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1080p Downloads Of 4k Movies On Prime

zanetti

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heres something mind-boggling.

the other day i downloaded a movie from prime, cliffhanger. 1080p, file downloaded was 6gb with bitrate of 6777kbps. today i found out that prime also offers cliffhanger in 4k UHD. i downloaded that one also in 1080p (since AS doesnt do 4k) and... heres the kicker: that file was 9.81gb with bitrate of 11800kbps.

how did i get that idea? well, last week i was browsing my prime library and downloaded one of the purchased UHD titles and have noticed that a 1080p download of a UHD movie yields a far better quality file, usually above 10000kbps (up to 13100kbps), while other non-UHD 1080p titles' downloads vary from super small 3gb and bitrate of 2600kbps (glass, 2019 - this one looks noice even if the bitrate is small, which probably means providers are finding ways to cut down file sizes but maintain excellent quality) up to about 6-7-8gb and bitrates from 5-6000kbps. so, i decided to find the same movie, offered via prime directly (not prime channels) and i stumbled upon cliffhanger.

so, what gives? how is this possible? both movies have the exact same runtime, same exact profiles (high@l4, cabac/4 ref frames), same audio bitrate, same resolution and the only difference is that one has and the other doesnt have 4k UHD next to its title on prime and thus in AS.

btw, i dont have log file for non UHD cliffhanger, but can download again if need be and can provide log for UHD one if devs want them. im really curious to hear what devs have to say. also, if someone is willing to test this on their end, that would be more than welcome. oh, fyi. im using unlimited dl speed, and ive also noticed that these 1080p downloads of UHD titles take 2-3x longer to both download and postprocess as well, compared to the downloads of regular 1080p titles.

thanks!
 
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@zanetti , funny you mention this!


I started checking Amazon titles for a corresponding UHD offering but for a different reason.

Sometimes the highest resolution offered (in AS) differs for the two.

Strangely though, the UHD version is not always the highest!


Here's the one title where I downloaded both versions (just to compare them visually) even though the video resolutions are the same...



upload_2021-5-5_3-2-39.png



The UHD version is on the left.


Just as you mention, the file size and video bit rate for the UHD version are much higher!


In this case, the audio bit rate is lower for the UHD version. Pretty sure that's the highest that was available since that's what I always pick.




T
 
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I author everything I download to Blu-ray. I'd just extract the Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 track from the second file and use it with the first one. I doubt adding a delay would even be needed. I bet the audio tracks match up perfectly already. I mix and match like that all the time. I downloaded something the other day that offered high quality video and was in the original aspect ratio. The audio was low quality and 2 channel only though. I then downloaded a different stream of the same title from a different provider. The video in that case wasn't in the original aspect ratio, but included Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 audio. I extracted the 5.1 audio track using it with the other stream. In that case a 10 second audio delay was required to match things up as the provider with the 5.1 audio track likes to remind you who they are and display the film rating before the given feature presentation begins.
 
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@zanetti , funny you mention this!


I started checking Amazon titles for a corresponding UHD offering but for a different reason.

Sometimes the highest resolution offered (in AS) differs for the two.

Strangely though, the UHD version is not always the highest!


Here's the one title where I downloaded both versions (just to compare them visually) even though the video resolutions are the same...



View attachment 56901



The UHD version is on the left.


Just as you mention, the file size and video bit rate for the UHD version are much higher!


In this case, the audio bit rate is lower for the UHD version. Pretty sure that's the highest that was available since that's what I always pick.




T
The one on the left is CBR @ 10,000 -- the one on the right is VBR
 
Its still not UHD. maybe you see a difference but not what you would see in UHD.
 
The one on the left is CBR @ 10,000 -- the one on the right is VBR

ok, but why does prime offer CBR 1080p for UHD titles and VBR for non-UHD titles? btw, i tried downloading another UHD title yesterday, arrival (2016). chose 1080p, hit download, file downloaded extremely quickly (for a UHD title) and the file size for a two hour movie? 1.7gb, yes you heard it right. bitrate? funny you should ask. 1550kbps! lol. thats like those old 2cd xvid rips from like 15 years ago. something is not right. as mentioned before, glass (2019) is only 3.3gb and it lookes fine, same goes for the equalizer (2014), and both are non-UHD downloads. thats fine, some compression magic done by the provider (they really look good, id never would have guessed its a sub 4gb file). but 1.7gb for a two hour movie? thats just odd, to say the least.

after that, i downloaded air force one (1997) UHD version also, and lo and behold got a 12gb/12500kbps file. lol. i mean, i dont think AS is the culprit here, it must be amazon prime (ive seen weird stuff on prime, e.g 25 episodes out of 27 in a complete series have highest resolution of 576p but then all of a sudden two episodes are available in 1080p and yield files that are 5x larger, so im guessing, dunno... sloppy job, amazon... it is weird, though. right?

anyways, im sticking to 1080p downloads of UHD titles exclusively on prime, since those are of better quality. btw, can someone take a few minutes of their time and test this on their end? as i said before these titles are available in both UHD and non-UHD versions for prime members for free: arrival, air force one, midsommar, the davinci code, cliffhanger, star trek beyond and a few others i have to confirm. thanks!
 
