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Ask HN: Why does YouTube scale down quality automatically?
Hi friends,
I have noticed that since maybe a month ago YouTube has been scaling down video quality for EVERY video played. It doesn't make sense because I have a pretty good network that can play at highest quality so I guess the only reason is to scale back output.
Have you experienced the same? Any solution to force 1080 without manual intervention? Thanks!
- LewisVerstappen 4y agoLess load on their servers = cheaper infra? The YouTube division has been trying to become profitable IIRC
- markus_zhang 4y agoCould be the reason. I also found that one can setup a minimum resolution in the app but not on web.
- pxanyc 4y agoQuality doesn't actually change the load on the servers (most of it is just dumb HTTP in the end). It would reduce bandwidth, but overall, bandwidth isn't really all that expensive these days.
- jiffygist 4y agoTry alt. clients: Newpipe, Freetube, Invidious
- markus_zhang 4y agoThanks, prefer the web UI though.
- deusum 4y agoGet one of the many YouTube extensions that allows you to change that stuff
- naikrovek 4y agoyou don't need an extension to manually change video quality. if it kicks you down, turn it right back up. it will obey your preference for that video. after doing this on a few videos, it seems to stop dropping the quality automatically for me.
- dyingkneepad 4y agoI tried Newpipe for a while, but it takes SO long to load every video, I lost the patience.
- okdood64 4y agoI see no reason why this would address OP's concern.
- breakingcups 4y agoI've had this happen on certain times and like a sibling comment I also wonder whether it's YouTube trying to shed some load in busy times. Maybe even A/B testing what user profiles would notice and switch back manually and who wouldn't care enough. I've also seen it happen when a browser can't keep up, eg. freezes for quarter of a second due to excessive swapping or some OS thing fighting for resources.
- cbsks 4y agoThat has occurred for me a few times in the last few months when using the YouTube app on my iPad. I was able to work around it by using a vpn. I’m guessing that the server the YouTube load balancer chose for me was overloaded.
- dunefox 4y agoOn my Samsung TV I suddenly can't watch YouTube videos over 720p anymore. Neither the app nor the TV can change the quality to full HD...
- pxanyc 4y agoThere are multiple things at play. Clients, and devices (mobile), can change the way that HLS/DASH change the quality, some have reasonably strong specifications. Usually, this is the result of the client being unable to keep up with the quality you're trying to play against the Specification/Configurations. See: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/http_live_streaming/http_live_streaming_hls_authoring_specification_for_apple_devices https://developer.apple.com/documentation/http_live_streamin... https://dashif.org/docs/DASH-IF-IOP-v4.3.pdf https://dashif.org/docs/DASH-IF-IOP-v4.3.pdf
- markus_zhang 4y agoI'm on desktop website and pretty sure it plays perfectly even in the highest resolution, although I usually go for 1080. The problem is Youtube dumbs down the resolution for every video so I'm not sure what's happening.