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Best Streaming Provider Quality Ranked From Best to Worst

digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
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Oct 25, 2017
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I wanted to create this thread because there's been a lot of opinions and hearsay on what the best quality streaming formats are, and FINALLY there are some actual substantial impartial testing and measurements to see which services stack up best.

The findings:

---------------UHD---------------

Order Best to Worst (Bitrate of Video File Primary, Bitrate of Audio File Secondary) & Info on General Platform Support

#1 Apple TV (iTunes Movies) - HDR10, Dolby Vision, & Dolby Atmos
Video: Average: 25 Mbps; Peak: 31 Mbps
Audio: 770 Kbps
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207949

Apple TV Plus - HDR10, Dolby Vision, & Dolby Atmos
Video: Average: 41 Mbps; Peak: Unknown
Audio: Unknown
https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-plus/

#2 MoviesAnywhere - HDR10, Dolby Vision, & Dolby Atmos
Video: Average: 25 Mbps; Peak: 32 Mbps
Audio: 640 Kbps
https://help.moviesanywhere.com/hc/e...rt-4K-and-HDR-

#3 Disney Plus - HDR10, Dolby Vision, & Dolby Atmos
Video: Average: 17 Mbps; Peak: 29 Mbps
Audio: 770 Kbps
https://help.disneyplus.com/csp?id=c...0cf158bf961913

#4 Netflix - HDR10, Dolby Vision, & Dolby Atmos
Video: Average: 17 Mbps; Peak: 25 Mbps
Audio: 770 Kbps
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444

#5 Vudu - HDR10, Dolby Vision, & Dolby Atmos
Video: Average: 14 Mbps; Peak: 17 Mbps
Audio: 580 Kbps
https://www.watchvudu.com/uhd/

#6 Amazon Prime - HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, & Dolby Atmos
Video: Average: 10 Mbps; Peak: 13 Mbps Update 06/10/22 - bitrate average has increased to 14-19 Mbps
Audio: 190 Kbps
https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=11598814011


--------------HD---------------

#1 iTunes
Video - Average: 10 Mbps; Peak: 15 Mbps
Audio: 390 Kbps

#2 Movies Anywhere
Video - Average: 8 Mbps; Peak: 10 Mbps
Audio: 260 Kbps

#3 Disney+
Video - Average: 7 Mbps; Peak: 11 Mbps
Audio: 770 Kbps

#4 Amazon Prime
Video - Average: 5 Mbps; Peak: 14 Mbps
Audio: 190 Kbps

#5 Vudu
Video - Average: 4 Mbps; Peak: 5 Mbps
Audio: 450 Kbps

#6 Netflix
Video - Average: 3 Mbps; Peak: 13 Mbps
Audio: 640 Kbps



There you have it! For comparison to disc-based media, 4K UHD averages 40 - 90 Mbps and HD blu-ray averages 15 - 35 Mbps.


Credit to the blu-ray.com forums, specifically samplop10 for for his independent testing. Original blu-ray.com thread can be found here: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=323204
 
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StrangerDanger

StrangerDanger

Member
Jul 18, 2018
5,918
Google Play is complete shit. I rented a video from them during their $1 rental sale period last month....Supposed to get HD10 stream... the bit stream was not consistent at all. This has been a thing i've had with them before during the same sale few months back also. I don't have this problem with Amazon or Netflix
 
Voyager

Voyager

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,638
Disney+ HDR content is really dark for some reason. I cannot figure out why, tried to watch Captain Marvel and it was too hard to see what was going on.

Apple TV+ and ITunes look the best for sure.
 
Window

Window

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,291
Do they all use the same codecs? Does the testing control for variable network bandwidth?
 
Fisty

Fisty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,465
I definitely noticed the quality of HBO Now when I had it, it was like watching shitty old divx rips. The early 00's digital stuff didnt suffer as much but stuff like Westworld looked like they were pranking people
 
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digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
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Oct 25, 2017
13,124
spam musubi said:
You can subscribe to shudder through Apple TV to get iTunes bitrate streams as it seems to come from Apple's servers
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Correct, any service that's available in Apple TV Channels will stream from Apple's servers and will benefit from the higher bitrates available there.
 