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Its still not UHD. maybe you see a difference but not what you would see in UHD.

yeah, thats obvious. as i mentioned right from the get-go. both are 1080p but one is from a UHD title while other is not. but they are the same title, lol. weird, right?
 
yeah, thats obvious. as i mentioned right from the get-go. both are 1080p but one is from a UHD title while the other is not. but they are the same title, lol. weird, right?
Yes, its Amazon trying to keep everything at 1080P. I have seen a slight variation in picture quality once when I mistakenly bought a UHD title. I didn't think it was really worth the extra money.
 
It's nothing about UHD version.
All my downloads are HD "only" and all Amazon Prime about 10-14.5 Mb/s.
It's all about the source quality, older movies have higher bitrate, new (mostly digital camera used) has lower bitrate (8-9 Mb/s).
But in Full HD I never saw under 8 Mb/s on Amazon.
 
But in Full HD I never saw under 8 Mb/s on Amazon.

glass, 2019. prime video. 1080p. 2661kbps. filesize 3.3gb.
the equalizer, 2014. prime video. 1080p. 2778kbps. filesize 3.21gb.

on the flip side, they both look great. weird. unfortunately i dont have access to 4k UHD versions of either movies, would be interested to compare 1080p downloads. i might take one for the team and rent them or maybe even outright buy them, lol. im intrigued now with all this quality/bitrate/filesize malarkey.
 
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Those are unavailable with Prime (US/UK/CA/DE/FR/IN/AU/IE) so I can't check.
But I found some lower bitrate movies like Borat 7.4 Mb/s and few HBO Movies at 7 Mb/s. But no lower yet.
 
I have seen as low as 5Mbps on AP titles at 1080. I don't remember which ones, but they're out there. When Amazon gets a 4k copy they likely reencode the 1080 from that source file and might not get around to removing the non 4k sourced title. BTW I download a ton of foreign and indie films.
 
I have seen as low as 5Mbps on AP titles at 1080. I don't remember which ones, but they're out there. When Amazon gets a 4k copy they likely reencode the 1080 from that source file and might not get around to removing the non 4k sourced title. BTW I download a ton of foreign and indie films.


could you try 4k UHD version of arrival (2019)? if you have the time? 1080p download of a UHD version yields a 1.7gb file with a bitrate of 1500kbps, lol. im trying now 1080p download of a non-UHD version of the same movie. btw, hidden dragon, couching tiger 1080p download of a UHD version yields a ridiculously small file (and thats a far more demanding title to encode due to a lot of action scenes, unlike arrival), not as drastic as arrival, but close.

edit: 1080p of a non-UHD version of arrival yields a file with 1750kbps bitrate and 1.93gb filesize. hahaha, its close, but still different. how is this feasible for amazon? why not serve exact same 1080p streams for both UHD and non-UHD versions of the same title?? here the difference is small, 150mb, but with cliffhanger and others mentioned before the difference is almost 100%. i dont get it.
 
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To help with this situation, often the best version from AP is not always the VBR but the CBR version. Maybe it would be an interesting feature to add soon ? Is it in the plan of the developer department ?
 
Perhaps we’re assuming that Amazon is serving an actual file vs a dynamically generated stream from a very high quality source. Would be equivalent to on-the-fly transcoding to match target and based on things like target capabilities, network speed, etc. In that case you could potentially have a lot of variability.
 
Perhaps we’re assuming that Amazon is serving an actual file vs a dynamically generated stream from a very high quality source. Would be equivalent to on-the-fly transcoding to match target and based on things like target capabilities, network speed, etc. In that case you could potentially have a lot of variability.
Perhaps we’re assuming that Amazon is serving an actual file vs a dynamically generated stream from a very high quality source. Would be equivalent to on-the-fly transcoding to match target and based on things like target capabilities, network speed, etc. In that case you could potentially have a lot of variability.

by experience I don’t think it’s a live transcode, I’ve made my own tests by dl the same files 3 times with AS and other method and the size is the same (byte for byte). But there is lot of different files of the same movie on their servers. AS targets and get the best VBR (each time). So for me it’s clearly a download not a transcode
 
That's because it is a straight download. Whatever is on the CDN gets downloaded, decrypted and wrapped in an mp4. That's it.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
 
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