NanoTech Entertainment Inc (NTEK)

[NummyNums]

The marketing wisdom of NTEK's Silver, Gold, Platinum designations:

I believe NTEK will head off many of the criticisms like Netflix has received (below) by educating and acknowledging that 4K consumers are well-informed consumers.. These consumers will be able to make informed streaming decisions thanks to NTEK's Silver, Gold, Platinum offerings. NTEK clearly has a grasp on 4K Streaming as evidenced by these streaming designations.

excerpt from Netflix 4K Ultra HD -

Interestingly, though, the further you move through Breaking Bad’s five seasons, the better the picture quality starts to look, so that by the last couple of seasons you feel much more like you’re watching a native 4K experience.

The reason for this, we imagine, is that unlike House of Cards – which, as noted earlier, was shot using Red 5K digital cameras – Breaking Bad was filmed on 35mm celluloid, a material which can come in different quality grades and that can also degrade over time. So it could be that as the show became successful a higher grade of film was used for the later series, or it could be that the older series’ stock had degraded by the time they got round to scanning it for the new 4K masters, and they didn’t have the time or money to do the remastering necessary to correct the ‘errors’.

Another issue that could be in play here is that shooting on 35mm film tends to deliver a naturally grainier finish – something that makers of gritty shows and films like Breaking Bad often like on an artistic level. Which is fine, of course, except that the more ‘noise’ there is in a source the harder it is for compression engines like the one used by Netflix to compress an image for digital distribution without creating compression artefacts.

One further factor could be that Breaking Bad tends to use brighter photography than House Of Cards, and it’s easier for compression systems to handle darker content. But maybe that one’s a bit of a stretch unless all Netflix’s other home-grown shows turn out to be filmed in particularly low light conditions!

Overall, Breaking Bad is still better to watch in 4K than HD – its gritty look is more effective than it is with HD despite the occasional problems it causes the compression engine, and there is palpably more detail to be seen. But its demonstration of 4K’s charms isn’t as ‘in your face’ and instantly impressive as House Of Cards.

Strangely the least impressive of Netflix 4K’s UK wares is the material you might have expected to look the best: the Moving Art nature documentaries. All four look much softer and less detailed than the two TV series, all four suffer with far more obvious compression artefacts, and all four exhibit colour definition far short of the level we’ve come to expect of good 4K, leading to a loss of resolution in very saturated areas of the image like trees, pastures and skies.

There even seem to be some colour errors at times – trailing tones and strange off-key ‘haloes’. At times pictures look more like a 1970s sit com or a low quality NTSC-to-PAL transcode than a pristine 4K image. Weird.

Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/netflix-4k-ultra-hd-review#HBAHJsVKcjdqMY5o.99

excerpt from Ultraflix wants to become the Netflix of the 4K generation -

"So Ultraflix accommodates that. Movies are clearly labeled “Silver,” “Gold,” and “Platinum,” with upconverted 1080p movies assigned a Silver rating, older film transfers labeled as Gold movies, and native 4K movies given a Platinum designation. For now, every movie Ultraflix provides is a 48-hour rental, with prices ranging from $1.99 to $3.99 for “third-tier content,” $4.99 for a concert or IMAX documentary, and up to $9.99 for a studio film, Taylor said.

...Besides a 4K smart TV, however, chances are you that you won’t have to worry about bandwidth. Ultraflix streams as low as 6 Mbits per second, on up to 25 Mbits/s for Platinum offerings. Taylor characterized 10-Mbit streaming as a sweet spot. Most broadband services, especially cable, can deliver that speed easily."

www.4kultrahdreview.com/ultraflix-wants-become-netflix-4k-generation/