Streaming services lower quality in order to ease strain on bandwidth

While many of us around the world are self-isolating or being told to stay home, streaming services are being used more than ever. And with yesterday’s launch of Disney+ in seven countries, the demand is growing.

The growing demand for these types of services is putting a huge strain on the world’s internet and therefore, major streaming services are taking action by lowering the quality to save bandwidth usage. 

Last week, YouTube announced that it was temporarily defaulting all videos to standard definition in the EU, UK and Switzerland. Due to the coronavirus situation worsening and stricter ‘stay at home’ sanctions being implemented across the globe, the video streaming site announced yesterday that it would be defaulting all videos worldwide to standard definition. 

Similarly, Netflix has also taken action, following calls last week from the European Union to ensure streaming services are using telecommunications networks as efficiently as possible. Netflix works differently to YouTube however, in that users pay for the definition they want to watch content in. 

Last week, Netflix developed a way to reduce its traffic on the network by 25% and deployed it in Italy and Spain as they were the areas experiencing the biggest impact at the time. The company achieved its goal within 48 hours and are now deploying it around the UK and rest of Europe. 

Following a number of questions to the company about what this means in terms of video quality, the company put out a statement on their website saying: “Put simply, the action we’ve taken maintains the full range of video resolutions. So, whether you paid for Ultra-High Definition (UHD), High-Definition (HD), or Standard Definition (SD), that is what you should continue to get (depending on the device you are using).

“In normal circumstances, we have many (sometimes dozens) of different streams for a single title within each resolution. In Europe, for the next 30 days, within each category we’ve simply removed the highest bandwidth streams. If you are particularly tuned into video quality, you may notice a very slight decrease in quality within each resolution. But you will still get the video quality you paid for.”

Many welcomed the launch of Disney+ across some of Europe yesterday, however it only adds to the current bandwidth issues. Kevin Mayer, chairman, direct-to-consumer and international, The Walt Disney Company, released a statement last week to its customers, stating: “In anticipation of high consumer demand for Disney+, we are proactively instituting measures to lower our overall bandwidth utilisation by at least 25% in all of the markets launching Disney+ on 24 March. 

“In the coming days, we will be monitoring internet congestion and working closely with internet service providers to further reduce bitrates as necessary to ensure they are not overwhelmed by consumer demand.”

Mayer recognised the need for these services in these hard times by adding: “We look forward to the launch of Disney+ and hope it will provide a much-needed respite for families in these challenging and trying times.”
 





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