jaylach wrote:
Got an email from Netflix last night saying they were raising the cost of my Ultra HD streaming from $19.99/month to $22.99/month. This was to be, at least, the second price hike this year. There may have actually done a third but I'm not going to say they did without being sure. Ya, I could have dropped down to just HD streaming but I have a 55 inch LG set with HDR. Why would I not want to have the higher format?
I used to feel the same as you Jay regarding UHD/HDR/4K on Netflix but i really can't see that much of a difference between HD and UHD these days on Netflix that justifies the extra expense of UHD, or any where else for that matter, yes it was good but it didn't really justify the extra money that HD over SD gave so i decided to save the money and drop back down to HD.
One of the good things about online streaming companies is you're not usually tied into a contract so you can play about with the package to see which works best for you... for me, HD on Netflix is now more than acceptable on my Samsung 55" 4K TV where as a few years ago it wasn't so great, presumably because since then the codecs have changed in leaps and bounds meaning Netflix et al have been able to increase the picture/sound quality without any additional overheads?
As an aside, a real bug bear of mine was the online push for Dolby Digital (in as many channels as possible) on Set Top Boxes, my satelitte TV provider made a change to their STB (Sky UK) about 2 years ago and it royaly screwed the default sound settings from my TV... i gave up trying to sort out the issue with Samsung and Sky because all they did was blame each other meaning i was going around in circles. (i.e I don't own nor want a surround sound system, i tried one once but because i live in an apartment it was far too loud and only caused complaints from my neighbours).
As another final aside; i've long thought that while some people who think the end of TV as we know it will result in a better experience were being narrow minded... they never really thought that through, in that people are now beginning to realise what that reality actualy is... channels like Disney/Discovery/Paramount etc spinning off into their own subscription channels only means more expense and less availability for the consumer... one that the likes of Netflix are slowly beginning to see as their subscriber numbers drop off a cliff.