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.

Related

Why Snow, Rain, and Confetti Destroy Streaming Video Quality

If you’ve ever watched a movie on Netflix, YouTube, or some other streaming service, you might notice that any time there’s a rainy scene, the video quality completely falls apart. Even if you’re streaming over the best internet connection, the video will look like crap. This happens because all video streams are compressed, and particles like rain, snow, and confetti completely destroy compressed streams.

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.

Regular AV1 stream (Left), AV1 FGS stream without grain synthesis during decoding (Middle), and AV1 FGS stream with grain synthesis (Right).

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.

Source: Netflix Tech

Related

10 Tips and Tricks to Get the Most From Your Netflix Subscription

Netflix has many features that can help you take advantage of the streaming platform, from refining your recommendations to getting the best quality out of your streaming experience. Here are ten tips and tricks that can help you get the most out of your Netflix subscription, and how to enable or change them depending on your device.