[Starlink] It’s the Latency, FCC

[Nathan Owens]

You really don’t need 25Mbps for decent 4K quality - depends on the
content. Netflix has some encodes that go down to 1.8Mbps with a very high
VMAF:
https://netflixtechblog.com/optimized-shot-based-encodes-for-4k-now-streaming-47b516b10bbb

Apple TV has the highest bitrate encodes of any mainstream streaming
service, and those do top out at ~25Mbps. Could they be more efficient?
Probably…

On Mon, May 6, 2024 at 7:19 AM Alexandre Petrescu via Starlink <
starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

>
> Le 02/05/2024 à 21:50, Frantisek Borsik a écrit :
>
> Thanks, Colin. This was just another great read on video (and audio - in
> the past emails from you) bullet-proofing for the near future.
>
> To be honest, the consensus on the bandwidth overall in the bufferbloat
> related circles was in the 25/3 - 100/20 ballpark
>
>
> To continue on this discussion of 25mbit/s (mbyte/s ?) of 4k, and 8k, here
> are some more thoughts:
>
> - about 25mbit/s bw needs for 4K:  hdmi cables for 4K HDR10 (high dynamic
> range) are specified at 18gbit/s and not 25mbit/s (mbyte?).  These HDMI
> cables dont run IP.  But, supposedly, the displayed 4K image is of a higher
> quality if played over hdmi (presumably from a player) than from a server
> remote on the Internet.   To achieve parity, maybe one wants to run that
> hdmi flow from the server with IP, and at that point the bandwidth
> requirement is higher than 25mbit/s.  This goes hand in hand with the disc
> evolutions (triple-layer bluray discs of 120Gbyte capacity is the most
> recent; I dont see signs of that to slow).
>
> - in some regions, the terrestrial DVB (TV on radio frequencies, with
> antenna receivers, not  IP) run at 4K HDR10 starting this year.  I dont
> know what MPEG codec is it, at what mbit/s speed.  But it is not over the
> Internet.  This means that probably  ISPs are inclined to do more than that
> 4K over the Internet, maybe 8K, to distinguish their service from DVB.  The
> audience of these DVB streams is very wide, with cheap one-time buy
> receivers (no subscription, like with ISP) already widely available in
> electronics stores.
>
> - a reduced audience, yet important,  is that of 8K TV via satellites.
> There is one japanese 8K TV satcom provider, and the audience (number of
> watchers) is probably smaller than that of DVB 4K HDR.  Still, it
> constitutes competition for IPTV from ISPs.
>
> To me, that reflects a direction of growth of the 4K to 8K capability
> requirement from the Internet.
>
> Still, that growth in bandwidth requirement does not say anything about
> the latency requirement.  That can be found elsewhere, and probably it is
> very little related to TV.
>
> Alex
>
> , but all what many of us were trying to achieve while talking to FCC (et
> al) was to point out, that in order to really make it bulletproof and
> usable for not only near future, but for today, a reasonable Quality of
> Experience requirement is necessary to be added to the definition of
> broadband. Here is the link to the FCC NOI and related discussion:
> https://circleid.com/posts/20231211-its-the-latency-fcc
>
> Hopefully, we have managed to get that message over to the other side. At
> least 2 of 5 FCC Commissioners seems to be getting it - Nathan Simington
> and Brendan Carr - and Nathan event arranged for his staffers to talk with
> Dave and others. Hope that this line of of cooperation will continue and we
> will manage to help the rest of the FCC to understand the issues at hand
> correctly.
>
> All the best,
>
> Frank
>
> Frantisek (Frank) Borsik
>
>
>
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik
>
> Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714
>
> iMessage, mobile: +420775230885
>
> Skype: casioa5302ca
>
> frantisek.borsik at gmail.com
>
>
> On Thu, May 2, 2024 at 4:47 PM Colin_Higbie via Starlink <
> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>> Alex, fortunately, we are not bound to use personal experiences and
>> observations on this. We have real market data that can provide an
>> objective, data-supported conclusion. No need for a
>> chocolate-or-vanilla-ice-cream-tastes-better discussion on this.
>>
>> Yes, cameras can film at 8K (and higher in some cases). However, at those
>> resolutions (with exceptions for ultra-high end cameras, such as those used
>> by multi-million dollar telescopes), except under very specific conditions,
>> the actual picture quality doesn't vary past about 5.5K. The loss of detail
>> simply moves from a consequence of too few pixels to optical and focus
>> limits of the lenses. Neighboring pixels simply hold a blurry image,
>> meaning they don't actually carry any usable information. A still shot with
