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sources.md

Note: this is still a WIP, feedback and comparisons welcome. See service notes for more details.

Table of content

Table of contents generated with markdown-toc

Tier list

UHD SDR

Tier I - consistently good

  1. Movies Anywhere
  2. Microsoft Store
  3. Google Play (HEVC)
  4. Peacock

Tier II - mixed bag

  1. Netflix
  2. iTunes / Apple TV+
  3. Amazon CBR (regular encode)
  4. Stan
  5. Amazon CBR (updated encodes, 2022+, select originals only)

Tier III - consistently OK

  1. Paramount+
  2. Hulu

Tier IV - consistently bad

  1. Hotstar
  2. Amazon VBR (DASH)
  3. Showtime

Undetermined: Vudu, Rakuten, Chili, FandangoNow (defunct)

UHD HDR

Tier I - consistently good

  1. Bravia Core non-IMAX Enhanced
  2. Bravia Core IMAX Enhanced
  3. Movies Anywhere
  4. Microsoft Store
  5. Max
  6. Disney+ / Star+
  7. Netflix
  8. Peacock

Tier II - mixed bag

  1. iTunes / Apple TV+
  2. HBO Max
  3. Paramount+
  4. Hulu
  5. Stan

Tier IV - consistently bad

  1. Hotstar
  2. Amazon (regular encodes)
  3. Showtime
  4. Amazon (updated encodes, 2022+, select originals only)

UHD Dolby Vision

Tier I - consistently good

  1. Disney+ / Star+
  2. Netflix
  3. Max
  4. Paramount+

Tier II - mixed bag

  1. Amazon (updated encodes, 2022+, select originals)
  2. iTunes / Apple TV+

Tier III - consistently bad

  1. Peacock
  2. Movies Anywhere
  3. Hotstar

Undetermined: Google Play, Peacock, Crave, Vudu, Rakuten, Chili

HD

Tier I - consistently good

  1. Disney+ / Star+
  2. Amazon (old VBR V1, unknown-2018)
  3. Movies Anywhere
  4. Amazon (CBR)
  5. Crunchyroll (see notes)

Tier II - mixed bag

  1. Max
  2. Netflix
  3. Amazon (new VBR V2+, 2018-)

Tier III - consistently OK

  1. HBO Max
  2. Microsoft Store
  3. iTunes / Apple TV+
  4. Stan
  5. Kanopy
  6. Paramount+
  7. SkyShowtime
  8. Peacock

Tier IV - consistently bad

  1. Amazon HEVC
  2. Hulu
  3. Hotstar
  4. Tubi TV (720p, still better than Crave 1080p)
  5. Crave

Undetermined: Google Play, Microsoft Store, Vudu, Roku

SD

Tier I - consistently good

  1. Paramount+ (SD-only content, 4500 kbps)
  2. Google Play
  3. Crackle (old 6000 kbps streams)
  4. Disney+
  5. HBO Max

Tier II - mixed bag

  1. Netflix (here at their best with rare ~3000 kbps encodes)
  2. Paramount+ (HD+ content, 800-2500 kbps)
  3. Max

Tier IV - consistently bad

  1. Stan
  2. iTunes
  3. Amazon

Undetermined: Movies Anywhere, Microsoft Store, Peacock

Audio

Atmos

  1. Disney+/Star+ - 768k + DD-EX
  2. Netflix, Apple TV+/iTunes, Paramount+, Hotstar, HBO Max - 768k
  3. Movies Anywhere, Max, Peacock - 640k
  4. Microsoft Store - 576k
  5. Amazon - 576k (DV titles only), 448k
  6. Vudu - 576k/448k (seemingly no pattern to which titles get which)
  7. Stan, Rakuten - 448k

7.1

  1. iTunes - 640k DDP
  2. Vudu - 448k DDP

5.1

  1. Royal Opera House (UK) - 960k DDP
  2. Netflix - 640k DDP
  3. Amazon - 640k DDP (see notes)
  4. Google Play - 384k DDP, 384k DD, 384k DTS-E
  5. Stan - 384k DDP, 448k AAC (suffers from clipping issues)
  6. HBO Max, Microsoft Store, SkyShowtime - 384k DDP
  7. Peacock - 384k DDP, 192k DDP (old)
  8. Rakuten - 256k DDP, 576k DDP (ocassional), 768k DTS (rare, probably worse than DDP)
  9. Disney+/Star+, Max, Vudu - 256k DDP
  10. Paramount+ - 384k DD (rare), 192k DDP

