[Starlink] It’s the Latency, FCC

Thu May 2 05:21:44 EDT 2024

Le 30/04/2024 à 22:05, Sebastian Moeller via Starlink a écrit :
> Hi Colin,
> [...]
>
>> A lot of responses like "but 8K is coming" (it's not, only experimental YouTube videos showcase these resolutions to the general public, no studio is making 8K content and no streaming service offers anything in 8K or higher)
> [SM] Not my claim.

Right, it is my claim.  '8K is coming' comes from an observation that it 
is now present in consumer cameras with ability to film 8K, since a few 
years now.

The SD-HD-4K-8K-16K consumer market tendency can be evaluated. One could 
parallel it with the megapixel number (photo camera) evolution, or with 
the micro-processor feature size.   There might be levelling, but I am  
not sure it is at 4K.

What I would be interested to look at is the next acronym that requires 
high bw low latency and that is not in the series SD-HD-4K-8K-16K.  This 
series did not exist in the times of analog TV ('SD' appeared when 
digital TV 'HD' appeared), so probably a new series will appear that 
describes TV features.

Alex

>
>> and "I don't need to watch 4K, 1080p is sufficient for me,
> [SM] That however is my claim ;)
>
>> so it should be for everyone else too"
> [SM] Am too old to still believe that, however my argument for that is that over here satellite, terrestrial and cable TV typically tops out at 1920x1080 and users are still happy with the quality even on large screens, so thee might be a bigger residual of 1080 is good enough for me crowd than you allow for.
>
>> (personal preference should never be a substitute for market data).
> [SM] Maybe, but I always look at 'data' published by parties having a pony in the race with scepticism... the numbers you publish partly depend on your agenda...
>
>> Neither of those arguments refutes objective industry standards: 25Mbps is the minimum required bandwidth for multiple of the biggest streaming services.
> [SM] Offers might differ in other places but in Germany today:
>
> Netflix 1080, 4K only in the highest priced plan
> Amazon prime: defaults to 4K, on compatible devices
> Disney+: 1080, 4K only in the highest priced plan
> Paramount+: only 1080v for now
>
> respectfully, it is not clear that 4K is today 'the standard'... but I have no doubt its prominence is going to grow...
>
>
>> None of this intends to suggest that we should ease off pressure on ISPs to provide low latency connections that don't falter under load. Just want to be sure we all recognize that the floor bandwidth should be set no lower than 25Mbps.
> [SM] I tend to also think 20-30 is a decent lower limit, but less because of 4k and more as this allows 2-3 people using interactive applications simultaneously without massive interference, it is sort of nice that this also covers the 4K streaming case...
>
>> However, I would say that depending on usage, for a typical family use, where 25Mbps is "sufficient" for any single stream, even 50ms latency (not great, but much better than a system will have with bad bufferbloat problems that can easily fall to the hundreds of milliseconds) is also "sufficient" for all but specialized applications or competitive gaming.
> [SM] Well, if the access latency is already 50ms, you need to add all the rest to the actual intended servers... and e.g. remote desktop applications can become annoying quickly (for me 50ms is a OK, but e.g. 300ms is quite nasty... I tried 300ms as the local regulator requires acceptable internet access to have RTTs to a reference point up to 300ms, which is clearly not much fun for remote desktop use cases.)
>
>> I would also say that if you already have latency at or below 20ms, further gains on latency will be imperceptible to almost all users, where bandwidth increases will at least allow for more simultaneous connections, even if any given stream doesn't really benefit much beyond about 25Mbps.
> [SM] That is not how latency works in my experience, if the access latency is short the 'cone' of the internet that can be reached with decent responsiveness grows... sure that is a quantitative change not a step-wise qualitatively one, but still there is not a lower latency number below which less latency does not improve things any more... (for bulk transfers that is different, but these are not interactive).
>
>> I would also say that for working remotely, for those of us who work with large audio or video files, the ability to transfer multi-hundred MB files from a 1Gbps connection in several seconds instead of several minutes for a 25Mbps connection is a meaningful boost to work effectiveness and productivity, where a latency reduction from 50ms to 10ms wouldn't really yield any material changes to our work.
