[nharada]

Yeah, reading this article my first thought was that it probably wasn't entirely malevolence. Not that I agree with the way video content providers run their businesses, but I suspect that running 4K video in the browser would chug the average user's machine. My 3 year old laptop works pretty hard just to display HD.

If I was Netflix I wouldn't want to release 4K if it meant only a small segment of customers would get a good experience. Releasing a disclaimer that the user requires adequate hardware won't satisfy the majority of computer users who don't know or care about the specs required. Most people just want it to work.

I also take issue with the line, "Anyone who knows technology knows the computational and image-processing capabilities of even an average PC or Mac far outstrip those of a streaming box." Dedicated hardware can outperform a general computer while requiring less "processing power" (measured in FLOPS or GHz or whatever). The Chromecast has a dual-core CPU and 512 MB of RAM and it runs HD video perfectly.