- Netflix’s new AV1 Movie Grain Synthesis tech boosts picture high quality
- It additionally reduces file measurement and improves streaming efficiency
- The tech has been rolling out to motion pictures and TV exhibits since March 2025
Movie grain is one thing of a ‘secret sauce’ that makes motion pictures look, nicely, like motion pictures. Go to the cinema and, whilst you’ll hardly discover them, these dotty imperfections flickering throughout the picture lend it a depth that’s tough to recreate digitally.
Properly, now Netflix has revealed in a Techblog publish that it is discovered a greater method to do it, with a brand new method that additionally handily improves playback stability, whereas lowering errors and rebuffering. It has been rolling out globally since March, with FGS-enabled streams obtainable now on supported gadgets.
So what precisely has Netflix carried out? Films filmed on digital cameras can seem too clear and ideal, and even digitized variations of analog movies can wrestle to correctly retain the grain. That is significantly true for motion pictures on companies like Netflix, which require compression to scale back file measurement for clean streaming efficiency.
In its efforts to maintain issues environment friendly, the compression course of will take away grain from the unique video file, which means the viewer will get a pleasant regular stream however a picture that lacks that true film look.
Not anymore. Netflix has revealed that it is rolled out a know-how known as “AV1 Movie Grain Synthesis” (FGS), which delivers a pleasingly grainy picture with out growing file measurement.
It’s intelligent stuff: FGS analyses the supply video to find out its particular grain sample and form, estimating it by evaluating the unique video with a de-noised model – the distinction being the grain.
It then scales the grain depth for various scenes, adjusting it for lighting and colour. This info is then streamed alongside the compressed, grain-free video file, and used to recreate the grain impact in your machine.
Higher image high quality, better effectivity
This implies motion pictures and TV exhibits on Netflix will now provide that fascinating analog movie look, boosting picture high quality and giving customers a extra fulfilling streaming expertise.
Curiously, throughout A/B testing of the function Netflix additionally discovered that FGS considerably diminished bitrate and community bandwidth necessities, decreased playback errors and rebuffering, and diminished start-up delay, all of which lead to a extra steady total streaming expertise. Double win.
When you’re excited to see FGS in motion for your self, you’ll want a playback machine that helps it. Sadly, it is not but clear precisely which exhibits and flicks will profit from the tech, nor what the {hardware} necessities are – we have contacted Netflix to seek out out and can replace this story once we hear again.
Nonetheless, Netflix’s weblog publish detailing the roll-out suggests They Cloned Tyrone and Dept. Q are good locations to start out. The streaming large says chances are you’ll must toggle off HDR from the settings menu to see these FGS streams.
