed with the ability of the ATV to compress the signal to match to the internet speeds vs. throwing bad dropouts and pixelation into the picture. While compression is never preferred, it is a better solution for casual tv watching than bad artifacts.

 

[dsdevries]

I think upgrading your internet speed could not possibly have had any positive effect on your audio on video streaming performance. As of today, most streaming content providers (iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, Vudu) use about 15 to 18mb/s on average and they all max out at 25mb/s during preloading. I'm not sure about the regulations in the US, but in Europe, ISP's should be able to deliver at least 75% of the advertised internet speeds. So even with a 150mb/s internet connection, you should be fine. Unless you stream movies on 4 screens at the same time. With all other things, nothing a good QoS server couldn't handle.

I agree with you on that switching to cable vs wifi could drastically improve the performance of your apple tv. However, the Apple TV 4k supports 802.11 AC 5ghz. So when your wifi network is setup correctly using all 802.11ac equipement, you should also be able to reach the speeds required for the the Apple TV to reach is full potential. But with gigabit ethernet you can be assured that your local network is never the bottleneck, and that there is no radio interference. Especially when there are lots of other devices nearby that will use the wifi network as well (tv, stb, atv, receiver, iphone, ipad, laptop, etc). I prefer my entire home cinema to be wired as well.

Now about HDMI cabled, i'm not a believer of high dollar cables, but i do believe you need good enough cables. You do not need 100,- plus, 'high end' shielded cables with gold plated plugs and corded sleeving, etc.. You do need a cable that is fast enough to deliver an uncompressed Dolby Vision or DTS-X audio stream and 4K Dolby Vision or HDR10 video. Best way to assure that your cable meets those requirements is to buy a premium-UHD certified HDMI 2.0 cable. But you can buy a decent cable for much less if you know what to look for. A 30,- to 40,- cable from a trusted reseller should do the job just fine.
Now if you hdmi cable runs parallel to you speaker wire for a bit, you might want to have them shielded to prevent any small bit off cross talk that might occur. I never heard of a real life situation where one could actually find scientific proof that this had any negative influence on audible audio quality though.

 

[HD Fboy]

I think upgrading your internet speed could not possibly have had any positive effect on your audio on video streaming performance. As of today, most streaming content providers (iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, Vudu) use about 15 to 18mb/s on average and they all max out at 25mb/s during preloading. I'm not sure about the regulations in the US, but in Europe, ISP's should be able to deliver at least 75% of the advertised internet speeds. So even with a 150mb/s internet connection, you should be fine. Unless you stream movies on 4 screens at the same time. With all other things, nothing a good QoS server couldn't handle.

My A/V contractor (a long term friend) and I wouldn't have believed it either. I assure you it has made a significant impact. Both of us have been astounded. The difference has been in the number of colors. Why has this been our experience? Don't know. But we see it in other applications as well. I use Playstation Vue for cable and the picture there is equal to my OTA antenna (again, I didn't think this was possible).

Now, my projector is a JVC-4500. This is the same projector used at PIXAR Studios as their reference (per JVC engineer). This may be the reason we can see the difference.

Now about HDMI cabled, i'm not a believer of high dollar cables, but i do believe you need good enough cables. You do not need 100,- plus, 'high end' shielded cables with gold plated plugs and corded sleeving, etc.. You do need a cable that is fast enough to deliver an uncompressed Dolby Vision or DTS-X audio stream and 4K Dolby Vision or HDR10 video. Best way to assure that your cable meets those requirements is to buy a premium-UHD certified HDMI 2.0 cable. But you can buy a decent cable for much less if you know what to look for. A 30,- to 40,- cable from a trusted reseller should do the job just fine.
Now if you hdmi cable runs parallel to you speaker wire for a bit, you might want to have them shielded to prevent any small bit off cross talk that might occur. I never heard of a real life situation where one could actually find scientific proof that this had any negative influence on audible audio quality though.

If your cable run exceeds 3 meters the quality of the cable matters (all cables tested were certified to 18gb). on my 25 foot run I have now gone thru 3 different cables. First one was cheap copper, it didn't get it done. Next two, not so cheap fiber. Ruipro has tested the best so far. Again you can see the difference. JVC engineers recommend only using 2 cables. Ruipro is one of their choices. @ 30 feet, $160.

 

[400]

All the correctly certified cable will ensure is that the 1’s and 0's are correctly delivered to the other end. The cable should work at the certified intended bit rate (e.g. up to 18Gb/s), or it will not (then it is a dud, send it back), and it will not visually improve upon the delivered content. Usual digital vision error issues when it is not quite there, sparkling, drops outs etc. all the way to black screen.

e.g That red part of whatever you are watching, that information in the 1's and 0's transmitted down the cable telling the TV pixels to be a certain red will not change and that bunch of 1's and 0's will be the same at the receiver whether it is LG or Samsung etc. There is nothing in a basic cable that will say pop them reds a bit more, sharpen that area. There is no benefit once that working threshold is passed by paying more however that is up to the user.

Of course distance is an issue with copper as it is on any metal cable for any signal be it analogue or digital.

If you buy a "high speed" or "premium" certified cable and it does not work as intended and within the distance then send it back or make sure you purchase from someone with a returns policy. They are being a bit loose with reality. There are cheap ones that are certified correctly and cheaper ones that may or may not work with fake certification and expensive ones that are certified that will do exactly the same as the cheap ones. Pays your money, takes your choice.

