Amazon Instant 4k Hits Vizio P Series

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As expected, Amazon Instant streaming has gone 4k this month… via a number of award-winning blockbusters such as Vendetta and Time Runners. Michael S sent in a few snaps from his brand spanking new Vizio P Series (which I’m contemplating) and 4k video is designated via a small UHD banner in the upper left of the box. Although Michael tells us the label is inconsistently applied and I’m not certain if the content is natively 4k or if the video has been upscaled from 1080. Irrespective, the future is here… should any of these titles appeal and our bandwidth caps be sufficiently generous.

25 thoughts on “Amazon Instant 4k Hits Vizio P Series”

  1. woo-hoo — more format/hardware exclusiveness! Its like the 3D BluRay BS all over again (not that I ever cared for 3D)

  2. Samsung announced initial exclusivity of Amazon 4K but it doesn’t look like that’s happening. They also announced exclusivity of a service called UltraFlix, but Vizio’s announced that it’s coming to their platform as well.

    Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything–all sign of the UHD banner has disappeared from the Amazon app on my Vizio P552ui-B2. Oh well, at least I got pictorial evidence that it was there :D.

  5. I have no idea of bit rate. It’s encoded in H.265/HEVC; Netflix is using the same thing for 4K at a maximum rate of 15.6 Mbps (video only, 15.8 w/DD+ 5.1 sound) and it looks great for great material (currently there are only 11 titles, with “The Blacklist” being the only jaw-dropping one–also possibly “The Smurfs II” but I could not bear to watch it (I just watched a bit of it and it too is impressive).

    Amazon has been using 10 Mbps for AVC encodes of 1080p (or so I’ve been told), versus Netflix’s maximum 5800 Kbps; before my new TV I could never get those 1080p encodes. They use less than 3 Mbps for 720p. Lord only knows what they’re using for 2160p in HEVC.

  7. “B-movies up-scaled to 4K. Ew. Ewwwwwwwww.”

    While who knows what the state of play is currently with Amazon, but be aware that lots and lots and lots of movies have been mastered / re-mastered into 4K.

    So, either now, or in the very near future, up-scaling shouldn’t be an issue at all.

    (The issue of how much a perceptual difference there is between 4K and 1080 in a world where we don’t have 120″ wall-screens is a different matter, however. I’d guess at least some of Michael Scott’s “jaw-dropping” report may have lots more to do with the massive bit-rate jump than the massive pixel jump.)

  8. And does 1080p Blu-ray outclass streaming 4k of whatever bitrate makes it through your ISP and LAN… But Michael and I were also discussing the fact that many of the best television features will end up in the high end units, making 4k sort of a bonus. One of the reasons I’m interested in the P series is the low latency for gaming.

  10. Yeh, like most idjuts are gonna see a difference. I’m a cable guy, and 40% of people have the TV hooked up to their HDTV via coax, on tuner channel 3.
    4k indeed.

  11. @Michael Scott, How does Netflix’s House of Cards Season 2 in “Ultra HD 4K” look? You mention ““The Blacklist” being the only jaw-dropping one“ Just curious as Netflix mentions “House of cards is one of the first pieces of content we have in this format. It is four times the information. You are practically in washington, d.c. if you look at the columns that it is built out of, and all of the glorious architecture of the capitol building, you will be able to see the architecture. ”

    The ViZio website says the P-Series just came out two weeks ago?! I did not realize that ViZio TV’s were so high-tech in-house developed. And the price point means 4K has arrived.

    http://www.vizio.com/p-series

  12. “And does 1080p Blu-ray outclass streaming 4k of whatever bitrate makes it through your ISP and LAN”

    No.

    Forget about pixel count.

    It’s all about bit-rate. If you can get a high enough guaranteed minimum bit-rate through streaming, given the codec differences, then you’ll outclass Blu-Ray. Otherwise, vice versa.

    (Blu-Ray does have other advantages, of course, in both extras and permanence.)

  14. The funny thing is that $11.99 is a f*cking bargain for that bit-rate.

    If they could get any ISP’s to let them push that kind of bandwidth through to customers who’ve already contracted for that much bandwidth. Which seems more than kinda unlikely.

    Plus, Smurfs 2!!! You can just put that on a loop for years…

    (Back here on Earth, if Netflix could actually ship a consistent 12 Mbps 1080 signal through my ISP of their full current ‘superhd’ library, I’d pay $15 / month without blinking.)

  15. TBD what bitrate makes it into my home and down to the television… But my bigger problem is specific to the amount of content (today) that extra 4 bucks or whatever entitles me to. And is it remastered, resampled, or just upscaled?

  16. “But my bigger problem is specific to the amount of content (today) that extra 4 bucks or whatever entitles me to.”

    I’m utterly baffled as to why putting Smurfs 2 on a loop for years doesn’t satisfy your issue here. Perhaps you are unaware, but they’re blue. You’d be surprised, but that never gets old.

    “And is it remastered, resampled, or just upscaled?”

    As with Amazon, who the hell knows what Netflix is currently doing. But new and recent movies and teevee are pretty much all initially mastered into 4K, and older movies (and teevee shot on film with back-catalog value) have been getting rapidly re-mastered into 4K for a few years now.

    So, again, either now, or in the very near future, up-scaling shouldn’t be an issue at all. (And very probably, “now”.)

    —–

    The problem, of course, is bandwidth. As long as ISP’s are (outrageously) allowed to charge upstream providers for bandwidth that a customer is supposedly already paying for, I don’t think there is any way in hell that Netflix can ship 25 Mbps to the home at $11.99 / month at a profit, unless they so drastically limit the available titles that essentially no one ever watches at that bit-rate. (And that’s before the additional content acquisition costs of 4K.)

    Like I say, I’d pay $15 / month without blinking for 12 Mbps 1080 streaming to my home of their current ‘superhd’ library, but under the current corrupt ISP regime, I can’t see a way in hell of Netflix being able to make a profit doing that either, even though it wouldn’t raise content acquisition costs.

  17. I wrote:

    “The issue of how much a perceptual difference there is between 4K and 1080 in a world where we don’t have 120″ wall-screens is a different matter, however.”

    Then today, on a totally different tangent, I ran across this bjdraw post from almost 2 years ago.

    As far as I can be sold without personal experience, he sold me. 4K is going to be a big deal ‘in a world where we don’t have 120″ wall-screens’. I was wrong upthread. Don’t forget about pixel count.

    The bandwidth is obviously going to be a major issue. Bit-rate won’t cease to matter. And things like this are why I always refuse to bet against the multicast.

    But I learn something new every day…

  18. I have the 70 inch Vizio P Series and tried Amazon Instant last night. I did NOT see UHD available. Do I have to update the app somehow?

  19. Features and press releases do not always coincide… the 4K is only a subset of content, by the by. Still percolating a 65″ P series for myself, but waiting on a firmware update.

  20. “Features and press releases do not always coincide”

    Oh, c’mon now. What’s next? Are you going to tell me Santa Claus isn’t real?

  24. “Amazon compatibility page…”

    Well, that particular page indicates that TiVo can’t do Amazon streaming, so I’m not sure how currently accurate it is…

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