2.0

  1. Royal Opera House (UK) - 320k AAC
  2. Google Play - 256k AAC, 128k Opus
  3. HBO Max - 384k DD, 256k DDP
  4. Amazon - 224k DDP
  5. Rakuten - 192k AAC, 320k AAC (ocassional)
  6. Netflix - 128k AAC, 128k DDP, 192k xHE-AAC (very poor support)
  7. Disney+/Star+, Crackle, Crunchyroll - 128k AAC
  8. Peacock, SkyShowtime - 128k AAC, 96k AAC (old)
  9. Vudu - 128k AAC, 128k DDP
  10. Max - 128k DDP, 128k AAC (rare)
  11. Hulu - 64k AAC

General notes

Higher tier = higher quality, higher position within a tier = higher quality. All services presented at their best, some fluctuate more than others (e.g. Max and Netflix).

Service notes

Amazon

  • Tends to have a slightly off AR on all encodes (except 16:9/4:3)
  • UHD: select originals, mostly big titles (2022+) have updated encodes
  • UHD: DASH/VBR SDR streams are significantly worse than SmoothStreaming/CBR
  • UHD: gets a lot of smeary artifacts when pushed to its limits
  • UHD: new HDR encodes have worse quality and blocking artifacts (https://slow.pics/c/TgoUGQ87)
  • HD: tends to have a green tint from improper rounding
  • HD: VBR V1 (unknown-2018) > CBR (never changed) > VBR V2+ (2018-)
  • SD: CBR usually wins, VBR is ocassionally better on grainier content (typically if it has 500+ kbps more bitrate than CBR)
  • Tends to have low quality subtitles on non-original content (no quality standards)
  • Audio suffers from volume issues (overamplification, clipping)

Netflix

  • UHD: a lot of content gets DO streams at 17-19 Mbps, they beat previous ones
  • UHD: older streams used to be 16 Mbps, those beat 12 Mbps and <16 Mbps DO streams
  • UHD: new CBR streams are 12 mbps
  • HD: bitrate varies widely, tends to be higher on less popular titles; highest recorded bitrates: ~9100 kbps (H.264), ~8000 kbps (HEVC)
  • HD: 5000 kbps QC stream exists, and is comparable to MPL of the same bitrate, sometimes loses with lower-bitrate HPL
  • SD: BPL is rarely better than MPL/HPL, even if it has a slightly higher bitrate; MPL can reach 2000+ kbps bitrates in some cases

Apple TV/iTunes

  • Has DNR applied, particularly noticable on UHD content
  • UHD bitrate between 12 Mbps and 26 Mbps
  • HD bitate between 5 Mbps and 10 Mbps
  • Apple TV+ are always on the upper boundaries of bitrates (10 Mbps HD, 20-25 Mbps UHD)
  • Old 720p streams from the iTunes app are better (at least when they're not anamorphic)

Disney+

  • Good streams at all quality tiers, but subpar non-atmos audio
  • Dolby Vision streams now tend to have higher bitrate than HDR (16 vs 12 mbps)
  • Some Atmos encodes were tagged as Dolby Surround EX, so it might play as 7.1 (or might be mistagged).
  • apps.disneyplus.com (MENA) is an entirely different backend, same as Hotstar (see below)

Hotstar / APPS

  • UHD: Decent, but performs much worse than you'd expect given its bitrate
  • HD: garbage
  • HDR streams are only PQ10

Paramount+

  • HDR/DV tend to have much higher bitrate than SDR
  • SDR is quite decent given its bitrate, but almost always loses to Amazon/iTunes chanenls
  • All of its content is available on iTunes/Apple TV channels and Amazon. HD and UHD SDR are best from Amazon, UHD HDR/DV as well as SD from Paramount+ itself

HBO Max (now defunct)

  • UHD SDR rarely exists, most titles only get HDR/DV
  • All SD content is upscaled to HD
  • All content currently available in HD on Amazon (with dupe frames, 23.976->24 FPS), it's a toss up quality wise
  • Frame rate is dependent on region (US is 23.976, EU is 25 spedup, LATAM is 29.97 with dupe frames), other than UHD content.