> [SM] I keep hearing such examples, but honestly I do not buy these... for me the only sane way to work remotely with large data sets is to use remote desktop to a machine/VM close to the data, round trip time really matters in such applications...  And in all honesty even the work on big files kind of use cases improves with lower latency, simple because file systems tend not to work all that well over high latency links....
>
>> Is 100Mbps and 10ms latency better than 25Mbps and 50ms latency? Of course. Moving to ever more capacity and lower latencies is a good thing on both fronts, but where hardware and engineering costs tend to scale non-linearly as you start pushing against current limits, "sufficiency" is an important metric to keep in mind. Cost matters.
> [SM] IMHO latency wise we are not yet cost limited, we seem more limited by the fact that those parties that sell internet access still market it by 'big numbers', aka capacity, and then bias these links for capacity over latency even for links that are already deep in the diminishing returns territory for capacity...
>
>> Cheers,
>> Colin
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Starlink <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> On Behalf Of starlink-request at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2024 10:41 AM
>> To: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> Subject: Starlink Digest, Vol 37, Issue 11
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2024 16:32:51 +0200
>> From: Sebastian Moeller <moeller0 at gmx.de>
>> To: Alexandre Petrescu <alexandre.petrescu at gmail.com>
>> Cc: Hesham ElBakoury via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] It’s the Latency, FCC
>> Message-ID: <D3B2FA53-589F-4F35-958C-4679EC4414D9 at gmx.de>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>>
>> Hi Alexandre,
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 30. Apr 2024, at 16:25, Alexandre Petrescu via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Colin,
>>> 8K usefulness over 4K: the higher the resolution the more it will be possible to zoom in into paused images.  It is one of the advantages.  People dont do that a lot these days but why not in the future.
>> [SM] Because that is how in the past we envisioned the future, see here h++ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHwjceFcF2Q 'enhance'...
>>
>>> Spotify lower quality than CD and still usable: one would check not Spotify, but other services for audiophiles; some of these use 'DSD' formats which go way beyond the so called high-def audio of 384khz sampling freqs.  They dont 'stream' but download.  It is these higher-than-384khz sampling rates equivalent (e.g. DSD1024 is the equivalent of, I think of something like 10 times CD quality, I think).  If Spotify is the king of streamers, in the future other companies might become the kings of something else than 'streaming', a name yet to be invented.
>>> For each of them, it is true, normal use will not expose any more advantage than the previous version (no advantage of 8K over 4K, no advantage of 88KHz DVD audio over CD, etc) - yet the progress is ongoing on and on, and nobody comes back to CD or to DVD audio or to SD (standard definition video).
>>> Finally, 8K and DSD per se are requirements of just bandwidth.  The need of latency should be exposed there, and that is not straightforward.  But higher bandwidths will come with lower latencies anyways.
>> [SM] How that? Capacity and latency are largely independent... think a semi truck full of harddisks from NYC to LA has decent capacity/'bandwidth' but lousy latency...
>>
>>
>>> The quest of latency requirements might be, in fact, a quest to see how one could use that low latency technology that is possible and available anyways.
>>> Alex
>>> Le 30/04/2024 à 16:00, Colin_Higbie via Starlink a écrit :
>>>> David Fernández, those bitrates are safe numbers, but many streams could get by with less at those resolutions. H.265 compression is at a variable bit rate with simpler scenes requiring less bandwidth. Note that 4K with HDR (30 bits per pixel rather than 24) consistently also fits within 25Mbps.
>>>>
>>>> David Lang, HDR is a requirement for 4K programming. That is not to say that all 4K streams are in HDR, but in setting a required bandwidth, because 4K signals can include HDR, the required bandwidth must accommodate and allow for HDR. That said, I believe all modern 4K programming on Netflix and Amazon Prime is HDR. Note David Fernández' point that Spain independently reached the same conclusion as the US streaming services of 25Mbps requirement for 4K.
