Netflix, 4K +/- HDR and AMD

[philehidiot]

So, I gets me a 4K monitor and the driver for this was partially that I wanted to stream in 4K fron Netflix or Amazon. I find nothing is streaming in 4K, all 1080P. I have all the bits I think I need but nothing, nada.

So, I check the Netflix help website and under the section on 4K it says you need:
- Windaz 10. Depressingly, check.
- Edge Browser or Netflix App (I installed the Netflix software and I may have sworn at Edge).
- a 60Hz 4K capable display with HDCP 2.2. Check.
- Inhel's 7th gen Core CPU or a newer Nvidia GPU that meet specific requirements.... wait, wha?

So, my Vega64 can do hardware decoding for the relevant... stuff. Why is it not supported? Surely this is all handled by Windaz? And even if it does require another API or something, surely Neflix is big enough to code for the major vendors? I have 4096 cores, give me 4K.

HDR is something just as special.
- Windaz 10 Creators Update
- CPU again an Inhel Core 7th gen plus model (if using integrated graphics)
- Nvidia GPU of 1050,1060., 1070, 1080 flavour with 3GB+ of VRAM (if using a discrete GPU).

I'm cross.

I go onto the Netflix chat and they say they have absolutely no idea and neither does anyone else, so they'll escalate it to management. I thoroughly expect this is all underhand tactics from Inhell and Nvidia to try and push AMD out of the market but I am a cynic.

Anyone have any ideas on a) if there are any genuine hardware reasons for this limitation and b) how to bypass this utter tosh and use my AMD GPU?

[DanceswithUnix]

One thing missing from your requirements list, you are on the most expensive Netflix subscription aren't you?

From Googling this it sounds like the Intel 7th Gen have extra DRM might be used, yet this page says it should work (as long as you bothered to download GPU drivers from AMD rather than using the outdated tripe that Microsoft automatically plug and play which I think on my daughter's PC was from 2017 and couldn't even display a mouse pointer reliably):

https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/...wnload-3466303


I'm only going from a breakfast time Googling here, I don't have 4K so don't have this working and my Netflix viewing is generally via set top boxes. You might want to look out for a cheap NowTV 4K box, I use the earlier non 4K model to watch Netflix on. Ironically I don't think NowTV themselves have any 4K streamed content (probably to force you to get Sky-Q), but according to reviews Netflix and YouTube work in 4K.

Edit: More guesssing... which Windows 10 are you on? ISTR in the latest 1903 the Edge browser is now using the same engine as Chrome, maybe it broke.

[philehidiot]

Attempting to find the version of windows gives me a blank page.... verifying it's definitely Windows 10.

I went to command and the version is listed as 10.0.17134.829... it's the latest update.

Yep I'm on the full top whack Netflix package.

And the AMD drivers are the downloaded ones, a driver remover used to remove any trace of anything else and them installed fresh as downloaded from the AMD website.

And I've not tried it in the Edge browser but I'm using the Netflix "App". I hate that word.

The only other thing I could think of is that there's enough packet loss over my wifi connection to mean it doesn't get teh bandwidth. I've got a 5GHz Alfa USB network card which demands a USB 3 connection for full bore and is, for some reason I can't quite figure out, also capable of packet injection. It has a full signal. I suppose I could try using the ping command to do a mini DOS attack on the BBC news page and see if there's a latency issue due to a dodgy connection.

[peterb]

Buy a 4K Apple TV or a 4K Amazon firestick.

Plug the output to your monitor and connect to your WiFi or hard wire connection and enjoy 4K streaming. Both devices are *nix based and come with drives already installed and optimised for the graphics engine!

Hope that helps

[Jonj1611]

I second Apple TV 4K.

[Zak33]

run a network cable briefly from the router to the system and check that its not a wifi issue

https://hexus.net/ce/news/audio-visu...river-release/
AMD drivers are Netflix 4k and have been for a long time now

[Zak33]

OH...here's a thought.

HDMI leads are fine for 4k...up to 30hz (films)...but not for 60hz

I think you need an HDMI 2 lead...