I am fortunate that my runs are 6' or so and I use cheap cables and they work on all my 4k devices at 60fps. Most expensive I have is £8.

Also, don't forget the TV HDMI part of the connection, that needs to be to specification as well for the intended signal and is not a cable. e.g. 1.3 vs 1.4 etc.

 

[dsdevries]

My A/V contractor (a long term friend) and I wouldn't have believed it either. I assure you it has made a significant impact. Both of us have been astounded. The difference has been in the number of colors. Why has this been our experience? Don't know. But we see it in other applications as well. I use Playstation Vue for cable and the picture there is equal to my OTA antenna (again, I didn't think this was possible).
Now, my projector is a JVC-4500. This is the same projector used at PIXAR Studios as their reference (per JVC engineer). This may be the reason we can see the difference.
If your cable run exceeds 3 meters the quality of the cable matters (all cables tested were certified to 18gb). on my 25 foot run I have now gone thru 3 different cables. First one was cheap copper, it didn't get it done. Next two, not so cheap fiber. Ruipro has tested the best so far. Again you can see the difference. JVC engineers recommend only using 2 cables. Ruipro is one of their choices. @ 30 feet, $160.

Your mind is messing with you. It's a well documented thing called the placebo effect. You spend lots of money on those things, so you want it to have a positive effect on your experience and thus your mind tells you it does.
In reality, there is nothing that can force your Apple TV to use more than 25mb/s and a $ 160,- hdmi cable does not add more colors to an already coded bitstream. They either work, or they don't. I think you might have experienced some problems with your wifi network, or your ISP just wasn't anywhere near delivering their advertised speeds, but other than that it's placebo.

Now, i don't say that the investments you made aren't worth it. A placebo effect is also a real effect. People can fight (or at least postpone) cancer with their minds (Steve). People can also get rid of a lot of problems by wearing certain rocks or a balance bracelet. In the end, a rock is just a rock and a magnet is just a magnet. However, a positive mind can make a huge difference. So if you're happy with your setup the way it is now, then that's great! Go and enjoy it! Just don't come here and try to convince people they need $160 hdmi cables and a $100 p.m. internet connection.

 

[HDFan]

In my experience the following will improve your audio and video performance when streaming content:
Moving from Wireless to a wired ATV.

Not necessarily. A 1 GB ethernet connection is 1000/8=125 MB/s - theoretical. I have seen my Wifi connections hit over 170 MB/s. Hardwiring does reduced bandwidth variability.

As of today, most streaming content providers (iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, Vudu) use about 15 to 18mb/s on average and they all max out at 25mb/s during preloading.

Yep. An UHD Blu-ray disk tops out at 128 Mbs. Your old 150 MB/s internet was overkill for current UHD streaming services.

Cables are a nightmare. Just because they say "certified" doesn't necessarily mean that they will work in your environment. The longer the length the more problematic they are. Because of the difficulty in diagnosing cable issues (is it the cable? Is it the sending device? The receiving device? Something else in the HDMI chain?) this is one area where it worth buying high quality cables.

 

[400]

Cables are simple. Sales people (snake oil types not the genuine ones) and internet whispers overcomplicate them.

 

[dsdevries]

Not necessarily. A 1 GB ethernet connection is 1000/8=125 MB/s - theoretical. I have seen my Wifi connections hit over 170 MB/s. Hardwiring does reduced bandwidth variability.
Yep. An UHD Blu-ray disk tops out at 128 Mbs. Your old 150 MB/s internet was overkill for current UHD streaming services.

Indeed. Even UHD Blu-ray disk don't use more than 128 mb/s, and these can contain uncompressed 7.1, DTS-X or Dolby Atmos audio streams combined with 4k 60hz wide color-gammut space HEVC encoded video. Your current internet speed even tops professional Digital Cinema Package delivery systems used by IMAX and Dolby Cinemas. This is total overkill for your Apple TV and I doubt you can even see the difference between Blu-Ray and a true DCP from normal viewing distances. There are few who can.

Cables are a nightmare. Just because they say "certified" doesn't necessarily mean that they will work in your environment. The longer the length the more problematic they are. Because of the difficulty in diagnosing cable issues (is it the cable? Is it the sending device? The receiving device? Something else in the HDMI chain?) this is one area where it worth buying high quality cables.

It's true that a bad HDMI cable can cause numerous problems, but none of them include loss of audio/video quality. Something either works, or it doesn't. You get bad handshakes, drop outs, lip-sync issues, miss recognized formats, etc. But no reduced color-gamut, added compression marks, or poor audio. The stream has already been encoded, a bad HDMI cable does not change that.

 

[Macalicious2011]

Hardwiring does reduced bandwidth variability.

It absolutely does.

Buying a powerline extender is the best best ever upgrade I've done to internet at home. The extender is plug in to a socket behind the TV. The Apple TV and PS4 PRO are both plugged into it. No issues with buffering, dropped connection, latency or anything.

Similarly the 2.4GHz and 5GHz connection are more reliable compared with the modem/router given to my by the ISP(BT Fiber to home).

Currently I'm on 50GBit/sec and over Christmas we were 5 adults in the house streaming via 4K Netflix while using phones, laptop, PS4 Remote Play and tablets. There were no hiccups at all. Everything works beautifully.

I have no incentive to upgrade speed at all and highly recommend those with issues to consider upgrading their router.