Aurongel

Aurongel

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
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Oct 28, 2017
7,065
HBO Now was terrible when I had it and their Apple TV app would go completely black any time I tried to stream something. It was as if the app or tvOS didn't recognize what to do and couldn't detect the SDR feed and know to switch my display from HDR to SDR. This is of course in addition to the general shittiness of the quality outlined here.
 
Fatoy

Fatoy

Member
Mar 13, 2019
7,294
I'm surprised by those figures, because I firmly believed Amazon's UHD/HDR streaming was a cut above Netflix's.
 
Unknownlight

Unknownlight

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 2, 2017
10,666
StrangerDanger said:
Google Play is complete shit. I rented a video from them during their $1 rental sale period last month....Supposed to get HD10 stream... the bit stream was not consistent at all. This has been a thing i've had with them before during the same sale few months back also. I don't have this problem with Amazon or Netflix
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Yeah. Google Play is literally just YouTube, which is definitely not optimized for high quality.
 
Ferrs

Ferrs

Avenger
Oct 26, 2017
18,831
Amazon Prime looks better than Netflix to me on my C8, more cleaner. The problem is their limited DV support.
 
Brandson

Brandson

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,219
In Canada, the worst by miles is Crave, which is how we get HBO. It's 720p, has a host of compression artficats, and 2.0 audio only. The banding and colour shift in dark scenes in Game of Thrones was eye-searing. It's just terrible.

Coming up behind Crave in Canada is Amazon Prime's channels. While Amazon's original content is great, Starz on Prime Video is just awful.

Slightly better than both of those are TSN and SportsNet, but they should be much better considering the prices they are asking.
 
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digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,124
I'm removing the anecdotal results since they kind of negate the whole idea of this thread, which is to have some actual measured bitrates to remove the guesswork on quality.
 
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digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,124
Transistor said:
It's probably because they still encode everything for bring broadcast over cable so they don't see any need to go higher.
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I'd have to imagine that their streaming subscription has to be more popular than their cable numbers at this point, no? That and they bring most of their content to blu-ray / 4K UHD disc and the quality is great there.
 
Mindwipe

Mindwipe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,295
London
Bitrates are only half the story compared to encoder performance and codec profile which vary from provider to provider and indeed in some cases device to device.

This isn't really a good measure of the end user's perceptual quality.
 

Sunnz

Member
Apr 16, 2019
1,252
Out of them all Amazon is the worst for me. Shows are typically great but the quality randomly drops more than any other which hardly ever drop.
The worst is defiantly when watching live sport, such as the few premier League games that were on prime, dropped quality every 5 mins for like 20 seconds.
I have 100 down.
 
Mindwipe

Mindwipe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,295
London
Sunnz said:
Out of them all Amazon is the worst for me. Shows are typically great but the quality randomly drops more than any other which hardly ever drop.
The worst is defiantly when watching live sport, such as the few premier League games that were on prime, dropped quality every 5 mins for like 20 seconds.
I have 100 down.
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The core internet infrastructure just isn't designed for the likes of simulcasting Premiership games to 1m+ people. Everyone in the industry thinks it's a fucking miracle it stayed up at all, Amazon did *really* well, and some ISPs nearly melted.

We're going to have to rethink some core internet infrastructure if that's the future.
 
peppermints

peppermints

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Oct 25, 2017
4,733
I'm surprised Vudu is so low. They used to be king before 4K, guessing Walmart isn't super invested in keeping up. Really makes me wish iTunes had DIsney in 4K.
 
AndyD

AndyD

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Oct 27, 2017
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Any analysis on HDR? Several of them advertise it, but it's inconsistent in the mastering/implementation on a show by show basis.
 
JadeGiveTwoRides

JadeGiveTwoRides

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
767
If you've used their services, Apple being the best overall will come as no surprise. iTunes streaming was always a massive cut above Amazon, Netflix and the like and Apple TV+ takes things to another level. It would be great if, in time, iTunes too makes that extra leap.
 
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digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,124
JadeGiveTwoRides said:
If you've used their services, Apple being the best overall will come as no surprise. iTunes streaming was always a massive cut above Amazon, Netflix and the like and Apple TV+ takes things to another level. It would be great if, in time, iTunes too makes that extra leap.
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I think they will at some point. Apple TV+ and the free 4K upgrades are some signs that Apple is willing to increase quality over time.
 

Deleted member 55966

User requested account closure
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Apr 15, 2019
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Amazon being below Netflix and Disney+ makes sense. I rented Bladerunner 2049 and immediately wished I had gone out and rented it on blu-ray. The video compression was incredibly distracting in all the night / color heavy scenes.
 