>>>>
>>>> Visually, to a person watching and assuming an OLED (or microLED) display capable of showing the full color and contrast gamut of HDR (LCD can't really do it justice, even with miniLED backlighting), the move to HDR from SDR is more meaningful in most situations than the move from 1080p to 4K. I don't believe going to further resolutions, scenes beyond 4K (e.g., 8K), will add anything meaningful to a movie or television viewer over 4K. Video games could benefit from the added resolution, but lens aberration in cameras along with focal length and limited depth of field render blurriness of even a sharp picture greater than the pixel size in most scenes beyond about 4K - 5.5K. Video games don’t suffer this problem because those scenes are rendered, eliminating problems from camera lenses. So video games may still benefit from 8K resolution, but streaming programming won’t.
>>>>
>>>> There is precedent for this in the audio streaming world: audio streaming bitrates have retracted from prior peaks. Even though 48kHz and higher bitrate audio available on DVD is superior to the audio quality of 44.1kHz CDs, Spotify and Apple and most other streaming services stream music at LOWER quality than CD. It’s good enough for most people to not notice the difference. I don’t see much push in the foreseeable future for programming beyond UHD (4K + HDR). That’s not to say never, but there’s no real benefit to it with current camera tech and screen sizes.
>>>>
>>>> Conclusion: for video streaming needs over the next decade or so, 25Mbps should be appropriate. As David Fernández rightly points out, H.266 and other future protocols will improve compression capabilities and reduce bandwidth needs at any given resolution and color bit depth, adding a bit more headroom for small improvements.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Colin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Starlink <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> On Behalf Of
>>>> starlink-request at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2024 9:31 AM
>>>> To: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>> Subject: Starlink Digest, Vol 37, Issue 9
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Message: 2
>>>> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2024 11:54:20 +0200
>>>> From: David Fernández <davidfdzp at gmail.com>
>>>> To: starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] It’s the Latency, FCC
>>>> Message-ID:
>>>> <CAC=tZ0rrmWJUNLvGupw6K8ogADcYLq-eyW7Bjb209oNDWGfVSA at mail.gmail.com>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>>
>>>> Last February, TV broadcasting in Spain left behind SD definitively and moved to HD as standard quality, also starting to regularly broadcast a channel with 4K quality.
>>>>
>>>> A 4K video (2160p) at 30 frames per second, handled with the HEVC compression codec (H.265), and using 24 bits per pixel, requires 25 Mbit/s.
>>>>
>>>> Full HD video (1080p) requires 10 Mbit/s.
>>>>
>>>> For lots of 4K video encoded at < 20 Mbit/s, it may be hard to distinguish it visually from the HD version of the same video (this was also confirmed by SBTVD Forum Tests).
>>>>
>>>> Then, 8K will come, eventually, requiring a minimum of ~32 Mbit/s:
>>>> https://dvb.org/news/new-generation-of-terrestrial-services-taking-sh
>>>> ape-in-europe
>>>>
>>>> The latest codec VVC (H.266) may reduce the required data rates by at least 27%, at the expense of more computing power required, but somehow it is claimed it will be more energy efficient.
>>>> https://dvb.org/news/dvb-prepares-the-way-for-advanced-4k-and-8k-broa
>>>> dcast-and-broadband-television
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>>
>>>> Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2024 19:16:27 -0700 (PDT)
>>>> From: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
>>>> To: Colin_Higbie <CHigbie1 at Higbie.name>
>>>> Cc: David Lang <david at lang.hm>, "starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net"
>>>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Itʼs the Latency, FCC
>>>> Message-ID: <srss5qrq-7973-5q87-823p-30pn7o308608 at ynat.uz>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>>>
>>>> Amazon, youtube set explicitly to 4k (I didn't say HDR)
>>>>
>>>> David Lang
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 30 Apr 2024, Colin_Higbie wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2024 01:30:21 +0000
>>>>> From: Colin_Higbie <CHigbie1 at Higbie.name>
>>>>> To: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
>>>>> Cc: "starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net"
>>>>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>> Subject: RE: [Starlink] Itʼs the Latency, FCC
>>>>>
>>>>> Was that 4K HDR (not SDR) using the standard protocols that
>>>>> streaming
>>>>>
>>>> services use (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, etc.) or was it just some YouTube 4K SDR videos? YouTube will show "HDR" on the gear icon for content that's 4K HDR. If it only shows "4K" instead of "HDR," then means it's SDR.
