[South Dublin] Which broadband can stream YouTube 4K60 (@25Mb/s) ??

iXpertMan

Hi.

Just wondering is any broadband in Dublin able to stream a 4K60 (25Mb/s bitrate) or 1440p60 YouTube video while maintaining a sufficient buffer and hence not stuttering?

Strangely even through an ethernet connection with more than capable bandwidth upto 240Mb/s from Virgin Media (SpeedTest my-result/d/26263204) the buffering is unable to keep up and wondering is it just me or maybe I should change to a more stable broadband provider.

Why?
After recently discovering that when selecting 1440p or even 4K quality YouTube content on a 1080p display, the image preserves more details with higher resolutions, rather than following YouTube's auto mode for optimal resolution of 1080p.
This is apparently due to the fact that since YouTube allows for higher bitrates on higher resolution, so even an upscaled 1080p video will look better than when played at the default 1080p from YouTube.

Samples (as these are games all of the pixels change a lot hence the high bitrate)
1) [4K30] YouTube/ watch?v=VqjilwLMtyM
2) [4K60] Youtube/ watch?v=-ZLQCGFRWyE

Thank you, please tell me which broadband you're using and your results from SpeedTest (curios)

Simi

I seem to remember there being an issue with Virgin and high bit rate streaming on YouTube & Netflix in the past. Something to do with Virgin not peering? Could still be a problem. If your speed tests are ok it's probably something like that.

ED E

Plays fine with VM 240Mb. Sure its not your PC?

iXpertMan

Simi wrote: »

I seem to remember there being an issue with Virgin and high bit rate streaming on YouTube & Netflix in the past. Something to do with Virgin not peering? Could still be a problem. If your speed tests are ok it's probably something like that.

Is there anyway to check that this is the issue?

Simi wrote: »

Plays fine with VM 240Mb. Sure its not your PC?

Got a Mac . It's a 13" MacBook Pro (2016) w/o TouchBar which drops frames when playing 1440p60 and 4K60 from the SSD (4K30 plays fine). The frame loss also occurs on YouTube, but the 'Stats for Nerds' also shows how the stream buffer depletes down to zero and this is the issue which causes stutters, frames are dropped but that doesn't cause a few second freeze

ED E

Try another machine, it should work fine. Ideally one that has an ethernet port.

Im over homeplugs (200Mb real world max) and pull up to 58Mb while watching that second video. The tab also uses 440MB of ram which Safari may not play nice with. If you arent, use chrome. Its sandboxing could alleviate that.



From January:

Safari not able to play new 4K videos from YouTube homepage, likely due to VP9 shift
By Mike Wuerthele
Thursday, January 12, 2017, 12:16 pm PT (03:16 pm ET)

What appears to be Google's shift to the VP9 codec for delivering 4K video on the YouTube homepage is preventing Safari users from watching videos uploaded to the service since early December in full 4K resolution, but not from viewing webpage-embedded videos in the same resolution.

It also doesnt support RTSP properly. If IE is the retarded cousin Safari is the younger sibling mommy dropped on his head as a baby.

iXpertMan

Perhaps the bottleneck is my machine and unfortunately don't have access to anything more powerful, also I vaguely remember trying 4K60 playback on top level iMac in CompuB with zapping internet and it dropped frames but didn't stutter. But I really think it's the internet connection since the file is playable from my internal SSD without stuttering and my Stats for Nerds (link) shows an empty buffer statistic which is correlating to the stuttering - perhaps though my machine is not fast enough to keep up with he transfer and playback at the same time, but my connection speed from the YouTube stats is below the bitrate of the video and your stats are far superior

My video stat via Chrome: photos.app.goo.gl/CtgWZIarz7UoEpi42

ED E

Your own screen shows it, CPU is pegged. No hardware VP9 acceleration so your CPU is like a 300lb man trying to run the london marathon and cant deal with requesting new chunks.

Your mac is for browsing pinterest, not 4K

Big Lar

ED E wrote:

Your mac is for browsing pinterest, not 4K

Harsh 😀

iXpertMan

I'm still not convinced though, if I zoom into the CPU usage it's never 100% (on bigger graph), although it does appear to be near max limit.

I don't get why would the internet connection rate drops though, mine is in 10,000kbps, your benchmark is 100,000kbps! (x10) I never get such rates, even when playing 1080p60

My GPU is Intel 540, newest MacBook Pro Model has 640 which fully supports hardware VP9 decoding, unlike my 'hybrid', but I tested it in CompuB and it still dropped frames on the 640 yet the buffer health was always stable unlike in my case.

May I ask what kind of GPU are you using?

ED E

32GB RAM
16 Cores 32 Threads (2 Proc)
7870 (old fart but supports GCN)

I could honestly play 20 of them simultaneously and not skip a beat if the internet connection would manage it.

iXpertMan

AMD 7870 doesn't support VP9 hardware decoding, that means your CPU is doing all of it - right? And you've plenty of cores to spare though unlike me

Just one thing, what kind of of Internet Connection speed do you get in Stats for Nerds while watching 1080p60?
Mine is usually ~40,000 kbps even though Speedtest shows speeds of >100mbps and I don't get why...