Max

  • All SD content is upscaled to HD
  • SD/HD bitrate varies a lot, beats HMAX at the higher end
  • SD/HD are quite good even with lower bitrate
  • Has Dolby Vision profile 8 and profile 5 (latter only on select titles)
  • All content currently available in HD on Amazon (with dupe frames, 23.976->24 FPS), it's a toss up quality wise
  • Frame rate is dependent on region (US is 23.976, EU is 25 spedup, LATAM is 29.97 with dupe frames), other than UHD content.

Hulu

  • Okay UHD streams, nothing else
  • Uses Dolby Vision profile 8 and HDR10+
  • Older Dolby Vision encodes have terribly low bitrate

Movies Anywhere

  • Always constant bitrate: 2160p - 25 Mbpps; 1080p - 8 Mbps
  • Pretty much best source for UHD SDR/HDR streams
  • DV is denoised and inferior to other source
  • 1080p is a mixed bag. Sometimes wins with Amazon, sometimes it loses

Bravia Core

  • IMAX Enhanced streams have DNR

Microsoft Store

  • Fairly rarely ripped
  • Has good UHD, best source for UHD content not on MA
  • Sometimes beats MA at lower bitrates
  • HD is alright, but not worth using over Amazon

Showtime (defunct)

  • All their content is on Amazon (HD only), iTunes/Apple TV channels and Paramount+
  • HD is best from Amazon, UHD HDR/DV is best from Paramount+, SDR from Stan where available
  • Not worth using, UHD is terrible despite decent bitrates (15 Mbps)

Stan

  • Only source for a lot of UHD content
  • Sometimes falls apart completely
  • E-AC-3 audio is always best; their AAC 5.1 has clipping issues

Peacock/SkyShowtime/NOWTV

  • Those utilize entirely the same backend and the same encodes
  • NOWTV despite utilizing some of the same backend appears to be worse
  • Peacock/SkyShowtime support 23.976/24 and 25 FPS; NOWTV always has PAL speed up
  • Dolby Vision is denoised
  • UHD significantly better than HD

Foxtel/Binge

  • High content overlap. Foxtel has higher bitrate and is slightly better, but both are terrible
  • Always has PAL speedup

Crackle

  • Old SD streams were 6000 kbps CBR ~486p (640x486, 656x488, 720x486), unfortunately they seem to be gone now
  • New SD streams are downscaled to fit under 640x480/720x480 (632x480, 640x476, 712x480) and have maximum bitrate of 1350 kbps

Crunchyroll

  • Usually overall best for animation, live action needs more testing
  • Only 2.0 audio, often has issues with accidental mono tracks

Comparisons

Note: new, original content preferred to discount any lower quality masters

UHD SDR

Amazon (CBR) vs Stan

Amazon (CBR) vs Paramount+

Amazon (CBR) vs Peacock

Amazon (CBR) vs Hulu

Amazon (CBR) vs Max

Amazon (CBR) vs iTunes

Amazon (CBR) vs iTunes vs Movies Anywhere

Amazon (CBR) vs Stan vs Peacock

Amazon (CBR) vs Rakuten vs iTunes

Amazon (CBR) vs Netflix

iTunes vs Amazon CBR vs Disney+ MENA / APPS

Disney+ vs Hulu

Peacock vs Stan

Showtime vs iTunes

Showtime vs Stan

Showtime (14 Mbps) vs Paramount+ (9 Mbps)

Paramount+ vs iTunes

Paramount+ (9 Mbps) vs Stan (14 Mbps) vs iTunes (12 Mbps) vs Amazon 1080p vs HBO Max 1080p

Amazon 1080p (CBR) vs iTunes

Peacock vs Stan

UHD HDR

Netflix (old 16 Mbps) vs Disney+

Paramount+ vs Disney+ vs iTunes

Paramount+ vs Showtime vs iTunes

Amazon (SDR CBR) vs Amazon (HDR) vs iPlayer/Britbox (HLG)

Amazon (old HDR) vs Amazon (new HDR) vs Amazon (DV)

FandangoNOW vs iTunes

Peacock vs Amazon (19 mbps, updated encode)

Peacock vs Stan

HBO Max vs Max

UHD Dolby Vision

iTunes vs Movies Anywhere

HD

Amazon (CBR) vs Amazon (new VBR)