>>>> Note that if YouTube, if left to the default of Auto for streaming resolution it will also automatically drop the quality to something that fits within the bandwidth and most of the "4K" content on YouTube is low-quality and not true UHD content (even beyond missing HDR). For example, many smartphones will record 4K video, but their optics are not sufficient to actually have distinct per-pixel image detail, meaning it compresses down to a smaller image with no real additional loss in picture quality, but only because it's really a 4K UHD stream to begin with.
>>>>
>>>>> Note that 4K video compression codecs are lossy, so the lower
>>>>> quality the
>>>>>
>>>> initial image, the lower the bandwidth needed to convey the stream w/o additional quality loss. The needed bandwidth also changes with scene complexity. Falling confetti, like on Newy Year's Eve or at the Super Bowl make for one of the most demanding scenes. Lots of detailed fire and explosions with fast-moving fast panning full dynamic backgrounds are also tough for a compressed signal to preserve (but not as hard as a screen full of falling confetti).
>>>>
>>>>> I'm dubious that 8Mbps can handle that except for some of the
>>>>> simplest
>>>>>
>>>> video, like cartoons or fairly static scenes like the news. Those scenes don't require much data, but that's not the case for all 4K HDR scenes by any means.
>>>>
>>>>> It's obviously in Netflix and the other streaming services' interest
>>>>> to
>>>>>
>>>> be able to sell their more expensive 4K HDR service to as many people as possible. There's a reason they won't offer it to anyone with less than 25Mbps – they don't want the complaints and service calls. Now, to be fair, 4K HDR definitely doesn’t typically require 25Mbps, but it's to their credit that they do include a small bandwidth buffer. In my experience monitoring bandwidth usage for 4K HDR streaming, 15Mbps is the minimum if doing nothing else and that will frequently fall short, depending on the 4K HDR content.
>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> Colin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
>>>>> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2024 8:40 PM
>>>>> To: Colin Higbie <colin.higbie at scribl.com>
>>>>> Cc: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Itʼs the Latency, FCC
>>>>>
>>>>> hmm, before my DSL got disconnected (the carrier decided they didn't
>>>>> want
>>>>>
>>>> to support it any more), I could stream 4k at 8Mb down if there
>>>> wasn't too much other activity on the network (doing so at 2x speed
>>>> was a problem)
>>>>
>>>>> David Lang
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 15 Mar 2024, Colin Higbie via Starlink wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 18:32:36 +0000
>>>>>> From: Colin Higbie via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>>> Reply-To: Colin Higbie <colin.higbie at scribl.com>
>>>>>> To: "starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net"
>>>>>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] It’s the Latency, FCC
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I have now been trying to break the common conflation that
>>>>>>> download
>>>>>>>
>>>> "speed"
>>>>
>>>>>>> means anything at all for day to day, minute to minute, second to
>>>>>>> second, use, once you crack 10mbit, now, for over 14 years. Am I
>>>>>>> succeeding? I lost the 25/10 battle, and keep pointing at really
>>>>>>> terrible latency under load and wifi weirdnesses for many existing
>>>>>>>
>>>> 100/20 services today.
>>>>
>>>>>> While I completely agree that latency has bigger impact on how
>>>>>>
>>>> responsive the Internet feels to use, I do think that 10Mbit is too low for some standard applications regardless of latency: with the more recent availability of 4K and higher streaming, that does require a higher minimum bandwidth to work at all. One could argue that no one NEEDS 4K streaming, but many families would view this as an important part of what they do with their Internet (Starlink makes this reliably possible at our farmhouse). 4K HDR-supporting TV's are among the most popular TVs being purchased in the U.S. today. Netflix, Amazon, Max, Disney and other streaming services provide a substantial portion of 4K HDR content.
