UPDATE: they may do the same for Australian subscribers too.
Netflix has announced that they will reduce the video quality for customer in Europe to help ease the strain on European ISPs. As more and more people are working from home and many schools are closing, European ISPs are at risk of becoming overloaded due to the inevitable increase in streaming media use. Video quality will be reduced resulting in a 25% saving in data transfer but have stated that “viewers would still find the picture quality good”. The lowered bitrate will be used for the next 30 days.
UPDATE: The Guardian are reporting that the Australian government are asking Netflix, Stan and Disney+ to reduce the streaming bitrate to help relieve their internet infrastructure. Computer game companies, renowned for their multi-gigabyte update files, have also been asked to look into ways they can help reduce pressure on ISPs.
Netflix do a lot of work with their transcoding and make use of the most up to date video codecs available as well as working within the industry to help improve them – here’s one recent example. So it is highly likely that, with the constant improvements to codecs, most users won’t really notice much difference. If you pay for HD you will still get a HD feed but it may not be quite as sharp as normal – HD simply refers to the video size (1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high) and not the image quality overall.
According to the BBC the announcement came after a call between Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, and Netflix.
Following the discussions between Commissioner Thierry Breton and Reed Hastings (Netflix Chief Executive), and given the extraordinary challenges raised by the coronavirus, Netflix has decided to begin reducing bitrates across all our streams in Europe for 30 days.
Oh, and no. You won’t get a discount – don’t be so selfish!
should probably give back some money for people who sub for 4k for the month but we know they wont do that.
Will they be reducing bills by 25%?
Does this apply to the UK or just in the EU because will now be cancelling if it’s UK.
I’m watching IT at the moment before the quality lowers
Cut off PS4 and Xbox servers from morning 5pm so the kids at least so sit on them all day
Regardless of if they refund customers ( reduce back from the 4K package ) this I actually a solid. The bandwidth is needed for those who’ll be WFH / school work.
I won’t mind if Prime Video does so too. ( I rarely use the top quality there anyway lol ) and if Disney+ come Tuesday to do so. Even if it’s back to 780p most won’t notice.
Considering when we still had access to reduce bandwidth ourselves I used it. Yes the picture wasn’t as sharp but it loaded better & subs weren’t off
If they lower the quality then does that mean they’re going to drop the price of the streaming?
thanks fudge I have plenty of blu ray movies to watch
Lots of people moaning about this . Don’t they realise why this is being done and it’s not that imp… https://t.co/tMSGSGMYyY
Fuck Netflix lowering quality and not price.
The British really have become the biggest load of selfish whiners during this crisis. It’s embarrassing. And yes, I am British.
Says the British person whining about British whiners ♂️
And yes – I’m British
Translation: HD to Standard…
What does this mean?
The loss of hd right now really doesn’t matter, and I’m paying the full subscription.
That wasn’t a whine. It was a statement of fact. 2/10 See me.