[philehidiot]

OH...here's a thought.

HDMI leads are fine for 4k...up to 30hz (films)...but not for 60hz

I think you need an HDMI 2 lead...

I'm using Display Port. I have no idea what version.... I'm using the cable supplied with the monitor. Maybe worth a look. Ta.

[Smudger]

OH...here's a thought.

HDMI leads are fine for 4k...up to 30hz (films)...but not for 60hz

I think you need an HDMI 2 lead...

Not sure if the HDMI versioning applies to the cables, but you do get high speed, etc. If you get 18mbps ones, you should be fine. Amazon Basics ones for about a fiver are sufficient.

From wikipedia:

As of the HDMI 1.4 specification, the following cable types are defined for HDMI in general:[75][76]

Standard HDMI Cable – up to 1080i and 720p
Standard HDMI Cable with Ethernet
Standard Automotive HDMI Cable
High Speed HDMI Cable – 1080p, 4K 30 Hz, 3D and deep color
High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet
A new certification program was introduced in October 2015 to certify that cables work at the 18 Gbit/s maximum bandwidth of the HDMI 2.0 specification.[77] In addition to expanding the set of cable testing requirements, the certification program introduces an EMI test to ensure cables minimize interference with wireless signals. These cables are marked with an anti-counterfeiting authentication label and are defined as:[78]

Premium High Speed HDMI Cable
Premium High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet
In conjunction with the HDMI 2.1 specification, a third category of cable was announced on January 4, 2017, called "48G".[79] Also known as Category 3 HDMI or "Ultra High Speed" HDMI, the cable is designed to support the 48 Gbit/s bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, supporting 4K, 5K, 8K and 10K at 120 Hz.[80] The cable is backwards compatible with the earlier HDMI devices, using existing HDMI type A, C and D connectors, and includes HDMI Ethernet.

Ultra High Speed HDMI Cable (48G Cable) – 4K, 5K, 8K and 10K at 120 Hz

[Smudger]

I'm using Display Port. I have no idea what version.... I'm using the cable supplied with the monitor. Maybe worth a look. Ta.

This might be the key. Apparently, DP also has versioning, so it may be that one end or the other doesn't have the required version of connector to deal with 4k/60...

[DanceswithUnix]

I would expect a poor quality lead to stop a picture from being displayed at all.

Having tried to use a 4K display at 30Hz on a PC, the mouse pointer feels like it is in treacle and you just *know* something is wrong.

[philehidiot]

Not knowing how it works I can't say for sure but generally these things tend to work but fail to display the extra stuff outside of the limitations of the equipment. I'm thinking like how HLG adds extra data to the signal which is just not even interpreted by the receiver if it's not capable of doing HLG.

[DanceswithUnix]

Not knowing how it works I can't say for sure but generally these things tend to work but fail to display the extra stuff outside of the limitations of the equipment. I'm thinking like how HLG adds extra data to the signal which is just not even interpreted by the receiver if it's not capable of doing HLG.

In this case newer standards mean data sent at a faster rate, so data can just not arrive intact at the display.

I have seen Sky Q boxes not work with old Sky+ hdmi cables for example.

[philehidiot]

In this case newer standards mean data sent at a faster rate, so data can just not arrive intact at the display.

I have seen Sky Q boxes not work with old Sky+ hdmi cables for example.

Ah fair enough. Just as a thought, if there was some kind of HDCP issue with the cable, would that mean it failed to display 4K and could only display 1080p?

Oh and as a funny aside... me and my dad were in PC World (for some unknown reason) and some guy came up to us looking at HDMI cables. My Dad asked the perfectly reasonable question "what's the difference between this one and the gold plated one?" (both were the exact same spec, but one was gold plated and seemed a bit better built but markedly more expensive) and the response was "oh it's faster".

So according to PC World, a gold plated cable will make your TV programs run faster. And this is desireable.

(This was in the early days of HDMI and the two cables were the exact same version and spec... one was a rip off and the other wasn't).