>>>>
>>>>>> So, I agree that 25/10 is sufficient, for up to 4k HDR streaming.
>>>>>> 100/20
>>>>>>
>>>> would provide plenty of bandwidth for multiple concurrent 4K users or a 1-2 8K streams.
>>>>
>>>>>> For me, not claiming any special expertise on market needs, just my
>>>>>> own
>>>>>>
>>>> personal assessment on what typical families will need and care about:
>>>>
>>>>>> Latency: below 50ms under load always feels good except for some
>>>>>> intensive gaming (I don't see any benefit to getting loaded latency
>>>>>> further below ~20ms for typical applications, with an exception for
>>>>>> cloud-based gaming that benefits with lower latency all the way
>>>>>> down to about 5ms for young, really fast players, the rest of us
>>>>>> won't be able to tell the difference)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Download Bandwidth: 10Mbps good enough if not doing UHD video
>>>>>> streaming
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Download Bandwidth: 25 - 100Mbps if doing UHD video streaming,
>>>>>> depending on # of streams or if wanting to be ready for 8k
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Upload Bandwidth: 10Mbps good enough for quality video
>>>>>> conferencing, higher only needed for multiple concurrent outbound
>>>>>> streams
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, for example (and ignoring upload for this), I would rather have
>>>>>>
>>>> latency at 50ms (under load) and DL bandwidth of 25Mbps than latency of 1ms with a max bandwidth of 10Mbps, because the super-low latency doesn't solve the problem with insufficient bandwidth to watch 4K HDR content. But, I'd also rather have latency of 20ms with 100Mbps DL, then latency that exceeds 100ms under load with 1Gbps DL bandwidth. I think the important thing is to reach "good enough" on both, not just excel at one while falling short of "good enough" on the other.
>>>>
>>>>>> Note that Starlink handles all of this well, including kids
>>>>>> watching
>>>>>>
>>>> YouTube while my wife and I watch 4K UHD Netflix, except the upload speed occasionally tops at under 3Mbps for me, causing quality degradation for outbound video calls (or used to, it seems to have gotten better in recent months – no problems since sometime in 2023).
>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>> Colin
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Starlink mailing list
>>>>>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>>>>>
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>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2024 16:40:58 +0200
>> From: Alexandre Petrescu <alexandre.petrescu at gmail.com>
>> To: Sebastian Moeller <moeller0 at gmx.de>
>> Cc: Hesham ElBakoury via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] It’s the Latency, FCC
>> Message-ID: <727b07d9-9dc3-43b7-8e17-50b6b7a4444a at gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>>
>>
>> Le 30/04/2024 à 16:32, Sebastian Moeller a écrit :
>>> Hi Alexandre,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 30. Apr 2024, at 16:25, Alexandre Petrescu via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Colin,
>>>> 8K usefulness over 4K: the higher the resolution the more it will be possible to zoom in into paused images.  It is one of the advantages.  People dont do that a lot these days but why not in the future.
>>> [SM] Because that is how in the past we envisioned the future, see here h++ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHwjceFcF2Q 'enhance'...
>>>
>>>> Spotify lower quality than CD and still usable: one would check not Spotify, but other services for audiophiles; some of these use 'DSD' formats which go way beyond the so called high-def audio of 384khz sampling freqs.  They dont 'stream' but download.  It is these higher-than-384khz sampling rates equivalent (e.g. DSD1024 is the equivalent of, I think of something like 10 times CD quality, I think).  If Spotify is the king of streamers, in the future other companies might become the kings of something else than 'streaming', a name yet to be invented.
>>>> For each of them, it is true, normal use will not expose any more advantage than the previous version (no advantage of 8K over 4K, no advantage of 88KHz DVD audio over CD, etc) - yet the progress is ongoing on and on, and nobody comes back to CD or to DVD audio or to SD (standard definition video).
>>>> Finally, 8K and DSD per se are requirements of just bandwidth.  The need of latency should be exposed there, and that is not straightforward.  But higher bandwidths will come with lower latencies anyways.