>> 1/8 of a second exposure can easily benefit from an 8K or higher sensor.
>> Video sometimes can under bright lights with a relatively still or slow
>> moving scene. Neither of these requirements lends itself to typical home
>> video at 30 (or 24) frames per second – that's 0.03s of time per frame. We
>> can imagine AI getting to the point where it can compensate for lack of
>> clarity, and this is already being used for game rendering (e.g., Nvidia's
>> DLSS and Intel's XESS), but that requires training per scene in those games
>> and there hasn't been much development work done on this for filming, at
>> least not yet.
>>
>> Will sensors (or AI) improve to capture images faster per amount of
>> incoming photons so that effective digital shutter speeds can get faster at
>> lower light levels? No doubt. Will it materially change video quality so
>> that 8K is a similar step up from 4K as 4K is from HD (or as HD was from
>> SD)? No, at least not in the next several years. Read on for why.
>>
>> So far that was all on the production side. But what about the consumer
>> side? Mass market TV sizes max out below about 100" (83" seems to be a
>> fairly common large size, but some stores carry larger models). Even those
>> large sizes that do reach mass-market locations and are available on
>> Amazon, still comprise a very small % of total TV sales. The vast, vast
>> majority of TV sales are of sub 70" models. This is not just because of
>> pricing, that's a factor. It's also because home architecture had not
>> considered screens this big. At these sizes, it's not just a matter of
>> upgrading the entertainment console furniture, it's a matter of building a
>> different room with a dedicated entertainment wall. There is a lot of
>> inertia in the architecture and building that prevents this from being a
>> sudden change, not to mention the hundreds of millions of existing homes
>> that are already sized for TV's below 100".
>>
>> And important to this discussion, at several feet from even a 70" - 90"
>> screen, most people can't see the difference between 4K and 8K anyway. The
>> pixels are too small at that distance to make a difference in the User
>> Experience. This is a contrast with 4K from HD, which many people (not all)
>> can see, or from SD to HD, an improvement virtually everyone can see (to
>> the point that news broadcasts now blur the faces of their anchors to
>> remove wrinkles that weren't visible back in the SD days).
>>
>> For another real-world example of this curtailing resolution growth:
>> smartphones raced to higher and higher resolutions, until they reached
>> about 4K, then started pulling back. Some are slightly higher, but as often
>> as not, even at the flagship level, many smartphones fall slightly below
>> 4K, with the recognition that customers got wise to screens all being
>> effectively perfect and higher resolutions no longer mattered.
>>
>> Currently, the leading contender for anything appearing at 8K are games,
>> not streaming video. That's because games don't require camera lenses and
>> light sensors that don't yet exist. They can render dimly lit, fast moving
>> scenes in 8K just as easily as brightly lit scenes. BUT (huge but here),
>> GPUs aren't powerful enough to do that yet either at good framerates, and
>> for most gamers (not all, but a significant majority), framerate is more
>> important resolution. Top of the line graphics cards (the ones that run
>> about $1,000, so not mainstream yet) of the current generation are just
>> hitting 120fps at 4K in top modern games. From a pixel moving perspective,
>> that would translate to 30fps at 8K (4x the # of pixels, 120/4 = 30). 30fps
>> is good enough for streaming video, but not good enough for a gamer over 4K
>> at 120fps. Still, I anticipate (this part is just my opinion, not a fact)
>> that graphics cards on high-end gaming PCs will be the first to drive 8K
>> experiences for gamers before 8K streaming becomes an in-demand feature.
>> Games have HUDs and are often played on monitors just a couple of feet from
>> the gamer where ultra-fine details would be visible and relevant.
>>
>> Having said all of that, does this mean that I don't think 8K and higher
>> will eventually replace 4K for mass market consumer streaming? No, I
>> suspect that in the long-run you're right that they will. That's a
>> reasonable conclusion based on history of screen and TV programming
>> resolutions, but that timeframe is likely more than 10 years off and
>> planning bandwidth requirements for the needs 10-years from now does not
>> require any assumptions relating to standard video resolutions people will
>> be watching then: we can all assume with reasonable confidence based on
>> history of Internet bandwidth usage that bandwidth needs and desires will