Amazon (CBR) vs Amazon (new VBR) vs Disney+

Amazon (CBR) vs Disney+

Amazon (CBR) vs HBO Max

Amazon (CBR) vs Max

Amazon (CBR) vs HBO Max vs NOWTV

Amazon (old VBR) vs Disney+

Amazon (old VBR) vs Microsoft Store

Amazon (CBR) vs Vudu

Amazon (CBR) vs Peacock

Amazon (CBR) vs Movies Anywhere vs Disney+ vs Max vs iTunes

Amazon (CBR) vs Movies Anywhere vs Microsoft Store

Amazon (CBR) vs Crunchyroll

Disney+ vs Movies Anywhere

HBO Max vs Max

Crave vs Hulu

Hulu vs Viaplay

Foxtel vs Binge

Peacock vs Stan

Peacock vs Kanopy

@varyg1001
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varyg1001 commented Sep 7, 2023 •
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Max also has AAC 2.0 @ 64 kbps audio.

@vevv
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vevv commented Sep 22, 2023 •
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I only list the best available audio tracks (at least from a given codec).

@varyg1001
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Ye but most streaming offer same quality most of the times, but max is bit of a mixed bag.

@PRiiXX
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PRiiXX commented Jan 7, 2024 •
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A bit offtopic but maybe you could add as a note for Disney+/Paramount+(includes their Amazon Prime Video channel) that they use horrible deinterlacers for (true interlaced) SD content. Which is a shame really, because those two are the only streaming services which do not suck for SD content. Disney's deinterlacing artifacts are somewhat repairable but next to impossible for Paramount's. Does not apply to movies using 3:2 pulldown but for Disney+ there will occasionally be duplicate frames due to their deletecine method used.

@vevv
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vevv commented Jan 22, 2024 •
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@ningsibuqu Crunchyroll is good, yeah. Never occured to me to add it as it only does anime. I don't really think it fits on the tierlist because of that - can't compare enough variety of content.

@PRiiXX Thanks for the info, I'll add that. Do you know how good Google Play is? Their SD bitrates are quite decent as well.

@Polkastop
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Thanks for the comparisons and all the time and effort you've sunk in.

Its getting absurd the growing list of streaming services, so its useful to know how they compare in quality.

@PRiiXX
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PRiiXX commented Jan 26, 2024 •
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@vevv I'm not sure about Google Play as I have not run into any SD Rips from there, but it will depend on which studio the content is from. Since Disney+ and Paramount+ only offer original, in-house content, only they decide how their content gets prepared for streaming - and every title uses the same procedure (with the only difference being IVTC and deinterlacing). It would not be Google Play's fault if there were any issues since the studios choose how their content gets uploaded (interlaced or already deinterlaced progressive).

Paramount's content uses the same deinterlacer for their own streaming service as well as their Amazon Prime Video channel, they are most likely uploading it as progressive to Amazon's servers. The artifacts are the same, but less pronounced on Amazon because of the lower bitrates used there, thus eliminating any fine "details". This hasn't always been the case though, before there was Paramount+ (previously called "CBS All Access"), they most likely used a different deinterlacer or didn't deinterlace at all. You can still find the old encodes on Amazon, but they are only available for purchase. That's why you often see the same TV show twice, but only one of them is included with a Prime Video channel subscription (-> the inferior version). Not sure if they uploaded their content as interlaced back then and let Amazon do the deinterlacing, but it was noticeably better. To me it looked like plain (yadif-type) of deinterlacing as there was aliasing on horizontal/vertical lines. Their new deinterlacer looks a lot smoother but those random, splotchy artifacts are super annoying to look at and there's no way of filtering these out without blurring the whole picture to the point where you probably end up with a 240p perceived resolution video. It's really, really bad and I wish they would have just stuck to the traditional deinterlacing methods (which are of course not perfect, but much better than this mess). This is also true for the whole Viacom (MTV, Nickelodeon) catalog uploaded on their own .com sites back then - they did not suffer from this. To me it looks like as soon as they launched CBS All Access/Paramount+, they basically fed all their content into their new deinterlacer which is now used as their "progressive master", which they now use for streaming distribution. One can only hope they still have the original interlaced masters. For film or content shot at 23.976 fps, the IVTC is hit or miss I'd say. I can only speak for two TV shows so I'm not sure but one TV show has combed frames mixed in that pop up every ?th frame, whereas the other one has no artifacts but suffers from frame drops (duplicate frames, stuttering) every now and then.