>>> [SM] How that? Capacity and latency are largely independent... think a semi truck full of harddisks from NYC to LA has decent capacity/'bandwidth' but lousy latency...
>> I agree with you: two distinct parameters, bandwidth and latency.  But they evolve simultenously, relatively bound by a constant relationship. For any particular link  technology (satcom is one) the bandwidth and latency are in a constant relationship.  One grows, the other diminishes.  There are exceptions too, in some details.
>>
>> (as for the truck full of harddisks, and jumbo jets full of DVDs - they are just concepts: striking good examples of how enormous bandwidths are possible, but still to see in practice; physicsts also talked about a train transported by a train transported by a train and so on, to overcome the speed of light: another striking example, but not in practice).
>>
>> Alex
>>
>>>
>>>> The quest of latency requirements might be, in fact, a quest to see how one could use that low latency technology that is possible and available anyways.
>>>> Alex
>>>> Le 30/04/2024 à 16:00, Colin_Higbie via Starlink a écrit :
>>>>> David Fernández, those bitrates are safe numbers, but many streams could get by with less at those resolutions. H.265 compression is at a variable bit rate with simpler scenes requiring less bandwidth. Note that 4K with HDR (30 bits per pixel rather than 24) consistently also fits within 25Mbps.
>>>>>
>>>>> David Lang, HDR is a requirement for 4K programming. That is not to say that all 4K streams are in HDR, but in setting a required bandwidth, because 4K signals can include HDR, the required bandwidth must accommodate and allow for HDR. That said, I believe all modern 4K programming on Netflix and Amazon Prime is HDR. Note David Fernández' point that Spain independently reached the same conclusion as the US streaming services of 25Mbps requirement for 4K.
>>>>>
>>>>> Visually, to a person watching and assuming an OLED (or microLED) display capable of showing the full color and contrast gamut of HDR (LCD can't really do it justice, even with miniLED backlighting), the move to HDR from SDR is more meaningful in most situations than the move from 1080p to 4K. I don't believe going to further resolutions, scenes beyond 4K (e.g., 8K), will add anything meaningful to a movie or television viewer over 4K. Video games could benefit from the added resolution, but lens aberration in cameras along with focal length and limited depth of field render blurriness of even a sharp picture greater than the pixel size in most scenes beyond about 4K - 5.5K. Video games don’t suffer this problem because those scenes are rendered, eliminating problems from camera lenses. So video games may still benefit from 8K resolution, but streaming programming won’t.
>>>>>
>>>>> There is precedent for this in the audio streaming world: audio streaming bitrates have retracted from prior peaks. Even though 48kHz and higher bitrate audio available on DVD is superior to the audio quality of 44.1kHz CDs, Spotify and Apple and most other streaming services stream music at LOWER quality than CD. It’s good enough for most people to not notice the difference. I don’t see much push in the foreseeable future for programming beyond UHD (4K + HDR). That’s not to say never, but there’s no real benefit to it with current camera tech and screen sizes.
>>>>>
>>>>> Conclusion: for video streaming needs over the next decade or so, 25Mbps should be appropriate. As David Fernández rightly points out, H.266 and other future protocols will improve compression capabilities and reduce bandwidth needs at any given resolution and color bit depth, adding a bit more headroom for small improvements.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> Colin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Starlink <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> On Behalf Of
>>>>> starlink-request at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2024 9:31 AM
>>>>> To: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>> Subject: Starlink Digest, Vol 37, Issue 9
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Message: 2
>>>>> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2024 11:54:20 +0200
>>>>> From: David Fernández <davidfdzp at gmail.com>
>>>>> To: starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] It’s the Latency, FCC
>>>>> Message-ID:
>>>>> <CAC=tZ0rrmWJUNLvGupw6K8ogADcYLq-eyW7Bjb209oNDWGfVSA at mail.gmail.com>
>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>>>
>>>>> Last February, TV broadcasting in Spain left behind SD definitively and moved to HD as standard quality, also starting to regularly broadcast a channel with 4K quality.
