I have a basic internet plan and a speed test says I get speeds of 21mbs
However when I stream it looks like DVD quality even though I’ve selected HD. I was expecting it to look like a blu ray at least.
Streaming from Foxtel movies
Do I need to increase my speed to stream HD?
John678 on 02/07/2020 - 18:51
Comments
Mine says
18.5
Mbps download
13.0
Mbps upload
Latency: 36 ms
Server: Sydney
Your Internet connection is fast.Your Internet connection should be able to handle multiple devices streaming HD videos at the same time.
Streaming from Foxtel movies
I didn't know foxtel movies had HD?
edit—Are you using Foxtel Now? Looking it up I think it does stream HD but only certain content. Noted on their site they require 7mbps, so you should be fine assuming nothing is hogging it?
I know in the settings area you can turn the quality up and down, though I'm assuming you've checked this from the above.
Yes always set to download in HD and stream in HD.
Here's part of a problem. I noticed this when I bought my new 4k TV. When watching videos that were at 720p only, because 4k resolution is 9x the resolution of 720p, the quality is worse - even though what you are watching is (was) HD.
It might look different depending on how the TV upscales. For example, when I watch Stan using the native app on my TV, it upscales all my movies and shows (regardless of resolution) to 1080p, meaning that it looks a little bit clearer.
Another issue may be TV size. If you have a 40" TV, and an 80" TV, all else remaining equal, the quality will be 4 times worse on the 80", even though the streamed quality is the same - as the pixels are larger.
What you may be looking at is actual HD quality content, but might not be that good when comparing to the "idealised" quality. This might not be the right answer for you, but it might be something to think about.It’s a 75 inch tv. So that sounds right. So essentially the larger tv the worse quality ? :(
To some extent, yes.
And even though what you’re watching might be Full HD, maybe 4k? It means that you have worse picture quality due to the large size
Your speed is fine. You are probably just noticing the compression and ghosting artifacts that come with making 1080p stuff stream with low bandwidth.
Maybe get a better plan and ditch Foxtel for Netflix or Stan.
Could be router performance. If there are intermittant disturbances, say from a AC compressor that's in the line of sight turning on and off, then your burst speed might be sufficient, but your nominal speed might be lacking so the foxtel app throttles down.
You're expecting it to look like Blu-ray even though it's a fraction of the bitrate used on discs.
I used a trial of Foxtel's streaming service to binge a series and the experience was terrible - I have 100 / 40 (and get around 98 / 38 with normal usage), Netflix is perfect etc. Foxtel buffered occasionally, stuttered, quite low quality in general. This was back in Jan this year.
A colleague who also had issues with Foxtel on his 100mbps down service bumped his up to 250mbps temporarily to check things, still similar issues.
Foxtel just has issues. (and bloody ads on a paid-for streaming service, wth is that)
Short answer is no, 21Mbps is more than enough for 1080p so i suspect the problem lies elsewhere. You could try looking at Task Manager -> Performance to see how much bandwith you're actually consuming while streaming.