>> continue to increase over time.
>>
>> The point for this group is that you lose credibility to the audience if
>> you base your reasoning on future video resolutions that the market is
>> currently rejecting without at least acknowledging that those are projected
>> future needs, rather than present day needs.
>>
>> At the same time, 4K is indeed a market standard TODAY. That's not an
>> opinion, it's a data point and a fact. As I've said multiple times in this
>> discussion, what makes this a fact and not an opinion are that millions of
>> people choose to pay for access to 4K content and the television programs
>> and movies that are stored and distributed in 4K. All the popular TV
>> devices and gaming consoles support 4K HDR content in at least some
>> versions of the product (they may also offer discounted versions that don't
>> do HDR or only go to 1080p or 1440). The market has spoken and delivered us
>> that data. 4K HDR is the standard for videophiles and popular enough that
>> the top video streaming services all offer it. It is also not in a chaotic
>> state, with suppliers providing different technologies until the market
>> sorts out a winner (like the old Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD fight 15 years ago, or
>> VHS vs. Beta before that). Yes, there are some variants on HDR (Dolby
>> Vision vs. HDR-10), but as TV's are manufactured today, Dolby Vision is
>> effectively just a superset of HDR-10, like G-Sync is a superset of
>> Adaptive Sync for variable refresh rate displays needed for gaming. So,
>> yes, 4K HDR is a standard, whether you buy a Blu-ray UHD movie at Walmart
>> or Best Buy or stream your programming from Netflix, Disney+, Max, or
>> Amazon Prime.
>>
>> So again, this is why the minimum rational top bandwidth any new ISP
>> should be developing (at least in developed countries – I think it's fair
>> to say that if people have no Internet access within hundreds of miles,
>> even slow Internet for connectivity to a local library in travel distance
>> from home is far better than nothing) is 25Mbps as the established
>> bandwidth required by the 4K providers to stream 4K HDR content. This does
>> not mean more would not be better or that more won't be needed in the
>> future. But if you are endorsing ISP buildout focused around low-latency
>> under load at anything LESS THAN 25Mbps, you have simply shifted the
>> problem for customers and users of the new service from poor latency (this
>> group's focus) to poor bandwidth incapable of providing modern services.
>>
>> To be taken seriously and maximize your chances at success at influencing
>> policy, I urge this group's members to use that 25Mbps top bandwidth as a
>> floor. And to clarify my meaning, I don't mean ISPs shouldn't also offer
>> less expensive tiers of service with bandwidth at only, say, 3 or 10Mbps.
>> Those are fine and will be plenty for many users, and a lower cost option
>> with less capability is a good thing. What I mean is that if they are
>> building out new service, the infrastructure needs to support and they need
>> to OFFER a level of at least 25Mbps. Higher is fine too (better even), but
>> where cost collides with technical capability, 25Mbps is the market
>> requirement, below that and the service offering is failing to provide a
>> fully functional Internet connection.
>>
>> Sorry for the long message, but I keep seeing a lot of these same
>> subjective responses to objective data, which concern me. I hope this long
>> version finally addresses all of those and I can now return to just reading
>> the brilliant posts of the latency and TCP/IP experts who normally drive
>> these discussions. You are all far more knowledgeable than I in those
>> areas. My expertise is in what the market needs from its Internet
>> connectivity and why.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Colin
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Starlink <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> On Behalf Of
>> starlink-request at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> Sent: Thursday, May 2, 2024 5:22 AM
>> To: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> Subject: Starlink Digest, Vol 38, Issue 13
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. Re: It’s the Latency, FCC (Alexandre Petrescu)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Thu, 2 May 2024 11:21:44 +0200
>> From: Alexandre Petrescu <alexandre.petrescu at gmail.com>
>> To: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] It’s the Latency, FCC
>> Message-ID: <94ba2b39-1fc8-46e2-9f77-3b04a63099e1 at gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>>
>>
>> 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"
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