>>>>>
>>>>> A 4K video (2160p) at 30 frames per second, handled with the HEVC compression codec (H.265), and using 24 bits per pixel, requires 25 Mbit/s.
>>>>>
>>>>> Full HD video (1080p) requires 10 Mbit/s.
>>>>>
>>>>> For lots of 4K video encoded at < 20 Mbit/s, it may be hard to distinguish it visually from the HD version of the same video (this was also confirmed by SBTVD Forum Tests).
>>>>>
>>>>> Then, 8K will come, eventually, requiring a minimum of ~32 Mbit/s:
>>>>> https://dvb.org/news/new-generation-of-terrestrial-services-taking-s
>>>>> hape-in-europe
>>>>>
>>>>> The latest codec VVC (H.266) may reduce the required data rates by at least 27%, at the expense of more computing power required, but somehow it is claimed it will be more energy efficient.
>>>>> https://dvb.org/news/dvb-prepares-the-way-for-advanced-4k-and-8k-bro
>>>>> adcast-and-broadband-television
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> David
>>>>>
>>>>> Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2024 19:16:27 -0700 (PDT)
>>>>> From: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
>>>>> To: Colin_Higbie <CHigbie1 at Higbie.name>
>>>>> Cc: David Lang <david at lang.hm>, "starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net"
>>>>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Itʼs the Latency, FCC
>>>>> Message-ID: <srss5qrq-7973-5q87-823p-30pn7o308608 at ynat.uz>
>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>>>>
>>>>> Amazon, youtube set explicitly to 4k (I didn't say HDR)
>>>>>
>>>>> David Lang
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, 30 Apr 2024, Colin_Higbie wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2024 01:30:21 +0000
>>>>>> From: Colin_Higbie <CHigbie1 at Higbie.name>
>>>>>> To: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
>>>>>> Cc: "starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net"
>>>>>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>>> Subject: RE: [Starlink] Itʼs the Latency, FCC
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Was that 4K HDR (not SDR) using the standard protocols that
>>>>>> streaming
>>>>>>
>>>>> services use (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, etc.) or was it just some YouTube 4K SDR videos? YouTube will show "HDR" on the gear icon for content that's 4K HDR. If it only shows "4K" instead of "HDR," then means it's SDR.
>>>>> Note that if YouTube, if left to the default of Auto for streaming resolution it will also automatically drop the quality to something that fits within the bandwidth and most of the "4K" content on YouTube is low-quality and not true UHD content (even beyond missing HDR). For example, many smartphones will record 4K video, but their optics are not sufficient to actually have distinct per-pixel image detail, meaning it compresses down to a smaller image with no real additional loss in picture quality, but only because it's really a 4K UHD stream to begin with.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Note that 4K video compression codecs are lossy, so the lower
>>>>>> quality the
>>>>>>
>>>>> initial image, the lower the bandwidth needed to convey the stream w/o additional quality loss. The needed bandwidth also changes with scene complexity. Falling confetti, like on Newy Year's Eve or at the Super Bowl make for one of the most demanding scenes. Lots of detailed fire and explosions with fast-moving fast panning full dynamic backgrounds are also tough for a compressed signal to preserve (but not as hard as a screen full of falling confetti).
>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm dubious that 8Mbps can handle that except for some of the
>>>>>> simplest
>>>>>>
>>>>> video, like cartoons or fairly static scenes like the news. Those scenes don't require much data, but that's not the case for all 4K HDR scenes by any means.