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digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,124
Window said:
Do they all use the same codecs? Does the testing control for variable network bandwidth?
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In testing it was found that Apple TV's 4k streams tend to use HEVC instead of AVC more often than the other streaming services, especially in newer content. HEVC is ~30-40% more efficient on average vs AVC. So Apple appears to be on top in that regard as well. And the naked eye tests tend to reflect the raw numbers found here. The testing assumes that the viewer has ample bandwidth to max out the stream.
Mindwipe said:
Bitrates are only half the story compared to encoder performance and codec profile which vary from provider to provider and indeed in some cases device to device.

This isn't really a good measure of the end user's perceptual quality.
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Obviously no testing is ever going to be the end-all-be-all, but this is as close as we're going to get, especially since no "professionals" have gone out of their way to do their own measurements at this point.
 
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digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,124
Just watched Joker on my Apple TV; might be the best looking 4K stream I've seen yet.
 
Miker

Miker

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,033
Okay, this is an old bump, but I felt like this is the best thread to ask.

Scenario: I want to watch Everything Everywhere All At Once this weekend. I have the physical 4K Blu-Ray preordered which comes with a digital code, but I don't want to wait a month for its release on July 5. Moreover, I've read that A24 movies' codes are Vudu only, and are not Movies Anywhere compatible. With that in mind, it seems like the best place to watch it digitally via iTunes.

However, with Apple TV+ being a thing now, I think the branding has gotten confusing between iTunes, Apple TV+, and the Apple TV device.

So:

I have an LG C1. If I use the Apple TV app and purchase it there, which is the equivalent of buying it on iTunes, and watch it from my library on the Apple TV app on my C1, am I getting the full experience that I would as if I were watching it on an actual Apple TV device? Will everything work in terms of 4K, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, etc? Is this, in fact, the best and easiest way to watch it digitally?
 
Mindwipe

Mindwipe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,295
London
The Apple TV+ app on your TV is an iTunes app effectively.

While it can vary by device (Samsung sets don't get Dolby Vision because they don't support Dolby Vision) there's no real difference between using an Apple TV and the app, no.
 
Miker

Miker

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,033
Mindwipe said:
The Apple TV+ app on your TV is an iTunes app effectively.

While it can vary by device (Samsung sets don't get Dolby Vision because they don't support Dolby Vision) there's no real difference between using an Apple TV and the app, no.
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That's great news. Thanks.

Theorry said:
That moment you realize this thread is over 2 years old..
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The OP seems generally useful, and the thread was relevant to my question.
 
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OP
digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,124
Miker said:
Okay, this is an old bump, but I felt like this is the best thread to ask.

Scenario: I want to watch Everything Everywhere All At Once this weekend. I have the physical 4K Blu-Ray preordered which comes with a digital code, but I don't want to wait a month for its release on July 5. Moreover, I've read that A24 movies' codes are Vudu only, and are not Movies Anywhere compatible. With that in mind, it seems like the best place to watch it digitally via iTunes.

However, with Apple TV+ being a thing now, I think the branding has gotten confusing between iTunes, Apple TV+, and the Apple TV device.

So:

I have an LG C1. If I use the Apple TV app and purchase it there, which is the equivalent of buying it on iTunes, and watch it from my library on the Apple TV app on my C1, am I getting the full experience that I would as if I were watching it on an actual Apple TV device? Will everything work in terms of 4K, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, etc? Is this, in fact, the best and easiest way to watch it digitally?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Mindwipe said:
The Apple TV+ app on your TV is an iTunes app effectively.

While it can vary by device (Samsung sets don't get Dolby Vision because they don't support Dolby Vision) there's no real difference between using an Apple TV and the app, no.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Actually, iTunes content on Apple TV hardware does stream at a higher bitrate vs 3rd party hardware. As of late 2020, the Apple TV app on LG TVs had an average bitrate of ~11-17 Mbps for 4K content as opposed to 15-31 Mbps on Apple TV hardware.

It still looks pretty good on 3rd party hardware, but Apple TV hardware will look better for your iTunes library.

This was also last tested about 1 1/2 years ago though, so things could've changed since then (or newer models like the C1 may play back at higher bitrates). I can't verify that one way or the other though.
 
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