[HPsquared]

It apparently did better with users' subjective evaluations. I guess they liked the "extra detail" look, even if it's fake. End users aren't zooming in to freeze frames or, heaven forbid, taking screenshots (think of the copyright!!)

[soulofmischief]

End users aren't domain experts. That's like if I was allowed on the factory floor where my favorite products are made so that I could make subjective, uninformed decisions about the manufacturing process which also affect everyone else.

[trehalose]

Is it? Or is it like if you were allowed into a focus group where they let you try out two manufactured products, so that you could make subjective, uninformed decisions about the product lineup which also affect everyone else?

[soulofmischief]

Laundering manufactured consent for cheaper, inferior products as consumer choice is a pretty old trick.

A consumer's perceived preference can be modulated by any number of issues with which the consumer is not properly informed, such as preferring one sweetener over the other, even if there are valid health concerns, thanks to generational brainwashing and an intentional lack of consumer training. What we have today is the consumer market equivalent to the unsophisticated investor market. People getting economically exploited and feeling like it was their own idea.

In the case of video encoders... Actual domain experts should not be forced to cede to the whim of an untrained eye simply for the purpose of capitalists extracting more money from them.

It's one thing for Netflix to experiment with the latest advances in machine learning, as a lot of us do. But when the opening sentence is to their blog is "When you are binge-watching the latest season of Stranger Things or Ozark, we strive to deliver the best possible video quality to your eyes", it's hard not to find issue with A) the commodification of entertainment and patronizing consumer speak and B) a misleading preposition about commitment to quality which the cited response article makes clear is untrue in the case of this product.

Deferring to domain experts in this case is better for every consumer, as they will not be duped into exchanging an increasingly degraded experience in exchange for increasing monthly rates. People feel very strongly about film quality, and for good reason. We're talking about the preservation of art and culture, but Netflix doesn't see it this way, as to them, it's all a commodity, and they manufacture consent for commodification. If the average user can't see this and push back against the degradation of quality that comes with commodification of art, I have a hard time deferring to them over an actual expert.

[AlotOfReading]

Yeah, but there are classical algorithms with tunable sharpening that are cheaper and widely known (e.g. catmull-rom or the "magic" kernel sharp algorithm by John Costella).

My suspicion is that none of this mattered though, because the evaluation was probably "perceptual equivalence" vs bitrate. I can easily believe it might be a marginal win over traditional algorithms from that perspective.