nPerf Launches First 4K Video Streaming Test on Broadband Speedtest App

French broadband and mobile network benchmarking firm nPerf has today announced the addition of a 2160p (4K / Ultra HD) streaming test to their existing speedtest app for Android, iOS and Desktop users (i.e. PC (Windows), MAC and Linux).

The App (software) already includes a streaming test, but this previously only tested video resolutions up to 720p (HD Ready) and 1080p (Full HD). The test itself is designed to assess the “overall quality of experience as it is truly lived by users” (i.e. perceived quality depends on smooth, stable playback that matches the requested resolution).

In addition, nPerf has also introduced a new accelerated “Fast Forward” mode for 720p and 1080p resolutions, which simply speeds up the video playback of their benchmark, while at the same time “maintaining a precise and representative level of measurement” (this feature is said to divide the “total duration of the streaming test by two“).

nPerf’s CTO, Renaud KERADEC, said:

“In the 4K era, measuring download speed alone no longer makes sense. What truly matters is the real experience lived by the user. A good speed does not guarantee smooth playback, consistent 4K quality, or the absence of buffering. With 4K streaming analysis, we are evolving network performance measurement toward indicators that are far more representative of today’s usage.”

Before publishing, we did attempt to get the streaming test to work on nPerf’s latest Windows 11 app, but at the time of writing it kept returning a “Data couldn’t be sent to nPerf server. The request is delayed” error. All other tests worked without a hitch. Otherwise, nPerf has not provided much in the way of technical details on the new test.