Disney doesn't license out their content to other subscription services and all of their SD content has already been uploaded ages ago to traditional VOD services (iTunes, Google Play, Amazon) so if you buy their content from there you should be good. They used different deinterlacers back then so if you come across WEB-DLs or WebRips that were not sourced from Disney+ (like the Disney Channel website for example) they are fine, although very low bitrate. They also used the 25fps PAL versions in PAL regions, unlike Disney+ which only offers the original framerate and resolution in every country (which I welcome). Disney+'s deinterlacer doesn't look as smooth as Paramount+'s but it's less annoying to look at, albeit very obvious to the eye. There are very visible horizontal lines/combing on character's mouths and objects as soon as there is any form of vertical movement. The good thing is, these artifacts are very easy to filter out by using a combination of Avisynth/VapourSynth scripts like QTGMC in combination with anti-aliasers for example. You will lose some detail yeah, but the resulting image is almost perfectly deinterlaced. So it's not as big as a deal as Paramount+'s method which is irreversible. Film content suffers from duplicate frames every now and then, mostly visible at scene cuts - which were not present on DVD's where the same master was used.

Sorry for the essay, but I still can't believe how multi-billion dollar corporations can't get that very basic thing right, they even made it worse somehow, considering 10 years ago - when none of these streaming services existed - they were able to do proper (maybe not perfect) deinterlacing. Hell, even Handbrake does a better job at this and that's the most noob-friendly encoding software out there. QTGMC and NNEDI3 are both free and better than 99% of the commercial tools available it seems. What also bothers me is that no one is talking about this issue, it's been years now and no one has noticed that something went wrong there?

@vevv
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vevv commented Feb 1, 2024

Thanks. I meant Google Play in general, to be clear, assuming that they get interlaced masters and deinterlace. Well, they might from other distributors.

@vevv
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vevv commented Apr 3, 2024

Seems like Crunchyroll does have some live action content. I will keep a look out for other sources for those to compare to.

@varyg1001
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Seems that SkyShowtime replaced all there 5.1 192 kbps audio with 5.1 384 kbps, also pock seems to have bit less bad quality than skst despite similar settings.

https://slow.pics/c/GlcI9RIF

Also in audio section Peacock - 192k DD I guess this mean to be DDP

@varyg1001
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UHD SDR Amazon vs Rakuten vs iTunes

https://slow.pics/c/DvIABSgs

And rakuten has Atmos - 448k (DV only)
Mainly has DDP 5.1 256k / AAC stereo 192k and some titles / languages has DDP 5.1 576k / AAC stereo 320k
Also 800k DTS but that is rare.

@vevv
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vevv commented Jun 21, 2024 •
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Updated, thank you. Is the Amazon in the comparison ISM/CBR?

@varyg1001
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ISM (FLUX rls), and DTS seems for older things I guess they won't do any new.

@someguymmmkay
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The DVs (P5) I saw from MA were all grainy and of very good quality.

@varyg1001
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varyg1001 commented Aug 2, 2024 •
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UHD SDR
iT vs. AMZN (ISM 15k) vs. APPS (Disney Plus MENA / apps.disneyplus.com)
https://slow.pics/c/Z7O1NI4B

(APPS most like HS but bit higher bitrate)

@vevv
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vevv commented Aug 3, 2024

@someguymmmkay Not in comparison to their HDR streams.
@varyg1001 Added, thanks.

@someguymmmkay
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@someguymmmkay Not in comparison to their HDR streams.

Would love to see recent comps of that. Don't you think saying it's "consistently bad" might be a stretch because it's slightly more denoised than the HDR version? Or you saw some bad artifacts or something?

@vevv
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vevv commented Aug 7, 2024

It might be better than other sites in some cases, sure, but there is never a reason to go for it over the same-size HDR stream (or if you really need P5, other sites), hence the tier.

Here's an example with artifacts, though:
https://slow.pics/c/IptBYQby

@someguymmmkay
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but there is never a reason to go for it over the same-size HDR stream

Any comps to back this claim? The one you linked doesn't compare MA versions.

@someguymmmkay
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someguymmmkay commented Aug 10, 2024 •
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New MA DV vs HDR comps, DV is indeed still more denoised and in the last comp has some weird shit going on -> https://slow.pics/c/e6svlLv7

@varyg1001
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Seems skyshowtime start to use 128 kbps for stereo at least Star Trek Prodigy S02 has it.

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