>>>>>
>>>>>> It's obviously in Netflix and the other streaming services'
>>>>>> interest to
>>>>>>
>>>>> be able to sell their more expensive 4K HDR service to as many people as possible. There's a reason they won't offer it to anyone with less than 25Mbps – they don't want the complaints and service calls. Now, to be fair, 4K HDR definitely doesn’t typically require 25Mbps, but it's to their credit that they do include a small bandwidth buffer. In my experience monitoring bandwidth usage for 4K HDR streaming, 15Mbps is the minimum if doing nothing else and that will frequently fall short, depending on the 4K HDR content.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>> Colin
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
>>>>>> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2024 8:40 PM
>>>>>> To: Colin Higbie <colin.higbie at scribl.com>
>>>>>> Cc: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Itʼs the Latency, FCC
>>>>>>
>>>>>> hmm, before my DSL got disconnected (the carrier decided they
>>>>>> didn't want
>>>>>>
>>>>> to support it any more), I could stream 4k at 8Mb down if there
>>>>> wasn't too much other activity on the network (doing so at 2x speed
>>>>> was a problem)
>>>>>
>>>>>> David Lang
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, 15 Mar 2024, Colin Higbie via Starlink wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 18:32:36 +0000
>>>>>>> From: Colin Higbie via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>>>> Reply-To: Colin Higbie <colin.higbie at scribl.com>
>>>>>>> To: "starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net"
>>>>>>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] It’s the Latency, FCC
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I have now been trying to break the common conflation that
>>>>>>>> download
>>>>>>>>
>>>>> "speed"
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> means anything at all for day to day, minute to minute, second to
>>>>>>>> second, use, once you crack 10mbit, now, for over 14 years. Am I
>>>>>>>> succeeding? I lost the 25/10 battle, and keep pointing at really
>>>>>>>> terrible latency under load and wifi weirdnesses for many
>>>>>>>> existing
>>>>>>>>
>>>>> 100/20 services today.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> While I completely agree that latency has bigger impact on how
>>>>>>>
>>>>> responsive the Internet feels to use, I do think that 10Mbit is too low for some standard applications regardless of latency: with the more recent availability of 4K and higher streaming, that does require a higher minimum bandwidth to work at all. One could argue that no one NEEDS 4K streaming, but many families would view this as an important part of what they do with their Internet (Starlink makes this reliably possible at our farmhouse). 4K HDR-supporting TV's are among the most popular TVs being purchased in the U.S. today. Netflix, Amazon, Max, Disney and other streaming services provide a substantial portion of 4K HDR content.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> So, I agree that 25/10 is sufficient, for up to 4k HDR streaming.
>>>>>>> 100/20
>>>>>>>
>>>>> would provide plenty of bandwidth for multiple concurrent 4K users or a 1-2 8K streams.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> For me, not claiming any special expertise on market needs, just
>>>>>>> my own
>>>>>>>
>>>>> personal assessment on what typical families will need and care about:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Latency: below 50ms under load always feels good except for some
>>>>>>> intensive gaming (I don't see any benefit to getting loaded
>>>>>>> latency further below ~20ms for typical applications, with an
>>>>>>> exception for cloud-based gaming that benefits with lower latency
>>>>>>> all the way down to about 5ms for young, really fast players, the
>>>>>>> rest of us won't be able to tell the difference)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Download Bandwidth: 10Mbps good enough if not doing UHD video
>>>>>>> streaming
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Download Bandwidth: 25 - 100Mbps if doing UHD video streaming,
>>>>>>> depending on # of streams or if wanting to be ready for 8k
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Upload Bandwidth: 10Mbps good enough for quality video
>>>>>>> conferencing, higher only needed for multiple concurrent outbound
>>>>>>> streams
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So, for example (and ignoring upload for this), I would rather
>>>>>>> have
>>>>>>>
>>>>> latency at 50ms (under load) and DL bandwidth of 25Mbps than latency of 1ms with a max bandwidth of 10Mbps, because the super-low latency doesn't solve the problem with insufficient bandwidth to watch 4K HDR content. But, I'd also rather have latency of 20ms with 100Mbps DL, then latency that exceeds 100ms under load with 1Gbps DL bandwidth. I think the important thing is to reach "good enough" on both, not just excel at one while falling short of "good enough" on the other.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Note that Starlink handles all of this well, including kids
>>>>>>> watching
>>>>>>>
>>>>> YouTube while my wife and I watch 4K UHD Netflix, except the upload speed occasionally tops at under 3Mbps for me, causing quality degradation for outbound video calls (or used to, it seems to have gotten better in recent months – no problems since sometime in 2023).
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>> Colin
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Starlink mailing list
>>>>>>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
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