Summary
Sometimes, it’s the imperfections that make something better than it would be otherwise. For movies, that’s often film grain at work, and Netflix just figured out how to make it even better for you.
Film grain is one of those things that artists love, but compression algorithms have trouble with. It’s inherently random, which makes it difficult to squeeze down into a smaller file size without sacrificing a ton of quality or bloating the stream. For a long time, video compression had to choose between keeping that beautiful, artistic grain and ending up with huge files, or ditching most of it for a more efficient stream, potentially ruining the director’s vision.
But Netflix found a way to have the best of both worlds. They’ve rolled out something called “AV1 Film Grain Synthesis” (FGS). It’s a clever trick where they don’t actually compress the grain itself. Instead, they analyze it, figure out its unique pattern and how intense it should be in different parts of the video, and then send that information alongside a much cleaner, grain-free video stream.
When that stream hits your device, the film grain is recreated right there on your screen, perfectly synthesized to match the original. In short, rather than sending a big file with all the noisy grain intact, a clean, smaller file is sent, and the grain effect is added after the fact. Pretty slick.
In their A/B testing of this technology, Netflix saw some pretty nice benefits. You get lower initial and average bitrates, which translates to less data usage and a smoother experience, especially if your internet connection isn’t always the best. Plus, you’ll likely notice fewer playback errors, less buffering, and faster start times when you hit play. Essentially, your shows and movies will look better and start playing quicker, often at higher resolutions than before. It’s a subtle change, but one that makes a big difference to your viewing pleasure.
