HACKER Q&A
📣 markus_zhang

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!

  👤 pxanyc Accepted Answer ✓
There 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_streamin...

https://dashif.org/docs/DASH-IF-IOP-v4.3.pdf

👤 LewisVerstappen
Less load on their servers = cheaper infra?

The YouTube division has been trying to become profitable IIRC

👤 cbsks
That 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.
👤 breakingcups
I'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.

👤 dunefox
On 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...
👤 jiffygist
Try alt. clients: Newpipe, Freetube, Invidious