Marko KarppinenJun 24, 2024

Netflix can now serve 100Gbit/s of video (so something like 12,500 individual 4K streams) with an appliance using 100 watts of power. That’s 8 milliwatts for each 4K stream.

Remember that number the next time someone tells you that watching a Netflix show is as bad as driving an SUV or some shit.

https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf

Show threadforbin42Jun 24, 2024
@karppinen You and they are not counting all the infrastructure in the middle to deliver it. It also doesn’t include all the power needed to encode the umpteen codecs to support all streamable devices. They still look like an AI startup training LLMs. This is like saying that an EV is 100% green and hooking it up to mains back to a coal fired power plant.
Show threadMarko KarppinenJun 24, 2024
@eric these Open Connect appliances are deployed very close to the eyeballs, that’s the whole point. I don’t know how many views an average Netflix encode gets but it’s sure as shit more than mine, so can’t be a significant number of watt-hours per view
Show threadforbin42Jun 24, 2024
@karppinen I have run access networks, cable heads, wireless MTSOs through my entire career and know down to the milliwatt what it costs to deliver a bit sicne I paid the bill. This article is focused on what is already the least expensive device to operate and ignores the end-to-end delivery of a stream. The Verge just published an article with the Netflix person in charge of encoding and she said it was incredibly power intensive.
Show threadMarko KarppinenJun 24, 2024

@eric I don’t doubt it’s intensive but I don’t also expect it to count on a per-view basis. They claim to have achieved a halving of bitrates with their encoding magic so that places an upper bound of how much it makes sense to spend on it.

Anyway, all of this is a rounding error compared to the energy intensity of your 55-inch TV. The beef I have with all the stories about the environmental impact of streaming is that the impact is almost exactly the same as with linear TV.

Show threadExpired Token

@karppinen @eric > The beef I have with all the stories about the environmental impact of streaming is

And if you change "beef" for "vegetables", you message is even more environmental friendly 😅.

Jun 25, 2024 at 9:45amWeb